3yr old holding poo!

[dibzzy]

hi..
my 3 year old son has had severe nappy rash in the past..he now holds onto his poo eventhough a small amount is still released onto his nappy..he arches his back in and goes all rigid and shakes as if he's trying to hold it in..this happens atleast 10 times in the day..an changing so many nappies..he is not constipated and refuses to sit on potty or toilet..what can i do to help him? could it be behavioural?
thanks

I think you have to get past the refusal to sit on the toilet to be honest. It's good that he isn't constipated because that should make it easier. Take the nappy off completely when you're home for the day, have a big heap of clean pants ready, and take it from there. He'll be a lot more comfortable.

My ds withholds his poo too (2.9). I think he does it cause he has suffered with constipation in the past and now thinks it's gonna hurt. He's on lactulose from the doc now and doing 'goo'd' poos so I think he's just in the habit of it now. He too won't poo on a potty or the loo yet and gets the whole poo on nappy but no actual poo thing.

We're trying to ignore it a bit at the moment as I think it has become a bit behavioural. We have started. A sticker chart and told him he gets one if he does a poo. It's not an instant fix and he still holds them in fir a while before doing them.

We're trying to keep talking to him about it in a relaxed way and have bought him some pant. We've been explaining that he'll be using the potty soon like a big boy and he's slowly coming round to the idea. We've also tried saying things like 'oh mr poo is sad, he wants to come out, come out mr poo!'. Oh the things you do !!!

There are some childrens nooks you can get on amazon on the subject. I haven't tried that yet but some people say it works.

You might be able to get some sort of referral to a behavioural specialist or something like that through the doc if it doesn't improve...

Typing on my phone so appologies for any mistakes!

Take him shopping to choose some pants, let him choose them and when your home for the day let him wear them. This may just start him potty training.

My DD did it completely herself about 4 months ago, aged 2.5 but that was because others were going to the loo / on potty at nursery and it was the whole thing of being like them too. It took a few weeks for her not to poo in her pants, she had a hang up about pooing on the loo / potty but has suddenly got over it.

Make a conscious effort with the pants though and getting him out of nappies, it sounds as though he may be ready and don't worry about any accidents, they get fewer and fewer.

Good luck.

My neice had a very similar situation in regards to holding it in. It turned out it was because she was sore. She had a tiny tear in the entrance to her bottom which the doctor thinks may have been from a particularly hard poo. (apparently it's very common) & then obviously she would associate it with the pain / discomfort etc.
They had to get something form the doc to loosen her poos & make it more comfy, then are now addressing the behavioural "habit" that formed because of it as it carried on even if she wasn't constipated. May be worth checking out & trying to speak to him to find out if it is uncomfortable.
Good luck. x

If he's leaking small amounts of liquid poo, it may be that he's constipated - what happens is a solid poo forms a blockage and liquid poo leaks around the sides.
My DS had this about 2 years ago, he ended up taking lactulose for about 6 months.

I had to respond to this as I am going through a similar thing with my daughter, 3yrs and 5 mths. Finally coming out the other side. It started at Xmas - for whatever reason she decided she was not going to poo anymore. She potty trained last June and had previously got the hang of the toilet. However she had always struggled to pass poos as they were always large and hard.
So, after Xmas she realised that she had the power to hold onto her poos, and that was it! We then got lots of messy pants, which was just overflow, where runny poo was leaking around the hard poo she was holding on to. This escalated quickly and got to the point where she went 4 weeks without passing a poo. Ultimately we had to use Movicol plus a laxative both prescribed by Doc to make her pass a poo the size of a grapefruit. The problem was not that she was classically constipated, but impacted, where a large stool is right at the base of her rectum, which then stretches the rectum to the point where she doesn't even always sense the need to go, and also had absolutely no idea poo was leaking out.
I have since seen a paediatrician who has been helpful and advised everything can be solved with just Movicol, which is a stool softener and a stimulant. I would strongly suggest you go to Doctor and ask for Movicol - it will be horrendous for first couple of weeks as you basically need to clear him out, so it will be runny and he wont be able to hold onto it. Then you start to (slowly) reduce the dosage of Movicol over the coming weeks/months, so you get to a point where he is doing a poo a day, and is not trying to hold on, as he will begin to realise it doesn't hurt when he goes.

You say he is in nappies - is he not potty trained yet? Personally if he is not, I would keep him in nappies while you sort the problem and fear out, then when he is not holding on so much, start the excitment of being a big boy in pants.

I really empathise with you as I nearly lost my mind for a few months, and flipped from ignoring the holding on (crouching in the corner going red faced) to dragging her to toilet screaming (not to be recommended!!), washing 8-10 pairs of sh*tty pants a day. Movicol has been such a relief, I really recomend it - I think this website is created by the manufacturers of Movicol: www.childhoodconstipation.com, its a good help.

Good luck, this can be so disruptive to your daily family life so I hope you can get it sorted.

Jacqui x

That's a good point about gradually reducing the dosage as after an episode of stool compaction it can take a few weeks or months for the muscles of the rectum to recover.

If you just stop dosing as soon as the blockage is cleared, the problem re-occurs