Toddler won't poo after hospital stay

[maybethedayafter]

DD1 has been potty trained for around 3 months. She has been really good but when it comes to doing a poo she doesn't like going in an unfamiliar toilet - she will use her potty if we're out but won't use the toilet (she will for wees though). She's been in hospital for 4 days with pneumonia and for the last two days in there she kept saying she needed to do a poo but as soon as we took her to the toilet or the disposable potty she said she didn't need to go. She's now home and she's doing the same here. She used to have movicol regularly and we still have it on prescription so we've tried giving her a sachet of that. I think it's more that she's purposely holding it though. I've just remembered as well that they had to do her MRSA swabs which included one inserted into her anus. I wonder if that might be anything to do with it as well.

Does anyone have any tips of how we can help her feel at ease to go? She will sit on the potty or toilet but then she'll get up and say she doesn't need to go. TIA.

Oh poor thing! Have you tried talking to her about how's she's feeling - along the lines of 'are you worried about doing a poo?' Or 'you were worried about doing a poo in hospital? We're home now', and reassure her 'it's safe to do a poo'. It can be such an emotional business!

Thanks Chloris. Not long after I posted she did go but it was followed by blood I spoke to the GP (our surgery are really good and called me back within an hour) and he said it's likely as a consequence of holding it in and when she went it caused a tear. We're taking her in to get checked tomorrow morning which I do not see going well - she's had a rash where her underwear has been rubbing and it's been a real battle to get her to let us put cream on, I don't see her letting a doctor examine her back passage.

I feel so awful for her, she's had such an awful week. She's so scared of hospitals and she clung on to me or DH the entire time, now she's finally home and able to start getting back to normal and this happens. But at the same time we need to get it checked. I don't know if I should talk to her about it before she goes - I feel I should but I don't want to make it more traumatic than it needs to be. She does have a comprehension that when you're not well or something hurts you go to the doctor, they give you medicine and it makes you better. She's only 2.9 though so I worry about overloading/confusing her.