Holding in poo - five days and no movement

**Annie Goolahey** · 25-06-2012, 12:16pm

C has never had any problem with pooping - until we potty trained.
She took to potty training overnight - (She was just gone three so well ready) and was dry through the night instantly, wears pants all day and has had no pee accidents.

however, getting her to poo is a nightmare.
Initially she would only poo in pull ups which was frustrating but at least she was going.
Then she decided pull ups where for babies - so we had a few poo in her pants incidents.
Then she decided big girls don't poo in their pants, or in pull ups - but refuses to use the potty or toilet either for poos.

I have tried everything from giving her a balloon to blow up while sat on the potty, to bribery to pleading, to forcibly holding her on the loo until she poos. I have tried being calm and making no big deal of it but this has been going on for about three months now.
And now she is just not pooing at all. She was having staining on her pants which let me know she wanted to poo and she would do a "poo dance" as I called it when she was trying to hold one in, but now nothing. No staining, no poo dance, no poo. Wednesday was the last day she performed.

It may or may not be related that every night she is now projectile vomiting - she is fine during the day but is bringing up everything each night at about 11pm. She is in great form again today and has a pull up on because I'm hoping it will make her go.
I've been giving her lactulose since last night (I did give it to her last week and we had two poos in the toilet - with me holding on to her) so it is a holding in issue.

What do I do? My HV is a chocolate teapot. Should I be going to my GP. I know the advice... I've bought the potty books, reward stickers, promised treats, increased her fluid intake and fibre etc. I don't know what else to do and I'm concerned she is causing herself real damage.

Any advice welcomed.

**violet wallop** · 25-06-2012, 12:23pm

I'd see the gp and ask if they will prescribe movicol. It soften things up so they can't hold it in, but it does usually need to be a long term thing once the initial blockage has been cleared. Be prepared for a pootastraphe once it starts to work. might be better to get her to wear a pull up for a few days?

**violet wallop** · 25-06-2012, 12:24pm

Also take a look at the bit about faecal impaction on the Eric website. It's very common, especially in potty training children.

**LiLi** · 25-06-2012, 01:02pm

We had something similar with DS. He would wee on the potty no problem, but seemed to have real issues pooing on the potty/toilet. At first, like your DD, he would just hold on to it for ages, getting really anxious, darting to and from the potty, sitting for a milisecond, then jumping back up again. It's so distressing to watch, as he was obviously deeply uncomfortable and miserable.

I tried holding him over the loo, in a position my mum showed me (I think they used to call it 'holding out'), but we both hated that. In the end we gave him a dose of syrup of figs, and that seemed to do the trick temporarily at least - I guess he couldn't hold on to it for any longer. It did seem like the more fuss we made about it, the more stressed he got. In the end, we just let him get on with it, which unfortunately led to him just pooing in his pants. This went of for a few weeks (and many pairs of thrown-away pants), until miraculously he decided he would accept bribery by chocolate, and there's been no looking back.

Probably none of this is any use at all, but

- you are not alone!

**Pippin** · 25-06-2012, 01:09pm

DD had problems with poo's. The only thing that worked was telling her they go out to sea to feed the fish otherwise they would be hungry, they would have nothing to eat. Watched Nemo, once she did it a few times she got the hang of it.

With DS we tried brown playdoh poo's throwing them in the potty, when he wasn't looking and then praising him. He was confused a bit but got the jist after a while.

**cheeky_biscuit** · 25-06-2012, 01:30pm

Yes either a good HV or a GP.
We had lactulose & movicol for dd2, the HV was great with dietary advice - explaining things about bulking fibre rather than shifting fibre and how giving her high fibre cereal was making it worse. But if you haven't got a good HV perhaps the GP will help with that.
Dd2 now whistles whenever she poo's, it's a good warning sign to busy myself so DH can do wiping duties.

**Annie Goolahey** · 25-06-2012, 03:49pm

Thanks all.
Am going to try and get her to the docs over the next few days. Am hoping the Lactulose will have an effect but reading these posts, that doesn't sound likely.
What is movicol? A drink/ medicine? She is really fussy with such things.

**helpimfalling** · 25-06-2012, 05:25pm

Do you remember exlax ? It's like a chocolate bar you take a square and hey presto you go.
Mine take that

**cheeky_biscuit** · 25-06-2012, 06:10pm

Movicols a powder you make into a drink, it's sugary. Think the paed. One is prescription only, you also need to give them lots of water to help it work (& the lactulose).
It's amazing how the poo issue takes over your life, you just need them to go!!