Anyone want to join me on a support / moan thread for parents of poo withholders?

[brownrabbit]

At my wits end - dd is 2 1/4 and wee-trained for a month. In that time she's done 4 poos, two in nappies, two on loo. She refuses to go, saying it feels funny, but is obviously distressed. Spoke to ERIC, who say I need to disimpact her with movicol. Anyone going / been through similar - feel like I could do with some hand holding!

DD is 2.4 and I think doesn't really like the sensation. The relatively recent discovery that she can "hold it" has been A Bad Thing, because she inevitably ends up constipated and it hurts.

I gave her a teaspoon of lactulose a few weeks ago to try and start again with a clean slate. It worked remarkably quickly, within 6 hours!

Oh yes, me! D's is 3 next week. He has been withholding poo since he was 1 ish. He had a tiny minute tear when he went and it really has effected him. Once he withheld for 10 days now he goes every 3 days but is sooooooo distressed. Been to see docter and health visitor etc. Nowadays he says it feels yucky and slimy. He wilt holds until he can't anymore. He wees on potty no problem but refuses to try toilet. It's hard to see them so distressed isn't it? Mine jigs until the feeling goes away. Been at wits end, now learnt to manage it.

Hello trilby and sweaty, it's miserable isn't it? 10 days... ugh, I've been stressed enough after 7! I don't understand why I get quite so upset by it, but I do! We've had progress today - upped the movicol to 4 sachets and had one small poo in pull ups and one HUGE one on toilet! Now apparently we've got to carry on till she's completely cleared out, then find a maintenance dose. Is your son medicated sweaty? Interesting that lactulose is working for you trilby - dd had it as s baby and no effect at all!

So much conflicting advice too - ignore it / tell them they need to poo... What behavioural stuff have you tried?

Tried telling her she'll feel better once it's done. Tried promising it won't hurt (risky strategy as I can't be sure!) we put her in the bath once in the hope it would be easier in water. My DH would make a good midwife I'm still erring on the side of trying not to make it a huge issue, but I might be playing it all wrong.

Hi, thought I'd add my experience to your thread. My 3 year old son had been holding poo for several months. He was still in nappies and would disappear off and try to stop himself going several times a day. With a new baby on the way, we decided to potty train him anyway about 5 weeks ago. He was virtually dry within days but was still going off and 'not pooing' several times a day, which was resulting in accidents in pants multiple times each day. It was especially difficult because in his mind he wasn't pooing, so any training about the potty just didn't work. We began giving him lactulose, 2x a day, then reduced to 1x a day , and finally got him to begin sitting on the pot a few times a day to try. He is a stubborn little beast and this has been painstaking!! In the last few days he has begun saying when he needs to poop, and has successfully been on the pottyeh day with no accidents. Bear in mind this is the result f 4 weeks daily slog (plus a quick trip to hospital to relieve me of his baby brother thrown in!). All I can say is I have never seen a poo like it, it literally filled the potty. The poor mite must have had so much compacted poo.
My advice? Keep going, lactulose, lots to drink, lots of fruit. Don't get cross about poo in pants as it will make them hold it more fiercely. Encourage them daily to try and be prepared o sit and hold hands while they go. We were getting desperate and then it finally clicked.
Good luck!

Wow, well done for getting through that with a newborn, bear! I think I do need to encourage more regular sitting and relaxing on the toilet, as it's not a v happy place at the moment...

Hee Hee to dh catching the poo in the bath trilby... We had one of those a few weeks ago - my eldest is now understandably reluctant to share a bath with her sister!

I'm in. My dd is 4. Potty trained late as she has developmental delays but she was weeing in the potty after only a day or two. I thought it was so easy. But then she got constipated. Put her on Movicol and since then she poos in her pants several times a day. She does everything she can to stop it coming out - squeezing her legs together, standing very straight. She absolutely will not sit on the potty to go, screams and cries if I even suggest it. Wees still no problem, never wees at the same time as a poo. Jumps up from the potty as soon as she has had a wee (presumably because she feels she needs to poo) so sitting for any length of time just won't happen. Bribes haven't worked.

I really want to help her as she tells me she is scared when she needs to go. I just don't know what to do. Reduced her Movicol to half a sachet every other day (from half a day) but now I'm worried I've made things worse. She was just going so often I thought that was what was scaring her. Feel a bit more encouraged reading of successes though.

Hello Satsunday, your daughter sounds just like mine around the toilet. It would be quite funny to watch her tiptoeing around screaming that she doesn't need a poo, if it wasn't so horrible! We are are getting somewhere, I think… She's been on 4 sachets of movicol a day for the last few days (should be more, but I can't get her to drink any more than that) and she has done quite a lot of poos now, so I guess it's getting slightly less scary for her. The thing that she seems to find most helpful (apart from the chocolate bribes!) Is the idea that her poos are sad if they stay in her tummy. We read poo goes to Pooland, and she seems to like the idea of her poo is going to play with mummy's daddy's and her sister's! She says "I done a happy poo" when ever she does one in the toilet! I still have to forcibly pick her up and hold her on the toilet, though, which is probably harder with a 4-year old. Is your daughter at school yet? It's so stressful, isn't it - poo seems to dominate our days at the moment!

Also, would def recommend talking to ERIC if you haven't already - I found them really helpful and also sympathetic when I started blabbing down the phone! Helpline is open 10-4 Monday to Thursday I think.

blubbing not blabbing.

Thanks brownrabbit. Funnily enough I just tried to phone ERIC! Open only til 2pm though. My dd isn't at school yet but does go to preschool three times a week (where she holds her wee in as well to the point of being in pain and saying 'ouch'). As soon as we step outside I put her potty on the pavement and she wees.

Her bottom is very very sore today though from all the mini poos she has been doing (the ones she can't hold in) so I'm actually wanting her not to poo for a while now so it gives her skin a chance to recover.

We have the poo goes to Poland app too and she has watched it loads but it hasn't made any difference unfortunately! My instinct was to reduce the Movicol because on just one sachet she was going about 8 times a day so i thought the amount if times she was needing to go was causing the problem. But now I'm wondering if it should have increased it just to try and get it all out in one go.

I agree it's very stressful! Seems to be the main topic of conversation for me at he moment!

I think the movicol dose depends on how long she's been withholding. My daughter hadn't pooed for a week, and before that it had been 4 days, 5 days etc, so I was advised to follow s disimpaction routine, ie keep upping the dose till they're just basically pooing water! But haven't managed that as she won't drink it all, so just hoping we've cleared out enough. Then they recommend finding a maintenance dose - on one sachet a day my dd was still managing to withhold, so guess it's different for everyone. Your poor little girl with her sore bum, though! Have you got metanium or something similar?

You can email ERIC too - they've been pretty good at replying to all my questions. Hopefully they might help with the wee holding at preschool too - that can't be good for her, poor thing.

Yep, I even ended up talking about poo to the cashier in tesco the other day... Sad isn't it?!

My DD started stool withholding at around 8 months and has been on a combination of lactulose and movicol ever since. But I read a book that revolutionised my life when she was around 14 months old as the doctors were useless. The book was by Sophia J Ferguson called Stool Withholding: What To Do When Your Child Won't Poo! It takes you step by step through what to do and what can help. I changed my DD from lactulose and movicol to just movicol and we made great progress almost immediately. I was very anxious about starting potty training last week as she was so bad with pooing but she's really surprised me and has taken to pooing on the potty really well. Definitely worth a read of the book as it really helped me. I was at my whits end when she was 8 months and no one helped so can totally sympathise with you all.