At my wits end with a stool withholding toddler!!!

[PeejayBaby]

My little girl is nearly 4, and for the last year she has been petrified of going for a poo after a bout of constipation made it very sore for her. Trouble is, now she's caught in a cycle of withholding to the point where it becomes very hard, dry and uncomfortable for her to go. I've taken her to the doctors on a few occasions but all they will do is prescribe Movicol, which just makes the stool more liquidated and results in even more messy knickers. She refuses to even go near a nappy or a pull up (which I've reluctantly tried as a last resort) and now I'm genuinely at the end of my tether. I don't know how much more I can take of the chasing her around with wipes and listening to her scream in agony when she really needs to let it out :( HELP!

We've been going through this with our 4 year old DS so can fully sympathise. He's been taking movicol but it's taken a while to find the right dosage so that he doesn't get constipated, but not so loose that he has no control at all. Have you looked at the ERIC website, www.eric.org.uk ? Found some useful ideas on there. What seems to be helping our DS is - getting the dosage of movicol right, having a daily practice sit on the toilet before bath time which he gets a reward for (a jelly bean or choc button) even if he's only there for 30 seconds, giving him privacy when he's in the bathroom and I've also stopped asking him if he needs to go, even when I can see him trying to hold on! Still having accidents and he still tries to fight the urge to go, but I think we are slowly making progress. Really feel for you and your DD, it's horrible seeing them so uncomfortable.