Constipation/pooping woes w/potty learning aged children - Page 12

[annekevdbroek]

topping for two moms on the toddler forum.....

[Way Up North]

Just subbing in so I can read through all of this. I have a 29 month old who has had constipation issues her whole life and now, after being sick, constipated and passing (er, not passing, they got stuck!) very hard stool she is with holding and even the signs of having to go are disappearing completely despite high doses of lactulose and all the 'right' foods, liquids, flax etc. I am now haveing to give her a supp every 4-5 days because she can't sleep and is miserable and not eating but won't go. What comes out eventually is diarhea after super soft very pass-able stuff but she won't let go.
So I'll be back!
L

[AmyShin]

So here I am, jumping on the poop wagon! Wish my DD would... can't believe after all the googling I find all this here on MDC in my backyard! I have been so torn between using Miralax and knowing that it is such a major UNnatural chemical solution... glad to see that other moms are like me... just glad there is an answer!!!

DD is 3.2, she has been having poop issues for about 9 months. I go away for a weekend (my first weekend away) and come back to a constipated baby and a future of skid marks and withholding. She has not been constipated since that one time... but the kid apparently has a memory like an elephant.

The last couple weeks we have been potty training and she is very excited about panties and will pull them down and climb on the potty and pee on her own. But she is holding (and leaking) until she wears a diaper to poo. We have preschool 4 mornings a week and I have a feeling she saves it for then. (They are ok with diapers there.)

After reading about the behavior issues... suddenly a lot of her "spiritedness" is becoming clear... and I'll bet predictable based on the bloated belly.

I've never been steady with the Miralax. I just dose her once in a while when I realize she hasn't had a big messy diaper in a few days. I do 1 tsp in 2 oz. of juice (she usually doesn't get juice so she sucks it right down with no question) twice in 24 hours. That usually stimulates a few messy diapers in a row and seems to clear her. She is a GREAT eater (knock on wood) so I can feed her lots of veggies and fruits and she loves her steel cut oats every morning. She also has spinach/fruit smoothies with CodLiver oil and Flax oil and yogurt 3-4 times a week. That is probably why she hasn't had any further issues with constipation.

Although... tell me what is "too firm" for bowel movements? My peditrician recommended the miralax and suggested peanut butter is the best consistency. Any other recommendations? Did someone say oatmeal? That seems runnier than peanut butter. OMG, this is TMI. :P

I can't wait until my DH comes home from out of town on business tomorrow. He is going to read all 12 @!#$!# pages of this thread! This is going to give us the strength to stop worrying about this and let her take control. As long as we can control the Magic Miralax and she is peeing on the potty... it feels like progress. And as long as the paraprofessional at preschool doesn't start charging us per pound.... UGH... the woman is a SAINT.

God bless you ladies! Thanks for all your progress reports.

[MtBikeLover]

I posted before but thought i would give an update. We are still using pecans and having great luck!! My daughter is pretty regular right now and she just has to eat a few pecans a day. She knows that they help her poop so she eats them.

If she skips more than 2 days of eating pecans, she does go back to being constipated so i keep a pretty big supply of pecans on hand.

[smallburger]

just went through a similar situation with 2.5yo dd. it's hard not to freak out thinking your kid is setting themselves up for a lifetime of bowel issues. i took bits and pieces of advice from other mom friends and basically just fed her stuff to keep her loose. she was not exactly constipated, but would keep herself from pooping for days at a time, even though she needed to. raisins and graham crackers are my favoritesm, and someone told me that the 'p' fruits are the best for this (pears, peaches, plums), which are hard to find this time of year, but dried and canned will do as well. i just tried not stress and gave her a diaper if she asked for it... basically foregoing the potty lesson in favor of just getting it out of her. once she started pooping again, i would just take off her pants when she started talking about needing to poop. we had one accident on the kitchen floor, but since then, she's been able to get to the potty and doesn't freak out nearly as much. she still says she doesn't want to poop, but i think she's figured out finally that she doesn't have a choice. still will only use the little potty, and not the big one for poop, but who cares!

good luck, and know that you are in good company! there's lots of pooping phobia out there.

[boatbaby]

This is such a long thread, so sorry if this is old news... I didn't have time to read everything.

Just wanted to say quickly -- we were in the same boat and I was able to quickly find the culprit (took a few months) in his newest favorite food -- chocolate milk. DS never had any cow's milks until about age 3, and then he discovered choc. milk and also had the major constipation and potty fears.

We stopped the cow's milks -- it ended within about 48 hours. A kept him milk free for several weeks, happy pooper. Let him have some milk... BAM! Plugged up again.
If you google "milk allergy constipation" you'll find lots of info...

Here is a quick quote from a study backing this up:


Researchers at the University of Palermo in Italy worked with 65 children with chronic constipation. All of these children had been treated with laxatives when dietary measures had failed. Even with the medical treatment, these children were still constipated, having hard, painful stools only every 3 to 15 days. Forty-nine of the their little bottoms had fissures and redness or swelling from the hard plugs of stool.

Each child received either cow's milk or soymilk for 2 weeks, with no one knowing which was which. Next, they had a week during which they could eat and drink anything they wanted to wash out the effects of the first 2 weeks. Then they switched sides for 2 weeks and got the milk that they didn't get the first time. Careful recordings of the bowel habits were made.

When the secret code was broken at the end of the study, they found status quo constipation for each child while he or she was on cow's milk. But while they were taking soymilk (which causes firmer stools in most kids), 68% of these kids were no longer constipated! The redness, swelling, and fissures on their bottoms healed (New England Journal of Medicine, 1998; 339:1100-1104). How wonderful to finally have relief after diet and medicines hadn't worked for so long!

The results were most dramatic in kids who also had frequent runny noses, eczema, or wheezing. Nevertheless, sometimes constipation can be the only symptom of cow's milk intolerance.

This has broad implications. The children in this study were those with severe chronic constipation that was unresponsive to medications. I am convinced that they are only the tip of the iceberg. There must be a much larger group of mildly allergic children whose constipation improves with laxatives. Time may prove that it is better for these children to avoid the offending protein by switching milks rather than being treated with laxatives.

Presumably, swelling of the intestinal lining causes the constipation. Whatever the exact mechanism, the problem is with the protein in cow's milk, not with the fat or lactose (the sugar). Skim milk or lactose-free milk will not help with this one. Switching to soymilk and other soy products might transform the life of your son in only a couple of weeks!

Source: http://www.drgreene.com/21_106.html