Hi there, I’m just writing with a success story as I remember reading these when I was in the midst of it all and they used to make me feel better.
My son is now 7 (8 in less than a month) and we are now pooing regularly with no with holding, no nappy and sat on a toilet! I still can’t believe it! His back story is from about the age of 2 he would withhold poo for up to 10 days. I remember he used to dance around, jump around or lay down - anything to keep the poo in . Tears from all of us trying to get him to let his poo out. He used to get tummy ache, lose all energy all due to with holding. Meant he missed pre school, school, play dates, family days out. It was a very stressful time. He went on movicol which helped. It has taken years to get him to the stage we are at now.
We first spoke to someone one who advised getting him used to going into a bathroom to poo (he used to stand anywhere in the house prior to this) . We used to let him watch the iPad Whilst pooing so his mind wasn’t so focussed on the poo coming out. We started this in his first year at school. We got him down to 1 movicol straight after school. We then tried half movicol one day then 1 full the next day( this dosage went on for about 6 months if not longer) His poo was always very sloppy (sorry TMI but thought the details might be useful for people). I remember reading on here that some people had had success when trying no movicol. So I gave that a go - this was after he was fully used to pooing regularly with the help of movicol - he wasn’t worried anymore about pooing. I also made sure that he was eating enough fruit and veg plus water ( I was super vigilant about this aspect) to make sure his poo wouldn’t be hard as this is another thing that really used to freak him out. And it worked well for him - I think as he could feel it a bit more than the sloppy movicol poo. We had accidentally tried no movicol a few months before when he was ill we just couldnt get him to drink it and I thought he would be ok - but no it massively freaked him out when his poo felt different- the point I’m making is that he just wasn’t ready at the time so we waited and tried again a few months later.
We then had to try to get him sitting and out of pull ups. At this point he was in year 1 at school. We tried getting a bigger size pull up so he had more room and asking him to sit on the toilet (we have a soft toilet children’s seat for the toilet as he didn’t like the hard toilet seats). We also have a fooT stool so his body is in a good position. He tried but wasn’t used to it so couldn’t poo. But we said sit for a bit and then stand so he did that for months. We also tried getting him to sit without a nappy on sometimes- but I was so scared that this would mean he missed the feeling of going for a Poo and then we would get back into with holding so this was just occasionally. We did everything very slowly. He went into year 2 still pooing stood up in a pull up but without movicol, without the iPad (we started getting him to look at books as the iPad became too distracting) pooing regularly and knowing when he felt the urge and asking to go!
Then lock down happened and we had all the time to work on it- no only being able to poo before or after school and I could make sure he dranK enough and ate fibre rich food . We kept trying the sitting in his pull up and said maybe he could try sitting and pushing him self up a little so it was a bit in between standing and sitting and this seemed to work for the first push / bit of poo then he would stand up and finish. This went on for a couple of months . I thought it probably didn’t feel great sitting in the poo in the pull up So I suggested perhaps we try with out - we put lots of toilet roll down to so the poo didn’t splash. We tried but couldn’t do it at first so we put pull up back on. But we kept trying every now and then. Then on day we were talking and I said that he was already doing a bit sitting in his pull up so why don’t we try with out and he did it!! I couldn’t believe it and thought it would be a one off so didn’t get too excited and didn’t put pressure on him to do it every time but asked if he would like to try and he got more confident each time and then he just started pooing in the toilet everytime! I just wanted to share in case any of what we did could help someone else.
Also we have 4 packs ( 9 in a pack) of dry nights pyjama pants age 8-15 if anyone would like them - you would just have to pay postage which I would do through Hermes. If not then does anyone has an idea of if we could donate them them somewhere?
Sorry for such a long rambly post but the Eric website and the people on it were a massive support especially knowing I wasn’t alone - so thank you!
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