3 year old refuses to poo. Please help me!

[Amychamps]

Please help! 3 year old has such a bad complex about pooing. She’s on movicol which we have reduced to try and encourage her to do it without it, but she just hates going. We are day 3 of no poo. This happens regularly. Affects her mood and obviously makes her very uncomfortable. Once she starts to actually poo she gets excited to see it go into the toilet. So it’s not the actual going. It’s the whole build up to it. She’s frightened to go and will hold it until it has to come out, at which point she it’s typically very big and quite hard and not the easiest to pass. This has been happening for 6 months now and nothing I’ve tried is helping. Please help!!

[StellaA]

Has this only started after she came out of nappies or did she have problems before potty training?

How much movicol is she prescribed?

She should be getting the full amount or she is in danger of becoming impacted.

[Amychamps in reply to StellaA]

We’ve recently been through disimpaction so we reduced it but I think we need to up it again. Currently on about 2 a day. Maybe up it to 3?

She has always had a bit of an issue pooing even in her nappies. We took nappies away about a month ago and she was Ok going on the toilet but took some getting used to. I don’t see it being any worse because of the toilet. She’s been doing wees on the toilet for 7 months now so she’s comfortable being on there. She just hates the feeling of knowing she needs a poo :-(. Will see how we get on with another period of increased dose.

Thanks for replying

[MrsKS30]

The poo should be very soft when she goes so that she loses her fear - it’s a gradual loss of fear. It’s taken my daughter over 1.5 years to get comfortable and relaxed about it all. Lots of praise too when she does one. It’s been a long road here but with movicol and time, we’ve gotten to a good place. Best of luck.

[Amychamps in reply to MrsKS30]

Thank you. Will be keeping up with the movicol for sure. Many thanks.

[MrsKS30 in reply to Amychamps]

Good luck with it. The ‘poo nurses’ have a video online about it which is very helpful if you haven’t seen it! Link below.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=9WqxJ...(Not working as expected?)

[Amychamps in reply to MrsKS30]

Thanks very much. I’ll take a look.

[Hidden]

Put her nappies 24/7

[Lpmaw2017]

My 2.5 year old is exactly the same. Loves flushing it and watching it come out and cheers when he is done. But beforehand it's a whole screaming match, running around, jumping up and down and shouting 'no my bum'. It's exhausting. He holds for about 3 days at a time too and then struggles to go. The only thing I can do really is keep his movicol dose high enough so that the poo is nice and soft. We also have a stimulant which I give on the 3rd day. My gp was happy to give the stimulant but the health visitor told me to not give it to him as it would weaken his bowel 🤷🏼‍♀️