Breakthrough then regression

[Umapurman]

Our little girl started showing signs of wanting to potty train in the summer so we happily followed her lead and went for it. Wees came easily and at the time I went for a cold turkey approach on nappies assuming she’d eventually poo (as she initially withheld for 1-2 days) and then realise what needed to happen. Oh how I regret that now. Her behaviour got really upsetting, constantly needing cuddles and holding and unable to focus on anything else. We were prescribed lactulose after 5 days and it did work and she pooed on the potty and was so happy. But the very next day we were back to withholding. We popped her back in nappies after a week as the emotional toil was to much and all was well and normal - pooing daily and easily. She is always on the mushy side since she had a parasite (cryptosporidium) when she was 14 months. She’s now 2.8 years.

4 months down the line she asked to wear pants and we went with it following her lead. Wees again came easy but poos were same story as before. We still had lactulose so put her straight on that this time around which means we managed to at least get poos out every 3 days or so which I hope means we’ve avoided impaction. We allow her to wear a pull up and offer it every time and she is really good at continuing her wees on the loo but not poos. Unfortunately she is now withholding in nappies too so despite trying to keep all pressure off, we’re sort of stuck. She is so emotionally affected by it all day long it’s heartbreaking. I asked the doctor for movicol after a 4 day holding stint and we started on 1 sachet, increasing to 2 and now 3. At 2 sachets we had a breakthrough, she pooed in her nappy, seemingly realised it was ok, and later on pooed on the loo of her own accord, super calm and happy about it. She then followed with two days of pooing on the loo, asking herself, nice soft sausages and a happy girl. Then she had a very small poo at the Childminder’s in her pants and that has seemingly caused a regression. She has gone back to withholding but it’s now worse as she seems way more upset by poo as a whole. We upped the movicol to 3 sachets to try and keep her going and overcome the fear. It sort of worked and we had a day of two nappy poos followed by an evening request to successfully use the loo.

But next day it’s back to the emotional withholding cycle. She can barely walk and is constantly clenching and contorting her body and asking for cuddles. I think she’s now completely scared of poo - she says she wants it to go away.

I’m worried the higher movicol has actually made her lose control too much and now she’s feeling out of control and afraid. But also don’t want to stop it and get impacted. I am at a loss. Today we reduced her morning dose so we can review her behaviour today and top up this evening as needed.

Anyone got any ideas? I’m fairly sure she’s not impacted as she’s always been lovely and regular and always quite substantial (albeit mushy), but I just don’t know.

We’ve calmly “forced” her to wear a nappy today in the hope a week or two of nappies and no mention of the loo will get her regular again and back to her normal self.

Other things we’ve tried:

- poo goes to Pooland.

- bubbles on the loo or potty and tv. She will scream and jump off when she feels it coming. We can’t force her to stay on.

- a sticker reward chart.

- story books.

- we don’t talk about it as the more we do, the more upset she gets and increases the withholding.

- we’ve always had an open door policy when we go ourselves so she sees that all the time and we’re very chill and positive about pooing.

I thought we’d overcome it but cannot tell what went wrong or how to go from here.

Sorry it’s a long one.