3 year old son holding poo!

[courtney251]

My 3 year old son keeps holding his poo. We are currently in day 7 with no poo. He is screaming in pain but every time I sit him on the toilet he screams no no and refuses to. It’s so so stressful. I can’t send him to nursery because he is in so much pain. Is just don’t know what to do. Nothing I say to him works. He eats lots of fruit and veg. Has anybody got any advice?

Take him to see the GP, and check out the Eric website. This can be a bit of a nightmare (as you're finding out), so it's definitely good to try to get a handle on it quickly.

Thank you! It all started a few months back when he got chicken pox really badly! He had lots of blisters around his bum so it hurt him to go and ever since then it’s been a nightmare.

Would he poo in a nappy? Might be worth a go.

I’ve tried asking if he wants a nappy, I’ve offered the potty also but he just refuses. He has been screaming in pain. I put some movicol in he juice tonight to try and get things moving but nothing yet. It’s a nightmare because I’m not scared to even leave the house with him.

Definitely GP, get him on movicol/laxido until he’s well past the withholding. It can take a while though sadly. You can get lactulose from the pharmacy so worth trying that as well to try and get things moving while you wait for a GP appt.

X-post. I feel for you, it’s a bloody nightmare. You might need to consider a disempaction regime, the ERIC website recommended by a PP is good.

Could he sit on potty and watch tv to relax him a bit?

Once he manages to finally go how much movicol should I be giving a day? He goes nursery full time. Last time I gave him 2 movicol in a day and two days later at nursery he had a very bad accident x

I would try one a day and see how he gets on and if that doesn’t help him get past the withholding maybe look into planning a disempaction if you can get a week when he can be at home rather than nursery.

Thank you! I will try the disempaction and keep him off this week.

Op I feel for you, we had the same with our now 4 year old. She got a bit constipated when she stopped having bottles at 2.5 and she hurt her bum when having a poo. She got a small tear but every time she went after that it hurt her so much that she stopped going completely. Got to the point where I had to rush her to A&E one day as I genuinely thought she was going to die.

The doctor gave us Movicol, but here's the trick. We were instructed to give her 4 doses per day (with lots of liquid, didn't have to be water) until she got rid of the first bout of poo. After a few days we were to give her 3 per day, then 2 and then 1. It was all about keeping a close eye on her bowel movements and making sure we diminished the dose when they started to look more liquid than solid, sorry if this is TMI. We used sudocrem and other nappy rash creams on her bum to avoid a rash, but she did get a small one. This took a fair few weeks and it wasn't fun at all.
She was already potty trained but we went back to nappy pants during the whole process as sometimes she'd have accidents and get really upset.
She remained on Movicol for a year after that and then we managed to wean her off it slowly. To this day we have to keep a very close eye on her water/fibre intake and occasionally use lactulose.

My advise to you is not to worry about his food intake too much until you have the poo situation sorted. Get the prune and pear pouches from Ella's kitchen or Aldi's own if you can find them, they are fantastic to make them go. Push to get Movicol on prescription and don't let the doctors fob you off. Good luck xxx

Thanks so much! I’m glad to hear you have managed to wean her off. It all started when he got chicken pox badly on his bum so it hurt him to go and since then he’s been really hit and miss. I just hate seeing him in so much pain. I can see he desperately wants to go but is scared it’s going to hurt. I started giving movicol tonight so if I have to keep him off for the week that’s fine I will but next week when he will have to go back to nursery I'm unsure what dose to give him to make sure he is comfortable but won’t have any accidents .

I found the movicol sorted it out very quickly. We were able to reduce it down very soon after we started. Our dd was still in nappies so it was easier. Same as your DC it started after an illness and it was a nightmare

If you are unsure on how to proceed you should definitely talk to your doctor, but what we were instructed to do was what I told you. Basically you are irritating their bowels so much that it doesn't matter that they don't want to go as it just happens, hence the nappy pants. After the first few explosions she sort of made peace with it as she must have felt so much better bless her. Once he's going normally again I'd probably just give him the Movicol in the morning before I send him in, but I wouldn't do it unless you are certain the worst is over.