It's a reasonable assumption that if you've found your way here, you've probably read, oh, ten or twelve other blogs or boards in relation to potty training issues. If you haven't started training yet, let me make one thing abundantly clear: Do not let pretentious parents inadvertently shame you into training too early. "Mmm, my Cocoa was potty trained at thirteen months." Well, isn't that just f*ing precious. That's all well and good, and I hope she delights in reading Tolstoy whilst dropping her plops in the porcelain seat of honor but guess what? It's not the standard. I cannot stress enough the importance of waiting until YOUR CHILD is ready for potty training. Why am I so bent on that? Oh, four months of personal hell might have something to do with it.
Just after our little girl turned two, I got on the potty training wagon. Mind you, two really doesn't seem too early for potty training, however, it was too early for our girl. We were just too determined to let a little something like her lack of readiness get in the way. And so, even more determined than her parents, our little girl decided, "All right, yeah, that's cool. I'm uh... just not going to poop ever again." And she came pretty close.
It all started in June. Or I guess I should say, it all stopped. Our daughter started holding in her poops. Until your child starts to do this on a regular basis, you really can't appreciate the intense level of stress and anguish it causes both parent and child. It didn't take long for me to decide to stop even having her go pee on the potty (which she could do when put there but a) Didn't understand when the function was about to occur and b) Wasn't even all that sharp about being able to pull up and down her pants.) Even after we stopped putting her on the potty, the damage was done. We'd been so insistent about the pooping, she held it too long and it hurt when she went and the pain of that was something she was not willing to forget. She was actively choosing not to go.
When she would actively hold in her bowel movements, you would think she was auditioning for The Exorcist. She would instantly drop to the floor, squirm around and cry. At times, she would scream hysterically, become sweaty, and shout all sorts of things. Understand also, that this was a child who had fantastic language skills and comprehension. But no amount of logic or reasoning on our part could convince her that it was okay to poop. 'Everybody Poops'? Our kid's response? Not on my watch. 'It Hurts When I Poop'- many parents' saving grace when mired in this hell... ineffective. Bribery was attempted with very little success. At this point, we didn't even ask her to go on the toilet. We were pretty much begging her to go in a diaper. Hell, at the peak of this, she could have done it on grandma's wedding quilt and that would have been okay.
On average, she'd hold it for 4-5 days. When she did go, it was traumatic. Even when her stool wasn't all that hard. In fact, even when her stool was the consistency of pudding, she'd still be a mess. The longest she went without pooping was nine days. NINE. DAYS. And every time she held it longer than two days, she would get progressively crazier. This was not our funny, smart little girl anymore. In addition to all the behavior changes, her stomach became distended and was often rock hard. Summer of fun with my adventurous two year old? Not even close.
So, what did the doctors do? Well, they weren't terribly concerned (which as you can imagine was very frustrating). She was put on Miralax which is only a stool softener, not a laxative. In the very long run, this was helpful but I'm talking months down the line. We tried a suppository once. Once was enough. The execution was a failure on my part and opting not to traumatize her further, we never did it again. The doctor (understandably) didn't want to perform an enema and we were quite on board with that. This all started with a painful poop, shoving more things up her little buns wasn't going to do us any favors.
The Combinations That Led to Healing:
- Miralax (the highest dose we could go)
- Magnesium Citrate (sparingly)
- Tons of prune juice
- No dairy
- Lots of water
- No processed foods
- Minimal carbs
- The right fruits and veggies
- Exercise
- Mystical Parenting Mojo
Okay, so Magnesium Citrate... nectar of the gods. It eliminates the option of whether or not to go. Takes a few hours to work but flushed her out pretty good. We tended to see an improvement after each use. All told, over four months I think we only resorted to this three times and only when it was dire. The important thing was: she had to re-learn how to poop on her own. She couldn't become too dependent on medicine to make her go.
Change in diet was helpful to make the stool softer and encourage regulaity. It also helped that for some beguiling reason, she loves prune juice. We used to mix it with water and white grape but man, she would down that stuff straight.
Exercise. Over the summer, it got to the point where my child would only poop at the playground. Seriously. If I wanted to kinda trick her into pooping, I'd take her to the playground, let her run around. It got things moving and in the beginning, she'd panic, plant herself on the ground, wiggle around and sometimes, refuse to go. Other times, she would bear down like she had all the might of Thor and fill her diaper. I even had to switch up which playgrounds I took her to. Believe me, as I drove to one of many parks last summer I thought, "Jesus, what am I going to do come winter???"
Mystical Parenting Mojo? What on earth is this? Well, this was a complicated issue and we'll get to that. We made an appointment for a G.I. specialist, then suddenly, she started going every couple of days. Marvelous! We cancelled the appointment and cut back on the Miralax. Big mistake. She didn't necessarily go back to square one, but she started holding for 4-5 days again. So, I rescheduled the appointment, we upped the Miralax and kept with everything we were doing. About a month later, she started to improve again and would even go and triumphantly exclaim, "I made poops!! And it didn't even hurt!!" But I kept the appointment anyway. The G.I. specialist was amazing. He showed me diagrams of the digestive tract, explained how everything functions (beyond just your standard high school health lesson). He shared information about this particular problem, what sparks it, what helps it. He gave our girl her check-up, and after listening to me, this is what he relayed:
- As we suspected, her problem was not physical. It was psychological. She was just afraid to poop.
- "Keep doing exactly what you're doing."
- "Little ones don't understand that we get what is going on. They think they're alone in this. Let her know you know what is happening and how she feels and that will help her be less afraid."
- "She may backslide a little bit again, but just keep everything up and keep calm. That's important.
- "Once she's had a somewhat hard poop and realizes it's okay, you can start cutting back on the Miralax."
It was a great relief to have a specialist assess her and to know that she would be okay. My husband and I couldn't understand how our sometimes ridiculously smart girl couldn't figure out that it wouldn't hurt anymore. The doctor told me that this poop holding nightmare is often done by kids who are pretty smart, so it wasn't a matter of her being a few watts short. (Mind you, she's not reading Tolstoy on the crapper like Cocoa but...)
Let's get back to that mojo. The biggest part of that was not freaking out when she freaked out. If that sounds like common sense, that's because it is. However, when you've been obsessing and languishing in the throes of a toddler poo strike, common sense is a faraway memory... one you're pretty sure you actually forget. Every status update was pretty much poop or no poop. Most greetings were followed up by a wince and the question," So... how's the little one?" Those who were astute could tell right off, if I could focus and I was smiling, she'd pooped in the last 24 hours. This brand of toddler problem sucks the brains right out of you. Both my husband and I were nearly as crazed as our daughter by summer's end. I almost mind telling you, the stress visibly aged me and by the end of summer I was suffering from depression. We were powerless to help her, at least in our eyes. That takes a toll on your heart and mind. We just wanted her to be okay.
Holding poop is not the worst thing a kid can go through. My husband and I said on many occasions that our little family could have it a lot worse. But when you're watching your kid writhe on the floor, scream and cry in pain, struggle to concentrate, and get hysterical over nothing, it kills you. So if you're going through this, or you know someone who is, first and foremost, I understand your plight and I'm sorry. I also want to say, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. That light will however, be a train at least two or three times. But after getting run down by a few locomotives, yes, you'll work through this problem with your little one.
Gradually, our girl became more confident in her pooping. She poops every day now. She'll even poop on command. She's proud of her ability to go poop and we're praising the good Lord that she's so regular. She still gets the smallest bit of Miralax (we gradually reduced), still drinks prune juice regularly. We don't do a lot of dairy, still try to avoid anything processed (although, I'm gonna be honest with you, sometimes some Chick-fil-a waffle fries do the trick for grease'n her up).
In a couple months, she'll be three. As such, I thought we should give potty training another try. We'd gone back to peeing on the potty and now she was capable of pulling up and down her pants, wiping, understood the process. So, I opted to do the 3 day intensive training. (Pee only and there was no way I was trashing diapers and Pull-Ups on our budget). On day 2, I pretty much wanted to give up. In the morning on day 3, my husband was on duty while I went to a meeting and when I came home, she'd apparently gone to the potty unprompted twice. He just walked into the bathroom and she was finishing up. It was starting to click. She didn't have any accidents that day. When she needed to poop, she told me and I put her in a Pull-Up and she went to her favorite spot to go. And this, folks, I will happily permit her to do until she's old enough to drive. She's getting the pee process, announcing when she has to go and going to the bathroom on her own. We're still doing the bottomless thing around the house (though I doubt we'll keep that up for three months) and it's promising to see that she's capable of understanding the need to go and then carrying out the task appropriately. As far as pooping goes, I'd say I learned my damn lesson the first time. We'll work on that gradually. She has gone on the toilet, but I'm not pushing it. That hurdle will be jumped when she's good and ready.
Best of luck to anyone going through this. Sympathize with your kid, flush 'em with poo softening liquids, keep them moving, and try the impossible: keep your cool!
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