Poop! She panicks when pooping now and is holding it in for dear life...

[sosurreal09]

My 25 m/o has been potty training for over a month now and doing amazing! She was going poo on the potty with no issue. All of a sudden she is panicking when she poops and holds it in and freaks out. I offer the potty, I offer a diaper, I offer her "pull up" she just doesn't ant to go!

I know this can not be good for her! I even tried nursing her on the potty last night...nothing she did a little turd on a book and held the rest in...now this morning she started panicking and did a tiny tiny one on the floor in the kitchen. Refused the potty so I put a cloth "pull up" on her and she still hasn't gone...it's been 30 mins.

What can I do?

[mkksmom]

My LO went through that. She had an accident and pooped on the slide once and another time on a chair. Her sister screamed and over-reacted, and she was scared for a while. I tried a lot of things, but 2 things that helped the most were giving her tons of fiber and extra fluids. We did shredded wheat, black beans, spinach, pears, prunes. Cut back a bit on protein. The other thing was bringing her in with me and explaining that you have to work and you'll feel so much better when you are all done. She visited her sister during BM's too. We had to back off the potty training with the poops for a while, and I just gave her a diaper. She also has a pair of headphones to block out loud noises. She puts them on when she is scared. She used to wear those when pooping for a while.

[sosurreal09]

She freaks out when she poops in her diaper too. I have never reacted to her pooping I think it's more the feeling of it coming out. She usually will keep touching it as it comes out and gets poop all over her!

I try to tell her we don't touch poop but she's not really getting it.

She pooped in her dipe yesterday and threw a 20 min fit..

[Monkey Keeper]

Even one hard, slightly painful poop can really throw them for a loop. ITA with the PP to back off p/l completely wrt to poop. You just want her to go, so you are doing the right thing there. Also, it's important to keep her poop super soft so that she relearns that pooping does not hurt. Our GI told us it needs to be about the consistency of applesauce for an extended period of time and that one hard poop can restart the cycle. Good luck....this is no fun for anyone!

[iheartwren]

My DD did this too and it is so hard!  It has become a several month ordeal.  We tried to really change her diet and working on making her poop soft but she was so worried.  She would work so hard to hold it and make herself miserable and us miserable.  This went on for over a month.  We ended up putting her on miralax just to try to get her to have soft enough poops.  I hated to used medicine but it was not getting better and she was holding it longer and longer (up to 5  days).  We had almost finished using the miralax and then we had a bit of a setback when we traveled and she started holding it again and so she is back on taking the medicine.  I know there is some controversy about whether to use miralax but after talking to our pediatrician we feel okay about it for now.  I just would really be proactive because it can become such a vicious cycle. Good luck!

[sosurreal09]

She is still BFing though and her poops are soft! That's what I don't get!

[Monkey Keeper]

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

She is still BFing though and her poops are soft! That's what I don't get!

It really only takes ONE.  And I doubt it would have to be *that* hard to feel uncomfortable. Also there can be a control element. My DD who dealt with this is very Type A--everything her way, goes bonkers when things don't go according to her internal plan. She still, years later, is panicked a little bit by diarrhea because it feels out of control to her.

Have you tried talking to her about why she needs to go? What purpose it serves in keeping her body healthy? Or reading a book about it?

[dejagerw]

My son did this too. And his poops were always soft. What I found helps us is to just try to relax over the whole thing. She's probably keying in on some of your anxiety surrounding the whole poop thing. Just keep offering her high fiber foods, lots of water and that's really all you can do. My son would go back and forth, "I want a diaper", "no diaper, underwear". "I need to poop" "No, I'm all done" he'd do this repeatedly over the course of 1 minute. It would last sometimes 30 minutes of this until he finally pooped, somewhere. My getting upset just seemed to fuel the fire.

I told my son that he's in charge of his poop. And that when his body tells him to poop, he should go. If he doesn't he might get a belly ache. I told him that I cannot make him poop, he has to do it himself. Finally, both of us relaxing over the whole thing seemed to help. When he's get upset on the potty I tried distracting him and singing him songs, and reading him stories. After a couple weeks pooping got easier. A couple months later he had another setback when pooping would freak him out. That lasted another couple weeks, but then he got better with it.

It will get easier!!

[mkksmom]

Oh, my LO freaked about using a diaper too, but for her, it was most familiar and definitely helped. After coming in with me and talking about how you feel so much better afterward, she just became less and less afraid. I read that sometimes they are afraid because they feel like they are losing a piece of themselves. I dunno. But I can say with all certainty that the thing that helped was bringing her in the bathroom ever time I had to go for a while.