My 4.5 year old daughter seems to be constantly constipated.

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my daughter is four and a half and is still pooing her knickers several times a day. She rarely does one on the toilet and when she does it's usually massive. She produces like little rabbit droppings or small pebbles in her knickers most days. She's been like this for about 2 years.
She eats a lot of fruit and fruit juce. She eats very healthily for her age. I've tried apricots and prunes but she dosn't really like them.
I'm not sure what else I can try. I'd be really greatful for any advice, especially as she's just gone in to reception and will hold it all day rather than use the toilet. This makes things worse as you can imagine.

you really need medical intervention at this point - see Dr next week

in the meantime you could try using glycerine suppository to soften the stool and make it easier to pass, to get you through the weekend

avoid banana, it can really dry out the poo and you want it to be soft iyswim

also up her plain water intake

sounds a little similar to my nephew......does she drink a lot of milk?....that can cause constipation in kids.

Doctor

any coeliacs in teh family? (v v long shot)

Have you been to the gp?

My half sister has coeliacs desiese. She is due to be acessed as she has a severe speech disorder and some developmental issues. They know about her constipation and have sugested more fruit, fluids etc but nothing is helping. I think she dreds going to the toilet as it probubly hurts.

I will take her to see her GP on Monday.
Would oil of fig on her ready break help for now ?

Hear is an idea of what she eats.

Breakfast- Ready break, shredded wheet, or occasionally white toast with peanut butter.

Lunch- She loves rice cakes with butter and cheese, humus or dairylea. Yogart, bread sticks, cheese on toast, beans on toast or noodles.

Dinner- spagetti bolognaise, chicken dippers or kieves, mashed potato, carrots, chicken, fish, pasta.

She snaks on fruit, carrot sticks and humus, sometimes burts crisps.
She drinks Rock organic squash or fruit juce. She's not keen on water.

She is quite limmeted to what she will eat but it's all quite healthy.

She eats more of a variety at nursery, than she will for us.

Read this as this is what I was given by my GP when my ds was diagnoised 3 weeks ago.
It sounds very similar to my ds the GP said pebbles or rabits droppings caused by ds being unable to feel them, infact for a while ds thought cat was doing it until I had to expalin it was coming from him.

have you tried cutting down on the gluten content for a week or so (ie wheat, flour, pasta etc) and seeing if it improves or stays same - maybe she is intolerant to it ?

Is she deliberately holding on bcos she´s scared to poo bcos it´s been painful in the past (maybe due to constipation)? My DD had a withholding problem. If it is this I strongly recommend getting hold of this book "Constipation, Withholding and Your Child" by Anthony Cohn (Consultant Paediatrician who specialises in toileting problems) - it helped no end.

Thanks everyone. She does with hold it at nursery but will poo herself at home. She only does it in the toilet if I see it comming and put her on there quickly.
She dosn't want to poo herself at nursery and won't use the toilet, she often poos herself in the car on the way home.
I will buy that book MunkyNuts, thanks.

Ah poor thing, friends ds had a faecal incontinence problem, which turned out to be an impacted bowel that was flushing looser stuff around the blockage. Def get to the Docs as there is obviously a reason for this, either psychological or physical. I think vast amounts of stool softeners did the trick for friends ds in the end.

Fruit juices esp apple are quite good, and maybe try and make her foods "wetter" so soups, stews, things in lots of sauce etc. Stoned fruit are pretty good at getting things moving too.

I hope you find an answer soon.

Hi, possibly quite a few of the foods on your list are actually stopping, such as

white toast, rice cakes, bread sticks, toast if not brown bread, carrots, pasta if not wholegrain, carrot sticks.

These are actually the type of foods you might give to a child with diarrhoea.

So maybe stop with any carrot products and replace any products which are refined (white bread, pasta, rice) with their wholegrain version.

And yes - water - lots of water, best drink of all ...

Good luck

Hi there, my LO had a bowlfull of raspberries from the garden for breakfast this morning, do you have access to something similar? Pick yer own near you?

We are having fruit smoothies for breakfast which are doing the trick. Also lentils are amazing for fibre, i make a sausage in lentils with tinned tomato which is very easy and DD loves it. uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/533838 just remove any bits you don't want to use.

maybe dried apricots etc? I've never heard of carrots being constipating by the way.

I have carrots as a source of soluble fibre coz I can't tolerate insoluble fibre (brown rice, wholewheat etc)