3 and half year old holding poo for days!

[SnowWhite26]

Hi.
I no this is a common thread but im so stressed out! My little girl has been potty trained for about 7 months with wees! Poos on the other hand she will only go in nappy. I have taken nappys off her and she has tried on toliet and potty but she now holds it in up to 5 days sometimes! She gets irritable and quite a different child. I dunno what to do. I have a 8 month old as well. Its all so tiring and I end up getting so cross. I have tried poo goes to poo land bribes you name it i have tried it. She sits on loo and sucks in as appose to pushes it out you can see. I dont really no what step to take next. I asked doctor if it will damage her if she holds it in fir 5 days and they said no. Surely it will stretch something. Please any advice? Thanks

You have just described my son who is now 5 and will only poop in a nappy. We are now with the incontinence team which you get referred to with the doctors. He is on movicol three times a day to soften it and they speak to them about poop and why it needs to come out. All I would suggest is don't push the subject with your daughter as it will cause anxiety round it and don't force her to sit on the toilet if she doesn't want to. If she wants to poop in a nappy let her, just let the poop come out, because if your forcing her on the loo and she doesn't want to she will hold it in for longer. We have a poop chart and everytime he poops he gets a sticker and then so many and he will get a small prize. But please please speak to your gp xx

Just seen the above post to mine, movicol was great for us as he held it for upto two weeks that it became impacted and so big that it had to have help to be removed and obviously caused him pain. It works for some but not for others. X

As I said, unless there is an impaction issue it should be avoided. GPs see it as any easy solution, specialists less enthused about its long term effectiveness in cases of withholding. It has its uses but it will never be a solution to teaching recalcitrant toddlers how to use the loo

(Because the poo is liquidised, longer term use means the bowel goes floppy from lack of use so not only is there no urge sensation for child to learn from and recognise need to go, it can leave a distended / unworked colon that makes it harder to push one out. Technical terms right there! For a short term clear out of impaction it’s fine but GPs tend to encourage long term use. We ended up at the stage where Picolax didn’t work but using senna taught dd how to poo because her brain received signals about needing to go etc)

I had this with DD. I'll share what I did after months of bribes and bubbles and whatnot.

Pooing in a nappy was fine, but it had to be in the bathroom.
After a few days, try sitting on the toilet with the nappy on to poo. With one of those squishy seats on it.
When she got used to that the nappy got loosened each day.
Then it wasn't fastened at all
The last time it was 'accidentally' angled into the toilet so the poo went down.
Then that was it, she went on any toilet anywhere nappy free.

It was a hard slog, but once I took all emotion out of it we got there pretty quickly.

@MyHairNeedsASnip - that sounds genius. And obviously hard work. Well done.

PurplePiePete
Are you a specialist?
Where are you getting your information from?
It diesn't bear any resemblance to the protocols for the correct use of movicol. Also, Movicol isn't a drug.
The physiology you describe re bowel function doesn't make sense either.

Give her some fig syrup that will sort out not being able to hold it in. Plenty of liquids too.

endof - no, but I'm repeating what our paed gastro specialist advised us, and what worked very well for us after an absolute misery with movicol pain and liquid poo

Purple, it does rather sound as if your case was unusual, possibly due to overdose of movicol. Generally long term use of senna, or any chemical, irritant is not recommended.
The usual regimen would be:
Once impaction (due to witholding ) is cleared, the dose of movicol is reduced to produce a single, daily, solid but soft bowel movement.
The Poo Nurse video, (award winning and created with the support of paediatric specialists), explains it very well.

DS did this, he was withholding when potty training.
Movicol sorted him but he’s 7 and still on half a sachet a day- with it he does huge poos every 2 days so GOK how he would be without it. He’s reliably toilet trained if that’s helpful.

Yeah, movicol was a great help. It avoided her getting to the stage where it was so hard and constipated she got another rectal tear which is what started the hell in the first place.