Dry for 5 months but poos in pants - please help!

[BlueBumedFly]

DD has been dry for months (she is now 2.6). Wee is not a problem, but she refuses to acknowledge poo. When she starts to strain I run her straight to the loo but then she refuses, screams/cries etc and I have to give in. Minutes later she comes back and has done it in her pants.

She is constipated through witholding and the doctor has put her on senna to try to make it a fair au complis and teach her pooing does not hurt.

How long is this going to go on for? I have tried:

Being loving and patient LOTS
Praise praise praise
Telling her pooing in pants in naughty
Threatening nappies
Throwing pants away in front of her
Star charts
Sweetie rewards
Cuddling her whilst she sits on the loo

You name it I have done it.

Please help, she cannot move up a class in nursery until we get this under control, this is not a motivator to her, also her friends all poo in the loo, this does not entice her either.

Heeeeelllppppp please.... at wits end.

bump?

My older daughter did something similar for ages. She was in knickers but would come and ask for a nappy to poo. The nappy would go, she'd poo, it would come off again. And it went on for about 6 months - until she was about 2.5 yrs.

I don't know if you can force it - I just decided to sit it out and wait for her to decide to use the potty. Everytime she poo'd we'd tip the poo down the loo together, look at the potty at the same time and talk about how the poo should go in there. I offerd to line the potty with the nappy so she could still poo into the nappy but on the potty at the same time. Eventually she decided to give it a go and she sorted it within a week or so thereafter.

Feels like two issues - constipation and then the refusing to use the loo - an attention-seeking thing maybe?

If you can get the constipation sorted out via meds (she may need more than senna - lactulose as well perhaps?), then you can work on the potty thing.

And I guess time, patience and consistancy is the only way. Decide on your strategy and stick to it.

Is the nursery putting pressure on you? If so, that's not helpful to you or her.

Sorry to be bearer of bad news but I don't think there is anything you can do. DS dry in an instant at 3, didn't stop pooing in his pants until 4th birthday. Still makes a screaming, disgustingly messy fuss now. Although with him I rather think it's turned into more of a control, wind up mum game

However I do have a printable colouring in book called Poo goes to pooland kindly sent to me by another MNer. If you contact me at frimz at hotmail dotco dotuk I will happily mail it on
good luck!

This happened to us :My DD1 insisted on a nappy for doing a poo for 9 months after she was dry- she knew when she needed to go. If we didnt go with this she withheld poo and got constipated and the whole thing got worse. We too tried all sorts. A HV eventually told me there is a common fear of pooing in the loo, not sure why, possibly they dont like the feel of a space beneath them. She crucially said what I was asking her to do ie go from nappy to loo was too scary and therefore regardless of incentive she wouldnt do it. This made a huge difference to my mindset as I just didnt 'get' what she was up to really before then or why increasing levels of bribery had no effect..
Her advice (which worked over about 6 weeks)in short:

De stress the situation- so for us it was giving her a nappy whenever she asked for one- without any fuss for you maybe stay calm in face of pant poos? Could you use pull ups for a bit so less horrid?

Move her towards pooing on the loo in small non scary stages (in our case she physically had to be a bit closer to the loo every day).

Do 'practise sitting- ie she has to sit on the loo for a set length of time with VERY IMPORTANTLY no expectation of doing anything- gets praise and sticker- could read a story etc.

Then she has to do 'practise pushing'- again no expectation- she can get off after eg 5 pushes. We did this nappy on to start with and nappy off later on

If she has any kind of pattern to her poos put her on at for these practise sessions at roughly the right time and give her bubbles to blow or balloons- it creates a pushing sensation.

A combination of all these things coupled with a fortutious slight tummy upset and she eventually went in the loo and then got over it all within a few days and no issues since.

Of course now DD2 also poos in pants but in a different way because she will poo anywhere and everywhere and when she is playing they seem to take her by surprise- so I will be back to this thread for any advice on over casual pooing! Good luck.

Duchess - Thanks so much for posting, I totally think it is an attention thing. She is a bright, happy, funny child. Friday is always horrible, I work all week and this is our only day just me and her and I think its a case of push the boundries as far as possible, that covers food and poo. I spend so much of my days off concentrating solely on her and she loves her nursery so she gets plenty of attention, but, she does love a good power play! Today she would not eat any food unless I pushed it into her mouth. Believe me I have tried just ignoring that one but she ends up ill and tired and hideous and she has already lost 2lbs since September so have buckled on that one.

If she pooed every day I think I would have a fighting chance with the broken record approach but as it can be 5 days between poos and more often than not that is at nursery I don't stand a chance. I like the idea of lining a potty with a nappy. Gonna try that! I find it so hard not to get angry as she does understand I am sure.

No pressure yet from nursery but you get the vibes 'DD had ANOTHER accident today' etc.

FishFlange - gonna email you know!! Thanks.

Cathpot thank you. DD won't even ask for a nappy - I have offered and would happily go there for a while as a stepping stone! I am going to print your post out and read and digest and really try - thanks so much.

If she's old enough to understand what's going on, then it might be worth chatting it through with her and get her involved in the problem-solving.

You can make it clear to her that the current situation is making you unhappy and angry which isn't nice for her and that, until she's Ok to use a potty or the loo, you can't carry on with all the washing. So what's the best way to make it easier for you all. What would she be happy with? Offer a few solutions and see what she decides.

I know she's young but I had simialar conversations with DD1 who is a bright wee thing and it did seem to help.

I found that as soon as we settled on a compromise that we could both live with, the whole thing just stopped winding me up and I could deal with it again in a calm and rational manner! Even if that meant sitting it out for a few more months. And then you could work on Cathpot's ideas.

Done

BBF when you said food and poo it reminded me, same HV said in sort of world weary way when faced with my DD1 only pooing in nappy in the dark, in the towel cupboard 'yes well, the two things you cant control is what goes into their mouth and out of their bum'. I agree about the stopping the constipation being key as thats a vicious circle in itself- we 'birthed' many poos over many months. I'm sure youve tried all this, but sometimes even now I forget, fresh fruit juice is good, as are dates and prunes etc if she'll eat them, I think they may even be sold as 'sundried plums' now.., I even resorted to being overly generous with fig rolls although i think the fig to roll ratio probably isnt worth it. Even now we are past all those problems it took a long time for her to poo anywhere other than 6.30pm at home, some kids are just ticky poo-ers I think.

Funny, we had this with DD too.

We instigated 'treats' for going on the potty, which eventually got her doing it.

We then did one treat for potty, two for loo and it worked. 4 months on she only uses the loo (and sometimes forgets to ask for treats ). We used gummibaerchen.