Potty training...ha Ha! Think Not! PLEASE!

My daughter has battled constipation for years. She is 6. What works mainly for us now is giving her Miralax in strawberry milk.

As for when she trained, (between 2.5 and 3y) two things helped.
1. A cute pink princess potty chair that had a large seat and soft cushion. I had one in each bathroom. We picked a 3 day weekend, stocked up and stayed home!

This was the chair we used. Super soft and easy to empty!
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Safety-1st-Comfy-Cushy-3-in-1-P...

2. The DVD Potty Power. My daughter loved watching this, singing along, and then mimicking the princess on the DVD.
http://www.amazon.com/Potty-Power-For-Boys-Girls/dp/B002H...

They have a new princess one.
http://www.amazon.com/Potty-Power-Princess-Various/dp/B00...

i am currently trying a small Popsicle while she sits on the potty to poop. it takes longer to eat and distracts her so she relaxes.
just be sure to get good ones. u dont want to just dope her up with sugar and artificial colors all the time! or better yet, make ur own then you could even slip in a little something to help keep her stools loose.

lots or rewards. we also offered a gift for our daughter and a trip to the houston zoo for our son. thats what they wanted. it worked great. i would have a little more patience with your child because of the constipation. It could hurt her and scare her. lots of water to make her go more and help with the hard stools.

I had to bribe my son to potty train when he was three. He would have been content to poop his pants the rest of his life, i swear. Fortunately my little guy would do anything for chocolate. So we filled a big clear vase with Hershey Kisses. Everytime he made even a tiny tinkle in the potty, he got one. By the time the vase was empty (about 2 weeks) he was fully trained. I remember him telling me we needed to buy more Kisses, and I told him "Nope, I think that this really means that you are potty trained now" and he was like "Oh! Ok!" and went on his merry way. One added benefit to the chocolate treats is the high sugar content draws more water into the intestines, making it easier for them to poop.

I like the "Everybody poops" book. It helped me with my daughter.

Just make it fun. Make it a chase game. See if she can make bubbles in the toilet, etc.

if you are going to bribe....... i would think a 2 year old could be bribed with extra reading time, play doh time, coloring time with Mom.

2.5 is young for potty training under any circumstances, and it's not unusual for kids to "hold on to" their poop. I have a friend whose daughter had constipation and she took care of it with a terrific product made for kids that helps with all of that. She took it as a prenatal with her second child as well, with her doctor's blessing. If you want to chat with her, we can do that.

Dum-Dum suckers were my go-to bribe! They are the perfect size, are inexpensive and you get a whole huge bag....and most kids love suckers!

Why not wait until about 2.75 years or so and try then. I did the chart with stickers, picking out a toy at the end with one child, etc. and each child was different. One of our kids picked a small cheap little toy and that was waht he wanted as his reward at the end of being done. You don't have to spend a fortune for it. Some got a small mini marshmallow as a treat when they went. ( I prefer not to use food though. ) Have you talked with your doctor about trying Miralax to help with the constipation and holding it? Our grandsons had to be on that for holding it and constipation both. They are fine now and potty trained for some time but that did pose issues. Try waiting a bit. Then relax, pick your reward system whether a chart or stickers or treat or small toy, etc. Then be firm and stick with it but check on the Miralax.

I don't know about the specifics of CD (Crohns Disease?) but I know probiotics are amazing in helping regulate the digestive system. I didn't use chocolate for my son (he doesn't like it and its constipating) so I used Annie's Bunny Treats and potato chips which are his two favorite things. Whatever you do, be consistent!

My son just turned 2 & 1/2 and he's been fully potty trained for months. I never pressured or felt that he had to be potty trained before 3 years old. We got him a little potty before he turned 2 just to play with, sit on it, read books on it. The whole idea was to get him used to it. But he started showing signs that he could possible be potty trained right at the age of 2. He went pee on it a few times and then didn't want to. Then he went back to peeing on it. He's in a daycare & they really helped keeping up working on it with him long after the weekend would end. But we did offer him a "special treat". It was usually an M&M or some sort of chocolate. He was fully potty trained with peeing but it was harder to get him to poop on the potty. My dr. said it takes time for a child to realize the timing of having to go and really going. At first, they only feel it coming when it IS coming. It does take a while for a child to be able to grasp the concept of knowing it's coming, holding it & sitting on the potty. I decided to just do what my mother in law did with my husband-start putting him in underpants and excepting there will be accidents. Anytime he sat on the couch, we would put a blanket underneath just in case. I traveled with ample amounts of extra underpants, pants/shorts, socks and a pair of spare shoes (because if they pee...it usually drips down to there feet...took one time of me NOT realizing that to do that) & never got mad at him for an accident. When he would have one, I would just sit him on the potty after. And the poopy training happened with lots of patience, plenty of book reading in that bathroom and even a few cellphone games. Sometimes we would be in the bathroom for 30 mins or more. I would rub his back if it was hard for him to go. And a lot of times he would want me to "hide", which just means he didn't want me staring at him. I would sit there and have my head turned and be silent except for asking every so often if he was ok.That really helped. And of course, being the biggest cheerleader for him when he did go. We did everything but have a parade go down our halllway, lol. And now he's fine. But honesty, if your daughter is not willing to do it at all...that's more than common. I know plenty of kids who aren't potty trained until after the age of 3. And maybe it will take longer do to her constipation. And what about bribing with Smarties? I didn't like giving my son chocolate every time he went so we would switch off with a Smartie, jelly bean, one fruit snack, etc. FYI, we always always travel with a travel seat. All it is, is a seat that fits a toddler's bottom better and lays on top of a regular toilet. We travel and I don't like the idea of my son having to sit on a gas station toilet so I bought this (no more than $15 at Target) and it's great. We wipe it off with wipes when he's done and clean it at home when he uses it. It is always in a plastic bag in our trunk for when we travel...even if it's just to the mall.

My little girl had terrible constipation problems too. She learned at a very young age (somewhere around 12 months) to hold in her poop. We tried Miralax, but I didn't want her on it long term, so I quit using it. We just dealt with it and she started eating LOTS of baby food prunes along with other fruits and vegies. Thankfully she loved them. The only way I could get her to poop was to scoop her up when I saw her holding it in and put her back to me and pry her legs up and out so she was in a squatting position. After doing that for a year, I thought, lets just put her on the potty instead of holding her. It worked. She was completely potty trained by 23 months and her poop issue was "better". Many people warned me that potty training her, her poop issue might get worse, but I guess I was lucky that it got better. She still only goes poop every 2-3 days and doesn't like the feeling, so I have to sit on the floor next to her and most times give her a hug right when the poop is coming out, but she lets it come out.

As for training success, I used a sticker chart and 1 M&M each time she went. She had never had M&M's, so she thought 1 was a pretty big deal (plus she got to pick the color!) To teach her about the potty, we used her favorite baby doll and we both taught the baby how to use the potty (using yellow water in a syringe hidden behind the baby to pee). The baby, of course, got rewards, which my daughter got to help the baby eat.

Yes, except for the CD piece, I've been through this scenario twice. And toilet training definitely makes constipation issues worse. We were advised by doctors and pediatric therapists that it's very important to keep the toilet training fun, upbeat and low key. Pressure or trying to be on a time table makes it worse. If she's resistant back off. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but 2 1/2 is still pretty young for training. Every kid is different. My boys trained very slowly and late. My oldest had just turned 4 when he started pooping on the toilet regularly. He had been peeing in the potty for about six months. My youngest was close to 4 too.

With the oldest he started wearing underwear and peeing in the potty at age 3, but when he had to poop he asked for a pull up. We put it on, he did his thing, we quickly cleaned him up and put him back in his underwear. This was done with medical advise and recommendation. He was terrified of pooping in the toilet for some reason. He's very analytical so we appealed to that side of him--reading books about plumbing, what happens when you poop, talking about the waste water treatment plant, etc. It was actually kind of funny how as a preschooler he knew exactly how waste water treatment plants worked. We ultimately bribed him with a Thomas the Tank Engine little engine, but previous bribery had failed so I think the timing was just right.

My youngest needed the Miralax and there were concerns about serious medical problems from his constipation so we had to monitor him carefully.

Good luck!

If you buy the expensive chocolate made out of pure cocoa that is something like 60% or 70% or more/higher in cocoa, there is no gluten and/or any milk in the chocolate.

So unless your daughter is actually allergic to chocolate itself, if you buy the dark chocolate, there is no milk product in the chocolate. Cocoa butter is not dairy. it's part of the cocoa plant/what is used to make the chocolate.

Pairing dark chocolate with peanut butter or flavored jelly like strawberry or raspberry or orange marmalade would encourage her to eat the dark chocolate (because I know most children prefer milk chocolate over dark).

The better, darker chocolate with the higher cocoa content can be found at Whole Foods, some Co-ops, Trader Joe's, and even HyVee. You need to read the ingredient list carefully and make sure there is no added milk/casein/whey (American chocolate companies like to add milk. Why, I don't know.) I eat dark chocolate because of a casein allergy and absolutely LOVE it!

If you would like some names of companies who make the dark chocolate without any milk whatsoever in them, let me know, and I can pass some names on to you.

You can also use Enjoy Life! chocolate chips, which have zero dairy/casein in them and are gluten free. Again, they are dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.

Also, CALM is a wonderful product to use with young children who have constipation. It comes in different flavors and is drunk in water. It is magnesium and allows the body to "naturally" eliminate itself. My 12-year-old daughter, who suffered from constipation terribly when she was younger (saw all the experts, used the miralax and all different types/sorts of meds), will take it if she hasn't gone in 2-3 days or she feels like she needs to go but can't. It's safe, simple, efficient, and all natural.