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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

Poo withholding and anxiety

2 replies

Mumsurivingandthriving · 29/01/2026 22:11

Hello everyone. Really hoping I can connect with some parents going through/ gone through something similar with some hope/ advice.

We started potty training my son who is now 3 about 9 months ago, straight away he starting holding his wee and poo so decided to pause potty training while we figure out next steps, give him a little more time. He started weeing in his nappy again but continued holding his poo. We ended up working with a potty trainer as he became really distressed pooing and was getting really anxious and upset and we wanted to tackle this the right way and not to make matters worse. Eventually we started movicol on two sachets a day and after 6 months we go to a place where the was pooing ever other day and became far less anxious and was working up his confidence on the potty again. Then in November from no fault of our own, our son ended up not having movicol for a week which really set him back as he became constipated from holding again. So the doctor suggested we up his sachets every day until he is going regularly again, so he is on 7 sachets a day currently and was pooing every day. Every time he needed to poo he started to become really distressed, upset and frantic when needing a poo. This past week he is back to holding his poo again and he is on 7 sachet a day!! We’re thinking maybe we need to now work with someone to help him more mentally to overcome this… we have got to the GP to try rule out infections/ allergies. Stool sample is normal, bloods are tbc as waiting for an appointment. We are feeling a little lost right now and just want to help our son overcome the fear/ anxiety he has around pooing. We have read ERIC online, explored most of the advice given. It’s all trial and error so trying everything and seeing what works for him, it just feels like nothing is really working so far. Tomorrow I’ll up his movicol sachets to 8 and see what comes from that…

Any tips/ advice is most welcome!! Any similar stories with a positive ending would really be helpful too just to give us a little hope.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
endofthelinefinally · 30/01/2026 02:15

Google the Poo Nurses and watch the video all the way to the end. It really is the most useful information and time well spent.

Pandorea · 30/01/2026 03:15

We read Poo Goes to Pooland with my son when he had similar issues and it worked like magic. It’s available online.

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