16mo constipation and pain at night

[EdithGrantham]

Sorry this is going to be a long one but I'm at a loss of what to do so hoping someone can help.

My DD who is now nearly 16mo has been suffering from constipation since she was around 8mo.

I initially had a telephone appointment with the nurse practitioner who prescribed lactulose. She was on this for two months with limited success but then had a particularly painful time passing a poo so I looked into it a bit more and found that the nurse had followed none of the NICE guidelines for babies with constipation so I made an appointment with a GP.

The GP examined her and said she wasn't blocked up so prescribed Cosmocol to be used one sachet a day until she was going regularly then we could start to reduce it.

She started off taking it fine then started refusing so I went back to the GP who prescribed Senna. She also refused this.

I persevered with the Cosmocol, trying it in different drinks for a couple of months or so with her taking varying amounts or none at all each day before she just kind of started to accept it.

We then had about a month of her taking it regularly before she started having very soft poos so we started reducing the dose but half a sachet was too little and she'd get constipated again, a whole sachet seemed too much but we stuck with it as didn't want her getting blocked up.

Around two months ago she also started having seemingly painful gas or something at night, a lot of crying and squirming around. Nothing can settle her on bad nights, she'll breastfeed to sleep but then half an hour later be arching her back and crying again.

So I thought I'd try stopping the Cosmocol to see what happened, after 4 days of not having it she slept the best she had in ages but after another 3 days she was struggling to poo again. I thought I'd try her on the senna again to see if that would be better. It was for a week and she was pooing easily but we're now back with a lot of squirming around and crying through the night.

I've had another appointment with the GP who said it's unlikely to be the medicines as they each work differently so it wouldn't make sense that she would have the same reaction to both of them. He thinks it's the constipation causing the pain. This didn't make much sense to me as the worst pains she's had is when she's had a few days of pooing normally.

He's said to try giving half a sachet AM and half PM to see if that helps so will start that tomorrow. But honestly I can't help thinking something else is going on that needs looking into but I'm not sure what.

Any advice from anyone who's been through the same would be appreciated.

I would say to the GP you’d like a gastro referral to make sure there’s nothing else happening. They might suggest other things to try as well.

Our DD had chronic constipation from about 2 yrs to 10yrs. She was on Movicol pretty much all that time.

I would definitely try the half sachet idea - am & pm until you get to chat again to GP.

look up ERIC for support.

if you do a laxative like Movicol or Lactulose, keep going on a low dose for MUCH longer than you think. My DD was on movicol for years to help things settle down after a bad time with constipation.

Thanks both, I'm happy enough for her to be on the Cosmocol long term so long as nothing else is going on. It's the writhing around at night that's worrying me (and causing me to be more sleep deprived than when she was a newborn!!) so will try the half and half approach and ring the GP again for a referral, maybe I shod wait to see if there's any improvement after a couple of weeks before calling them again as he seemed quite convinced it was just the constipation.

I have been reading the ERIC website, it was from there that I found the original nurse did none of the right things. I can't find anything about pain at night on there but will contact their helpline if the GP is no help.