Poo Withholding

[Ljordan13]

My son will be 3 in September and we started Potty training in July. He took to wees really well and has been dry day and night. However, he has a history of poo withholding and will not poo in the potty or toilet and will do it in his pants or on the floor when naked at home.

History:

• He has been on movicol since February following an early failed attempt at potty training - we think this is where the anxiety started. Currently on 1 sachet but we have increased to 2
• Good diet with vegetables, fruit and fibre
• Could drink more water and we are working on this
• Already contacted ERIC they have recommended us to manage the anxiety first and then onto doing it on the potty as we were already trying rewards, bribes, blowing etc so we are now taking off the pressure

I know this is really common issue but when you are in the midst of it you feel really lonely.

I am mostly looking for stories of hope that this will not last forever!

Anyone?

Hi, I know you posted this a while ago, but I hope this is something your little one managed to overcome with time? If so, do you have any advise?

It took 6 weeks for us to work through this. We think the root cause was us starting potty training too early and then stopping and starting again then it created a fear so he ‘held it in’ which then made his poo hard and painful.

I spoke to Eric the charity and they were really helpful with tips which included using positive language around poo and inspecting it with a lolly stick and saying look how soft it is (not for the faint hearted!).

They also recommended putting my son on Movicol which was the turning point for us as it makes the poo soft so it wasn’t feeding into the cycle of it being something to be scared of. We did a disimpaction regime so we knew there wasn’t any poo stuck from where he had been holding it in so we knew the slate was clean type thing. This was where it got better as he accidentally did a poo on the potty whilst doing a wee and it made him realise it was ok. Following this he had no more accidents and did all his poos in the potty and now goes on the actual toilet rather than potty.

I remember the day I posted the post and me thinking if by Christmas we’ve got there it will be a success but literally about 8 days later it was all done! So have faith your LO will get there it just seems they won’t right now!