Another Potty Training Question - Janesville,WI

Perhaps I can help.

My youngest will be four in a few weeks. She's potty trained to pee - but not poop. Here's why:

Like your child, she has suffered chronic constipation - since she was 10 months old. We have gone back and forth with Miralax, stronger things, diet, water, everything - and JUST NOW finally have it under control. After a recent hospital stay (she has other health issues) they FINALLY convined me to leave her on Miralax for SIX MONTHS STRAIGHT and not quit for ANY REASON - and I am listening. But they finally explained it (my pediatrician never bothered to explain.)

Due to chronic constipation, fissures, etc - her colon/intestine/whatever you call it is stretched out because of constantly storing fecal matter. Now, this is a child who would go 10-12 days sometimes without a single bowel movement even though I was giving Miralax, and would leak around it, etc - don't know if your child is that bad, but anyways....

The doctors at Mayo said she has literally lost the ability to tell when she has to go because the area is too stretched out to feel the pushing of poop as it moves through. They said it would take at least SIX MONTHS to shrink back down to a point where she could really feel it BEFORE she has to go, and until then I am to leave her on Miralax because if she CONTINUES to get constipated, it will continue to stay stretched out.

This means she will be in diapers until she is four and a half, they said maybe even five - and she just can't help it. She doesn't know when she has to go. I feel so guilty for not just leaving her on the Miralax ALL THE TIME, but every time she would even out for about a month I would quit giving it to her and the problem returns full force.

Okay, so my child has CD so has a serious lack of fiber in her diet (yeah, go ahead, try to get your toddler to eat quinoa or amaranth. Sure. My toddler likes rice, I'm not supermom. That's a jab at anyone who thinks we ought to feed them better - I've tried everything.) My daughter actually loves prunes, eats plenty of them - it just doesn't help.

So we're using the Miralax, two fiber gummies a day, all she drinks is water water water, and we're just slowly waiting for her to regain that sensation.

Sorry I'm so back and forth with my answer - it's late, I am sooooo tired, but if I waited until the morning to answer I'd just forget altogether.

If you'd like more details or advice, more info that the doc gave us or what else we've been through with this and what else we're doing, please pm me and we can talk. I feel like we're finally gaining some control over this, and I'm beginning to see some light at the end of the....er...tunnel. ;)

(ETA - also, remember to praise every success. She can pee on the potty fine, and we just say things as we're changing poopy diapers like "someday soon you'll be able to tell when you have to go, and won't that be great? You'll be all potty trained!" and I try not to let her feel bad, because they're very intelligent at this age now and they KNOW that they're doing a "baby thing," trust me, and you just don't want them to feel bad because they literally can't help it.

Oh - and one more thing - for about a month before we learned that she really COULDN'T help it, I was lecturing her - things like "You KNOW how to go potty! You're a big girl! Why are you not going potty?" And I felt SOOO bad after these doctors told me that no, she DOESN'T know how to poop, and it will take her a long time to train her body in that way. THis poor kid - it really wasn't anything she was doing wrong.)

I had a similar problem with my son, and actually got the winning answer here, several years ago.

Let her squat on the seat to go. Most likely, water is splashing up and hitting her butt and scaring her. That's what it was for my son. Showed him how to squat safely and he never pooped his pants again.

My oldest is the same age. She was daytime trained a year ago. A few months ago she started pooping in her nightime pull up. It was nightly. And nothing we did made her stop. So I finally just took the pull ups away. I bought her a pad for her bed and explained to her that she would now wear panties to bed. She's had some pee accidents but not any poop ones. Granted, she does not have a constipation issue. My youngest who is a year younger than her always has been constipated though. So I definitely can relate to your concerns. If my youngest doesn't poop for two days I just know the next one is going to be awful. I laughed in my head about your birth comment because I remember thinking that exact same thing about six months ago! But I don't think you should allow that worry to keep her from taking that next step. I doubt her constipation issues, which you state have been regulated for at least a year now, have anything to do with her pooping in her pull up. The fact that she refused to poop until you gave her a pull up proves that it's more about control than anything else.

Updated

My oldest is the same age. She was daytime trained a year ago. A few months ago she started pooping in her nightime pull up. It was nightly. And nothing we did made her stop. So I finally just took the pull ups away. I bought her a pad for her bed and explained to her that she would now wear panties to bed. She's had some pee accidents but not any poop ones. Granted, she does not have a constipation issue. My youngest who is a year younger than her always has been constipated though. So I definitely can relate to your concerns. If my youngest doesn't poop for two days I just know the next one is going to be awful. I laughed in my head about your birth comment because I remember thinking that exact same thing about six months ago! But I don't think you should allow that worry to keep her from taking that next step. I doubt her constipation issues, which you state have been regulated for at least a year now, have anything to do with her pooping in her pull up. The fact that she refused to poop until you gave her a pull up proves that it's more about control than anything else.

My grandson is 10. He had seious chronic constipation until he was 3 or so. He would scream nearly every time. Once diet and and miralax softened his stools he was still afraid to sit on the toilet. We went with him to talk and play with him to make pooping "fun" to distract him.

You can also put him in a warm tub of water to play. The warm seem to relax the sphincter and the poop just slides out while still in the water.

My son was about that age when we experienced similar problems.

I put him on baby food (most #3) & yogurt for about a week, which softened him right up and kept him regulated. I supplemented at night with soft solids like boiled chicken and grains. I fed him all his meals the same time every day which in turn allowed him to pretty much poop the same time every day.

The next week I slowly introduced solids back into his diet and even though his poops were becoming more and more solid, he wasn't as scared as before and got used to the feeling of needing to go without the fear of pain.

He was fully potty trained after 2-3 weeks of this, thank God!

HTH. GL!

Stop all dairy. Try having her sit on the potty in her pull up to go poop. She is afraid it will hurt.

I don't know...I'd be tempted to give her some extra prunes and Miralax to force the issue, where she'd have to go or go on the floor. Then perhaps she'd jump the hurdle in her mind.

I have 2 that take Miralax on a daily basis. One can take it up to four times per day when she's blocked. If we give her that much we know beforehand that we don't need to plan any road trips or to be away from a bathroom for very long.

If she was only going in a pull up then I'd be tempted to do the big dose for a couple of days and not have any pull ups for her to wear. To force the issue but not in a direct mean way. Just an OOP's honey, we are out of pull ups. You have loose potty so you better sit on the toilet or it's going to go on your legs.