My child WILL NOT poo

[cnewton]

Hello.

I know the title may seem slightly amusing but I really could do with some advice. My 3 yo daughter who has been potty trained since she was 2 and 3 months absolutely refuses to poo at all we have seen doctors and a specialist who have put her on drugs (Movicol) to make the stools soft so it won't hurt her to go.

She says it doesn't hurt but she just doesn't like doing it, as a result she has poo seeping into her pants all day every day, I change her and wash dirty pants maybe 10-20 times a day from where it has over flowed into her pants.

When I take her out she makes wherever we are smell and gets sore because of the poo on her bottom all the time. I have tried puting her back in nappies but just end changing them 3-4 times an hour too costing a fortune.

If she just pushed all the poo would come out and she would only go once or twice a day,it is so infuriating and after nearly a year of this I have totally lost the plot.

I have just really lost my temper with her after she has refused to go again even though it is all coming out anyway, and now I feel terrible.

I honestly can't do this anymore any advice would be gratefully received.

Thank you : (

Hm, i would do a number of things simultaneously:

1. Back to gp to get this further investigated.
2. Really make sure her diet has grain, pulse, fruit and not too much banana/potato/starch for the time being.
3. If it is more psychological maybe let her be in the loo with you and/or parther/sibling without making a big deal about it so she can see it is completely natural.

This is not coming from an expert point of view, more no-harm-in-trying.
And bump.

Will she sit on the toilet?

Try getting her to blow a balloon up or blow bubbles whilst sitting on the loo.

Get her a step to put her feet on ,so her legs,are not dangling.

Would a reward chart help?

Take her back to the gp and INSIST on a paeds referral.

She probably has impaction and you'll need a movicol weekend where she is swallowing sachet after sachet til it all clears out (which won't be pleasant - I think it gets called a poonami on here)

Also I'd be asking them to test for food intolerances.

DD was a poo refuser. She also has lactose intolerance, coeliac disease, is soy intolerant and has ibs. Thankfully she's in her teens now and manages it herself for the most part.

have you explored the possibility of a food intolerance? i know a couple of ppl who've experienced the same thing and cutting out dairy has helped, and wheat too in one of the cases.

it sounds like she is getting impacted, and then more fluid poo is leaking out around it, which is why she can't help that and is soiling herself.

maybe try keeping a food diary? or cut out dairy and see if that helps?

We're just coming through the other end of the tunnel with this. I started a thread a while ago (I'm sure it'll come up if you search for my name) and there were some useful suggestions, but ultimately all it took was time and movicol.

How much movicol is she on? She should be at a stage where she can not physically withold stools anymore, and is going at least twice a day. For us that was alternating between 1 and 2 sachets a day. Some kids will need less, others more. Expect lots of pooey pants. We used pull ups so we could chuck them, but didnt go back to nappies so it was clear to DS we were not regressing.

At the same time you should sit them on the loo / potty regularly after meals. We use an ipad in the loo as that gets DS relaxed and he will happily sit there for a while and do a poo. I'll tackle weaning him off the ipad later, for now i'm just glad he's doing proper poos. If sitting on the loo, get them a stool so their feet are supported and not dangling.

Please don't tell your daughter off or turn it into a negative thing. That just exacerbates the problem and makes it worse. She will get worried about doing poos as she's unsure whether she is doing the right thing or not and it makes the whole thing stressful for her. What worked for us was lots of praise for trying- I realised when he had been sitting on the loo for ages and not produced anything, he got very disappointed by his 'failure'. So I went overboard with the praises and said things like 'well done for trying' and 'the more you try the better you will get' etc etc.

I know how stressful it can be. We're gradually weaning off the movicol at the moment and I'm so tense about things regressing! I'm just glad I don't have to wash pooey pants anymore though- we'd average 6/7 pooey pants a day. And I had to use bepanthen on his bum as he's end up with a nappy rash too.

Look up stool witholding. It sounds like thats what your dd is doing. She's not being naughty!