Scared of Toilet

[Brooms6]

my 5 yr old will not go the toilet for a poo. she says she it will hurt yet she will do it in her pants all the time. i don't know how to break this fear. as she gets older it gets worse!

[SallyCal]

Hello, has your daughter had constipation and a painful episode? I can only share my experience but that is how my daughter got scared to poo although she would just hold it for nearly a week before eventually giving in and going on the toilet. The fear of the pain was huge and was the cause of all her problems as she got in a vicious circle of holding which meant it was always going to hurt when she eventually went. We started using Movicol and after getting her poos reallly soft (which did mean a few accidents) and asking her if it was still hurting when she went, she started to see that it didn't hurt anymore but it takes a long time for them to forget as in their short lives it might be a large part of their memory bank. I hope this helps and let me know how you get on. My daughter was 4 when it started for us and 5.5 by the time we sorted it. xx

[EmmyS]

My nearly 5 year old has also never pooed on the toilet after constipation caused an anal fissure at 2.5 years old which was then very painful to go to the toilet and so she began withholding. We are now on 2 sachets of movicol/cosmocol/laxido (tried them all)! Which seems to be the perfect dose to keep things moving for my daughter. Anyway, today we went to see the constipation nurse at the local hospital who said that she needed to drink more water and also to poo on the toilet with a pull-up on and this afternoon she actually did a poo sat on the toilet wearing a pull-up, amazing! We have been trying to get her to do this for months so not holding my breath she will do it again but hopefully we have turned a corner at last. I would say don't pressure her to go on the toilet but keep saying "when you are ready you can sit on the toilet and do a poo like (big sister/cousin/friend etc) " and hopefully you will get a result eventually. I am sure they will get to a point when socially they want to fit in and will do it on the toilet (fingers crossed anyway) but I know how frustrating it is when they won't consider it.