Stool withholding and movicol

[Tulips14]

My 4 year old has been know to withhold stool since he was about 2.5. Anyway we thought we’d turned a corner for almost a year not having to give lactulose then in July we came back off holiday and he had a massive poo that cut his bum and it’s been a downward spiral since. Really inconsistent poos some days, then holds the next. The GP has given us movicol to try told us to do 2 sachets a day for a week then reduce to 1. He’s not had a poo since Monday, started the movicol Wednesday and nothing has happened yet other then abit of ‘skids’ , he is bending and clearly holding it in with all his mite. I’m at a loss what to do. I’ve got a new rewards jar, promised chocolate, EVERYTHING.
how soon is movicol supposed to work?
any advise welcomed

Its really common in young children, we went through it with my 5yr old when he was about 3 and then again when he was about 4. My sister is currently struggling with her little girl and the same thing so you're definitely not alone! If he's quite mature then I would have a conversation with him about why its unhealthy for him to hold it. We did this with our 4yr old and bought one of the 'lift flap' body books and had fun talking about food and where it goes and how it's used and what needs to happen once your body has used all it needs! We had a seat with a step so he was in a good position on the toilet to help things.
Then we had consistent times where he would try to use the toilet, usually after breakfast or meal times, didnt make a big deal and had a distraction, either ipad 🙄 or we would have a conversation, play i-spy etc. We didnt keep him on for ages and if he became distressed we just said that's fine and tried again later. We preferred to use fruit/prunes rather than a laxative and also lots of water. A weak tea often help in the morning, I think it was the warm water. Good luck its horrible to see them in pain.

thank you @ We have a couple of poo books which we read and he watches the old video poo goes to pooland. He just tells me he’s scared of the poo or it will hurt 🥲🥲
the movicol has definitely started to work he’s had masses of watery/lump stool today, gone through several undies as he can’t hold it in. I think I will reduce it down now he seems to have cleared the blockage.
He has LOADS of water and chia/milled/flax seeds, he’s not a big veg eater but I hide it so he does get it.
im really hoping it’s just a blip as it’s sooo distressing for us all.

You are not alone OP, I posted about this very same subject myself!!!

My 5yo DD has been having issues with stool withholding and at the beginning of the school holidays we ended up doing a disimpaction regime with movicol after she didn’t go for over a week. We also tried every trick in the book to get her to go without success, but we found that if we just didn’t talk about going to the toilet that it really seemed to help. Nagging made her push back more and refuse to go. She is now on 1 sachet a day, and we never ask about doing a poo and she quite happily takes herself off to the toilet.

Im sorry you’re going through this, it really is awful when they absolutely refuse to go and nothing makes them!

@ChickalettasGiblets thanks so much. Please tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel 😭. I thought we had finally turned a corner and now it feels like we are back at square one again. How did your DD cope with the disimpaction? He physically can’t hold it atm so it’s just pouring out causing lots of accidents, yesterday we didn’t even leave the house. I’m going to reduce down to 1 or even half I think so its abit firmer but soft enough to push.

He starts school next week 🥲

We also have good weeks and bad weeks, literally just went on holiday and it started again so we came armed with movicol. But then she went when we got here 🫠 such a rollercoaster!!!

She was fine with the disimpaction, it’s fairly straight forward and does the trick but you cannot leave the house like you say. Could your son be worried about school perhaps?

It is incredibly difficult! It really affected my mental health when my DD was like it. We disimpacted then she spent a good 6 months on movicol, gradually reducing down. It is super tough to deal with. Everybody poos was a good book for her. Look after yourself OP. There is light at the end of the tunnel!