Toilet Troubles, holding it in.... any advice?

[ClaptonMum2014]

Hi there, my daughter is 18 months old and is holding in her poo. It goes on for days with her straining, its awful to watch and we don't know what to do. We give her as high a fibre diet as we can, lactulose, plenty water etc but its not getting any better. It seems to be something in her head, maybe she's scared of the feeling? Anyway wondered if anyone else had experienced anything similar and had any advice.

DS was the same at 3. Here is the very helpful thread that I started:
witholding poo.

Thanks, really helpful. Fingers crossed we move past this soon.

I did take several months, very gently, gently approach. The books mentioned are very good too.

My dd was a rather unusual case with this I think but she withheld specifically because she hated the feeling of poo against her skin in her nappy. It started at about this age and resolved overnight when she finally started pooing on the toilet at 2 1/4, only upside (as it was awful ) is that from that day she never had an accident. Of course this isn't easy, because if they have a thing about it they have a thing about it. But it may be worth gently suggesting it just in case.

You need a prescription for Movicol, and a high enough dose to make her poo really soft (liquidy even) so she physically cannot withhold. It also breaks the cycle of constipation causing pain causing withholding causing constipation, because bowel movements will stop being so painful. You will probably need to keep this up for months until the psychological block is forgotten.