WWYD- Baby refuses to poo in nappy

[Marshmallow91]

As the title suggests, it's more a WWYD than an AIBU.

My little girl is six months on the eighth. Since birth really, she's refused to do a poo in her nappy. She'll also take the opportunity to pee whenever I take her nappy off too.

Let me give a bit of background-
When she was born I attempted to breastfeed, and after many problems and a week of trying, we discovered that her mouth simply didn't fit (she was almost three weeks early and ninth centile)
I'd also tried pumping but it broke after the first use and I couldn't afford to buy a new one. After a lot of difficult days I relented and decided to stop, and exclusively formula feed.

During this time she was vomiting 90% of her feeds up and was close to being hospitalised. She had horrendous reflux, projectile vomiting and constipation. We tried different formulas and medication to little affect, and to be honest most of it made her worse.

Eventually she was given nutrimigen which is for babies with a milk protein allergy (which has since been confirmed).

All through that time, I'd had her nappy off walking around with her, massaging her etc to try and ease her discomfort.

Fast forward almost six months and she's a lot better with her bowels, mostly doing a poo every day (her reflux isn't as bad either, she's vomiting maybe 15ml three or four times a day, with little possets in between)

The thing is, whenever she has to go, whether it be 1pm, 4am or even if she was previously in a deep sleep, she'll wake up, stretch and kick and squirm until I put her down for a change. I'll normally ask her if she needs a poo or if she's "trying hard?" and she'll then strain, and then poo.

Since birth, she's done about 3 in her nappy, once about ten weeks old, and the other in car journeys with her gran and aunt respectively.

Should I encourage this? She's definitely showing she can hold it for at least a short period of time, and looking to the future, it'll be great for potty training, but that's a long way off yet surely?

On the flip side, it makes doing anything or going anywhere difficult because if she's not taken to be changed when she has to go she'll kick and scream and get upset. It also wakes her (and consequently me) up at all hours of the night, when she's already still waking every three hours for a feed.

Opinions please?

I have a friend who sat her Dd in a potty from a tiny age because she had a similar issue. Nappy off and hold on the potty. It worked for them and the baby was fully potty trained really early. It is popular to do this in some countries

Everyone please remember there is currently a toilet fetishist and a pedophile roaming the boards of MN looking for stories of your children’s toileting habits.

Not saying OP is this person but there is one out there and it’d be advisable not to share your own stories on this.

@MissingTheMissletoe that's pretty disgusting!
I'm not looking for stories, just opinions on if I should keep doing this with her, or try to get her used to actually going in her nappy.

And @Pieceofpurplesky thanks, I think I might give that a go myself. Do you know if they started as young as my LO?

I wouldn’t encourage it, to be honest OP. I have a son with a dairy allergy, and part of that is constipation and along with that, he learned to withhold poo when he was a baby after doing a painful one. He’s now six and we have all manner of problems with poo, caused by that original withholding habit. He has encopresis which has had a profound effect on him and the whole family. Even when he’s pooing every day, he still gets backed up.

If I were you, I would give her daily lactulose to keep her so loose that she can’t hold it in and can go in her nappy. That’s what we have to do every day with my son, and I wish we had done it when he was tiny, to nip it in the bud back then.

@feesh thank you for the insight. To try and combat her unwillingness to poo, myself and partner give smiles, cheers etc when she does go, and she seems happy to try to finally. That's been a long road. And laculose is something I literally can't get her to drink. She was ok when younger, but now will fight against any water.

Currently we're monitoring her weight and adding half an oz of water to every 5 and 6 oz bottles of milk which seems to help keep her regular

@Marshmallow91 she started at about 4 months

Both of mine went through phases of this. They both had reflux and thicker formula which I think clogged them up.

Youngest would always go when his nappy was off. I did had a potty around the house with eldest, so did consider putting him on that but never did.

Eldest would only ever go when in his bouncer. I think being upright helped him.

I definitely saw a change in mine when they started weaning. Perhaps see how it goes with that?

One of my friend's sons wouldn't poo in his nappy, she sat him on the potty two or three times a day from a few months old.

Babies poo in their nappies because they aren't normally given a choice in our society. If you do give them a choice they tend toward a, completely understandable, preference not to soil themselves. When my DS started solids at 6mo, I sat him on the potty whenever it was obvious he wanted to poo. Within two weeks he did every poo on the potty or in a toilet. The only exceptions were very occasional accidents if he had a very bad tummy bug.

My DS was completely out of daytime nappies at 15 months and rarely wet at night, in fact he'd wake up and go to the potty if he needed it in the middle of the night. Tbh, he almost never wet his nappy while sleeping as a newborn, so doing so was something that I inadvertently taught him to do. It was so very obvious that he had an extremely strong preference not to soil himself because as soon as he knew it wasn't the only option, he almost immediately chose to never do it again. If I'd ever had a second child, I would have given them to option from day one. I have a couple of friends who offered the potty from very early on and their babies also chose the potty almost immediately.

We had some similar issues with dd. She didn’t end up potty training until a normal age, but we got a tiny little potty from Baby Bjorn. Sometimes she would just obviously be holding back one type or another. We would hold her on the little potty and she would go. (We tried transitioning this to a regular thing, but that isn’t what she needed, so it remained for just certain circumstances)

Thank you guys. Its definitely given me some insight because when I'd previously searched online for the people in similar situations, I couldn't find anything. I think as soon as she's confidently sitting upright on her own, which should be achieved in the next couple weeks or so, I'll just start putting her on a potty when changing her, so the transition is easier in the the long run, and follow her lead on it.

My son was a less extreme example of this. He was bf and was always extremely (and naturally) very habitual about when he did no. 2s, at or after food, or after bath in evening. I'll be honest, i ignored that largely until he was around 1 and started to walk, then introduced a potty after meals and after the bath. It was also really obvious to see when he needed to go and he never "held it", if wearing a nappy he would go in it. Within a short space of time 90% of poos went in the potty. However, it was intensive & relied on a huge amount of me watching him for cues, not sure it would be practical if you had another baby close on age and I'm certain in a childcare situation with more kids to tend to it would never have happened.

I see no prob with offering a potty regularly but I think it's important to be responsive with it & not put the baby in a position of holding/waiting to go as this risk encopresis later on.

Booklenght story about something that isnt even aibu...(nor is it all relevant to the question)

Answer: if she doesnt poop in her nappy, put her on a potty/toilet/whatever.
Quite simple really

@Yeahnahmum I wanted to include why she probably is the way she is, and I'm a first time mum so wasn't at all sure on what to do since she can't even sit up unassisted yet. I wanted to know from others experience if it'd be silly to start this early.

When she needs to poo just take her to the toilet/potty and let her do it in there. This is actually common practice with all babies in some countries. You get to skip potty training.

It is called Elimination Communication. Not common but not unheard of.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland thank you for your response. I guess part of why she doesn't hold in her nappy is because I watch for cues and place her down straight away. I do 95% of the nappy changes but have noticed her getting upset etc with her dad who hasn't quite learned how to decode her "talking" yet.

Thank you @FlibbertyGiblets and @TwistyTop I'll look into both of those. I wasn't aware (probably naively) that things were different in other countries.

I don't think you're naive at all. I wouldn't expect anyone to know about that sort of thing unless they had lived in a different country. Babies are complicated things and it's hard enough learning about them in your own country. Then you move somewhere else and find that it's all different and all of those things that you thought were normal are completely alien. Makes your head spin!

I would second elimination communication as a good option for you. Did it with my daughter and she was using the potty to pooh by about 4 months. We were using cloth nappies so it was just easier that way

Oh my goodness, my daughter is the same and she also has a milk allergy. However I know she likes to poo between 9-11am.
So I use incontinence pads from boots or Asda, I place them down under her and let her wriggle around on it during this time.

She's 7 months old, I might try her on the potty around 9 months and see whether she likes it.

@Idea86 I do this too currently! I bulk buy packs of 50 for like 14 quid on ebay. They're really handy I think.

It sounds like you are doing elimination communication. I would read up more and continue, with offering the potty.

I get you are a first time mum
Google these things next time
And dont go judging your husband for not being able to read her cues. You are also not ableto read her cues by the looks of it. Goodluck with it. Toilet training is shit (pun intended)

Put her on a potty as soon as she's had her first meal of the day or whenever she likes to poo. They will poo in a potty as soon as they can sit up.