Witholding!! 😢

[Missdemeanor87]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone else is having trouble with their child witholding their poo? My daughter is 3 and a half and since she hit 2 she has had problems going to the toilet. But I definitely know now that she is simply holding in her poo. It's not too hard so she can't go, she just won't let it come out. She does eventually after becoming exhausted from holding on so much, but I just don't know what to do anymore?! I give her Cosmocol every morning to make sure her poo doesn't become too hard. She's obviously still in a nappy and even with all our efforts she just will not try to use the toilet or the potty and insists on holding her poo in. She's doing it as I type this, I just feel like I've tried every thing and nothing is getting through to her to just let the poo come out. I've asked her questions about it to try and understand why she doesn't like it coming out but she doesn't seem to know herself. I've explained that relaxing and letting the poo out is much nicer and easier than straining and sweating to keep it in. Sorry for the long post, I wanna cry everytime she gets upset (which is alot of the time) I just hope there's someone out there with an answer to this. I almost expect she's gonna need hypnotherapy or something to make her realise she's 'being silly'. Again sorry for the mega post, and thankyou so much for reading it. All the best 😘 xxx

[VictiniG]

If she’s happy to do her poos in a nappy I would say just let her and don’t try and push the toilet or the potty at all until she is comfortable pooing.

My daughter is 5 and has been stool witholding for maybe a couple of years in that she woukdn’t poo at nursery after a certain age or school and just waited until she was home with a nappy on. We tried to take nappies away just after she turned 5 as thought it would help but I wish we’d just focused on small steps as this led to her witholding so much that she became clinically constipated and was off school all last week on a high dose of laxitives for disimpaction. This is obviously my daughter’s story but it’s very common to have a psychological blockage to doing poos for children. Have you spoken to the Eric helpline? They are fantastic at supporting with this.

[Missdemeanor87 in reply to VictiniG]

Thankyou so much for taking the time to read my post. We have backed off with the potty training again and just want her to go for a poo without getting upset or straining with all her might to keep it in.

Oh your poor little girl, bless her heart. You just want them to 'beleive you're when you tell them it's fine to go to the toilet. Everyone else needs to and it's totally normal. My little girl has just outright decided she should do it. Deffo down to I think letting a particularly big hard poo pass on the past and she's held on to the fact that going for a poo will hurt so best keep it in there.

I hope your little one doesn't have too bad of a time with the disimpaction bless her.

I'm deffo gonna call the helpline 😊 again thank you so much xxx

[VictiniG in reply to Missdemeanor87]

Great, we’ll done you. I’m so glad that we seem to finally be coming out the other side of all this but wish we’d done things differently soon. Definitely call the helpline, they’re so busy though so just keep trying or leave a message to say when you’re free for them to call. Good luck with everything x

[Valley1234]

Hello, I wrote a post on here a few months back about the same problem with my six year old. I went to the gp after and he has been on low dose laxitives- the problem was constipation - he is much happier now- just writing this in case, all my best!