Urgent! Constipated 2 year old!

[nothomeless]

Please help! My severely constipated lo will not drink her laxative medicine.. to date we have always given suppositories for pain relief as this is a long term problem. Now for obvious reasons this is not possible.

This is the first time she´s been given a laxative. I´ve exhausted all dietry changes, they haven´t worked.

How can I get her to drink it? It´s only a small amount. I´ve tried a spoon, straw, bribery, evg I can think of. She´s in a bad way, what can I do?

What medicine is it?

Forlax Junior 4 g..

Prunes? The nice squishy ones - she may like them? Or simmer them until sofy and mush up into yoghurt or get her to drink the juice. Lots of water is good too.

Oh - if you NEED to give medicine do what we did. Sip of medicine, sook on lollypop, sip of medicine, sook on lollypop... you get the idea.

My sister used to put medicine in fruit juice and make ice lollies for her kids.

I´ve tried all kinds of extra fibre rich foods, mostly to no avail. Her regular diet is not short of fibre and she´s had plenty of apples, whole grains, all different juices.. I suspect the main problen is she will only drink a very small amount, has never drunk much.

Constipation has always been a problem, since she was a small baby.

Poor wee thing. My sisters eldest was the same (see above). She did swear by prunes though.

Nothomeless,
I have had a child with very serious constipation problems. I was recommended (by GP) dulphalax. He has had that for over 2 years with all the guilt from my part. Thought he would never grow out of it, but he did.

severe constipation is a very painful distressing problem. Just wanted to show my sympathy and to let you know there is hope she will get better.

My way of giving my son the dulphalax was to use the nurofen dispenser that comes with the bottle (like a syringe)

Good luck

Thank you all for your advice and support! Sipping alternatively from her favourite drink and medicine finally worked out ok, not all of it went down but most.. so.. no result yet, but she is in bed and I expect we might be woken in the night. I really hope so!

How did it go last night?

My dd has been constipated for years. She is on Movicol which she has in a small drink. She doesn't seem to know the difference between it and water but it could be masked by juice. Dd also doesn't drink much but it's not such high volume she won't take it all.

I'm taking 2 yr old dd to GP on Tuesday because we can't cope with her constipation any more. Took her when she was 9 months but he said she's grow out of it. Never has and now we're toilet training it's made it even worse. Was feeling v reluctant to go down the laxative route but looking at this thread maybe I'm making too bug a deal of it.

Another vote for Movicol here! My DS2 ended up in hospital for a week back in february with fecal impaction..it wasn't fun However since he was cleared out 2 sachets a day is keeping everything moving better than it had in years!

Have you used glycerine suppositories for clearing out rather than pain relief? Not fun to give but good for unblocking the plumbing from the bottom end. Having bowel probs myself all my life I find them brilliant.

Hope you can find a solution Constipation is so miserable!