3.5 year old son doing many poos a day

[Worriedmum2021]

Hello. I am new here and hope to get some advice and support. My 3.5 year old son does a poo 4 to 7 times a day. Sometimes the poo is hard and round and other times it's soft and seems normal. I tried toilet training him when he was 3 and I couldnt carry on as he got constipation passing hard stool. The gp advised I stop the toilet training and give him prune juice and veggies. This helped to soften his poo. However he is now passing poo many times a day. As a result by the end of the day his back passage area is red and sore and he is often in tears. This is very distressing for me. He is on a good diet..loves his fruits and veggies and high fibre foods like weetabix and whole meal bread. He is a happy boy otherwise. He has recently seemed to have lost some weight but I think this might be due to him dropping his bedtime milk which he used to have every night. He also seems to have grow taller. The several poos a day is worrying me. Not all are hard and he doesn't seem like he is in pain while doing the poo. Any one else been through this? I am going to speak to his GP again on Monday and request a blood test. I hope all is well 😔

[Yaleamanda]

It's possible he is actually with holding. Oh and by the way weetabix acts like cement in the bowel, change to oats instead.

[Worriedmum2021 in reply to Yaleamanda]

Hi. Thanks will change to oats. Because he does so many little poos a day I don't think he is with holding. I read somewhere that many poos is also a sign of constipation. Not sure

[Yaleamanda in reply to Worriedmum2021]

Which will be caused by withholding, they both go hand in hand. You need to get him on a stool softener and stimulant laxative.

[Worriedmum2021 in reply to Yaleamanda]

Ok thanks. The gp has asked for his poo sample for analysis. He said he could be an infection? Not sure. The results are out next week

[Huckleberry2]

Hello. Doing lots of incomplete bowel movements in a day is a sign of constipation. The bowel isn’t effectively pushing the Poo out. We had this with my daughter. We ended up increasing her cosmocol and she went from 3-5 incomplete movements, to 2 large movements a day instead. Hope this helps

[Worriedmum2021 in reply to Huckleberry2]

Thanks so much. He was really struggling today and had to use capsule suppository for him and he did a big poo and feels better. However he seems very uncomfortable. We have the gp appointment on Monday I hope he prescribes something long term that will help him. He was struggling to do a poo today for 4 hrs and after the suppository he managed to open his bowels. Just so worrying. He gets exhausted from "trying to poo" all day