Constipation and Holding back

amother

Wed, Dec 16 2009, 2:51 pm

My DD a bit shy of three is being toilet trained at the moment.

she is holding back with #2. I am not shocked. as it is she has been a difficult child regarding having dirty diapers altogether, causing herself to become constipated very often over the years.

when she was really little she mustve been constipated and got an backside fissure. very slight. but since then she always holds back when going.

she stands with her legs tight together until it has no choice but comes out.

and now im trying to train her. she freaks out. I could give her stool softener ( I give her every so often paraffin oil) but I dont want it all over the place. is there anything to do, or just wait till she gets bored of soiling her underwear?

any good tips as to how to go about training for a previously "traumatized" kid?

bribing doesnt work.. shes petrified I saw her face while she was holding back on the toilet...

she cant live on stool softeners, I gues a high fiber diet should work... but what can she eat?

Mirel

Wed, Dec 16 2009, 10:46 pm

amother wrote:

First of all stool softeners won't kill her, if she is on it for a while. Try mirelax or Colace, the reccomended dosage every day. I did this with my dd who had the same issue as yours. I thought it would never end, but it did! At the same time I made a chart with her. The stool softener just made it much easier for it to come out, and I kept her on it till she realized that it s not scary to make number 2. Then I gradually gave her less and less, like one stool softener every two days, till she was totally weaned of it and was making independently. You'll see it will pass, but us the stool softener till it does. With fiber you never know if you are giving enough or if it is really working. This is guaranteed.

drumjj

Thu, Dec 17 2009, 4:42 am

one of my daughters had htis issue with holding back, I was told by the consultant that u have to toilet train on a potty and first let them sit on a potty with a diaper on, then slowly take of the diaper and just line the potty with the diaper then take that away after she is doing it well like that. its a slow process but I would also definately give a stool softener and dont force her at all because that will make it worse.

natmichal

Thu, Dec 17 2009, 6:11 am

We had a similar problem.
We added fiber (we only eat whole grains etc and you can give extra fruits), and sneaked in a spoon of oil /extra butter.
Some point is still did not really help, so the dr told us to use softener so ds would go every day. We did it only every 2 days, but the bottom line is ds realized it didn't have to hurt and got over his fears.
if you don't overdose, you won't be getting it all over the place...
My experience is that ds did not get hooked on medication. Once he realized it didn't hurt, he took control of it and now is fine (it did take a long time to got through the whole process)