3 year old frightened to poo

[1sttimenanny]

My granddaughter has developed a fear of pooing and was utterly distraught on Friday with a freak hard poo that wouldnt come out and hurt. I spent half an hour reassuring her but I was on my own and unable to get to phone for advice from foster carer as she was terrified of being left alone so sat and cuddled her for an hour on the loo before grandad came home. Foster mother confirmed on phone that this has been an issue and has recently tried to get her to drink more water. Grandad dispatched to a chemist for help but they refused to give anything for a child that young. (V unhelpful) We gave her a placebo (a prune) to soften things up with plenty of watered down fruit juice but she refused to go even though visibly uncomfortable. We took her home next day and her carer finally got her to sit down on a potty after squirming around for another hour and talked her down for yet another hour. It was soft so didnt hurt but on her visit today there were still signs that she is not convinced that it wont hurt next time even though I reassured that the 'medicine' had fixed it. She has a good diet of fresh fruit and veg here and at foster carers. I cant bear to see her so distressed and probably my inner distress contributed to situation even though I tried to keep calm. Any advice please?

My DD has had lots of issues like this, I feel your pain- it's awful when you can't convince them that it won't hurt. The chemist should have given you some lactulose though, my DD had it at that age. After a few days of having softer poos she should start to be less anxious about it. I had to keep saying 'did you do a poo? Did it hurt? Well you're all better now because you've had that magic medicine!'

My DS went through something a bit like this, and would be really scared of pooing. I tried to make it very lighthearted - we made up a silly poo song to make him laugh! It passed after a week or so.

My dd had this - one bought of constipation & then got scared which made it worse. Gp gave lactulose which helped, and she is now on moivcol which is more powerful. Lots of water to drink, and soft fibre (eg prune juice) helps.

If it persists, do see the gp an keep complaining til you get the right medicines.

Constipation can be quite painful, and then that can lead to fear everytime they need to go. This in turn can lead to Encopresis as they hold it in to stop the potential pain.

They should see the GP.

See the GP, DD is on senakot and Movicaol and at age 8 has just now overcome the fear of pooing on the loo but it did take a stint in hospital and an enema. Make sure she drinks lots of water.

In this house lactulose is known as 'poo medicine'. Ds took it for the first few weeks of potty training to effectively get him to go when he was withholding poo. That and bribery did the trick for us.

I think them taking 'poo medicine' & calling it that helps them feel like they're doing something tangible to help, whereas just believing a grown up who can't see the poo inside of you may be unbelievable.