My daughter started withholding before 1 years old but I didn’t realise she was doing this. She was taking herself away into another room when she needed to poo but we thought it was because she wanted privacy.
After a while we noticed what we thought was her trying to push out her poo but nothing was coming out for ages and then a tiny bit of poo would come out and sit in-between her bum cheeks. Also a bit of really smelly liquid would come out as well. She was doing this about 15 times a day. I thought she was constipated with a hard stool and she was pushing so hard it seemed like something was stuck. I went to the Dr and he gave us some laxative. This seemed to help very slightly but a week later it got worse again. I gave her more laxative but it didn’t seem to have much effect.
Went back to the Dr and said that I had noticed that although she was trying to push out her stools all day and nothing was coming out, that when it did it was soft which really confused me as to why it wouldn't come out. I thought something may be blocking her. He said that it was normal and once she is running around it will be fine.
Months later and by this age she was 2 years 2 months I was so desperate that I went to a see a Private paediatrician. He told me that in fact she was not trying to push her poo out at all but she was actually trying to hold it in. At first i didn’t believe this was correct but later that evening when I watched her doing it again I realised that when she was holding her shoulders up rather than pushing down and that she was actually trying to hold her poo in. The paediatrician diagnosed her with spurious diarhea due to soft impaction. Her bowel and large intestine had been packed with stool, although soft, for a long time as she had been withholding and only the liquid was getting through. He gave her movical to clear her out, which took about a week. Now her bowel is all out of shape and although it is cleared it doesn’t just snap back to the correct shape, it takes a long time to get back to normal. In the meantime all her stools fill all this extra space within her intestine and bowel. He gains she had been doing this as in the past she was probably passing big stools that hurt so it put her off wanting to poo. I must stress she is a big eater and drinker, she eats loads of finer and vegetables and never has hard constipation.
She has been on 6 movical sachets a day for the last 3 months to make sure she doesn’t withhold any more but she still seems to be able to hold some uneven though it is formless . She gets small amounts out about 8-10 times a day.
She is now 2 years and 8 months and I have no idea how to stop her doing this. She doesn’t want to wear nappies anymore. She wants to use a toilet to wee, she will not tell me when she needs to poo. When I put her on the toilet its very hard to get her to poo. She is not at all constipated she just doesn’t want to let it out. How am I ever going to get her to poo without withholding and soiling her knickers all day long?