Almost 3yr old holding in poo!

[Cosmod]

I thought Id smashed potty training! She got in down in a week. But just wee....

Its been about 2 months now. She will ask me for a wee every time! But has trained herself to only poo in her nappy at night time. If she needs a poo in the day she will scream and cry if I try to encourage her to do it on the toilet, and will wait until nigh time to poo in her nappy.

If it doesn't come out that night, she will be uncomfortable all day holding it in until the next evening. She will go on food strike and refuse to go to the toilet until the evening.

I've tried to get her to explain as she's very good at talking but I've never managed to get anywhere with understanding why!

Any ideas on what could help? I've been eager to start nighttime potty training but I'd really want to wait until I know she can tell me when she needs a poo and will actually go. At the moment it's just a lot of poo dances and tantrums!

Poo goes to pooland app.

Also try the ERIC website.

Try to give her foods that will quicken the passage of her needing to go. Stewed fruit with yogurt , extra vegetables ( hidden in her meals ) maybe a half a teaspoon of bran in breakfast. All things that will make it harder to hold on.
However don't try them all at once ! 🙂

A mild laxative will hopefully stop her from withholding, if fruit etc doesn’t do the same job.

Its a vicious circle because withholding causes constipation which causes painful bowel movements which causes withholding… and so on.

My daughter was AWFUL with this when she was about a year older than your child. It wasn’t fun. She’d poop in her sleep and we’d come upstairs at night and be hit by the smell. She was just determined to withhold.

Try not to force it too much!! If she wants to do it in her nappy let her she will end up with constipation which will then hurt which will make her not want to go at all then you are stuck in a viscous cycle. encourage her to sit on potty/toilet with her nappy on to do her poo once she’s able to do that and comfortable with it cut a hole in the nappy so the poo goes in the toilet. Hope this helps. My DD5 still has issue holding her poo 🙄

Another vote for poo goes to pooland and then we quite literally partied when it finally happened! We celebrated with chocolate (after washing hands) a new toy and stickers. We reigned it in quite quickly after that but it just cemented it as a positive thing

This was a real problem for my son when he was the same age. We read the book Sneaky Poo with him and it worked like magic.

Good luck 👍

Ah you have my great sympathies as this was us too. The doctor told us that it was entirely mental but can become physical as the bowel stretches from withholding. Movicol did not work for us as it doesn’t deal with the sensation of needing to go; small daily dose of senna over a long period did the trick though. It was a long ride and the movicol days were hideous (am sure it works for many though)