Dd has always had some sort of issue with pooing.
When she was first dry in the day, just before she was three, she wouldn't go anywhere near the toilet to poo - she would only ever poo in a nappy, at the same time every day, and in one particular spot (as far away from the loo as she could get, natch). She was terrified of using the toilet to poo and would become completely hysterical - so we stopped trying to force the issue and allowed her to have a nappy. This went on until she was four and a half when she finally began (reluctantly) to use the toilet.
She's coming up for seven now, and still has issues. She will only poo at home, which means she ignores the urge to go when she gets it, and then she then finds it difficult to go when she gets home. She's not constipated as such because the poo is soft, but because she hangs onto it, it compacts and she struggles to pass it.
Even when she's at home she ignores the urge to go - we have to make her sit on the toilet every night before her bath and try for a poo, and every night we get the screaming abdabs because she reckons she doesn't need to go. But if she was left to her own devices she would never go at all, so we have to make her try once a day at least.
We started to get somewhere over the Summer holidays last year - she was just about starting to take herself off to the toilet when she needed to. But once she was back at school she soon stopped that because she won't use the school toilets, and we were back to square one again.
She won't wipe her own bottom either (I've taught her how so she knows how to do it - she just prefers not to). Because she's always at home when she poos, she calls us to wipe her and because of the problems she's had it's always been easier to do it for her. But if we ask her to try, she gets upset because it's horrid and dirty and she can't do it.
She's been seeing a paed for urinary tract problems, and the paed thought that part of the problem was the fact she withholds poo. She asked us to give her Lactulose, which she said would make it hard for dd to withold, and she's been taking 5 teaspoons a night for well over a year ... it hasn't made the blindest bit of difference.
I don't want to resort to laxatives, because she really doesn't need them - her problem isn't constipation, it's a behavioural thing. But I don't know what to do. The GP just says to keep shovelling the Lactulose in, but it's really not helping crack the behavioural problem.
Any thoughts? Anyone been in a similar situation and have any bright ideas?