Toddler Constipation. :-(

What works for one of my sons is the following: white grape juice, eating raisins daily or dried fruit leather. Also, he loves sweet potatoes so all I have to do is bake a couple and give them to him for a couple of days an voila. He holds it often...does not like the sensation but when it's all ready to come out he has not choice but to allow it. Good luck.

My 1-yr old was constipated for 5 days once. Both Dr. and Pharmacist recommended white grape juice. Worked like a charm. He actually liked it so much, he started drinking it every day (now I dilute with water 1/2 and 1/2), never had the problem again. Good luck!

Stay on Miralax for now, half a scoop a day. Some kids are on this for years! My daughter was the same as yours only she didn't get better until 5 years old!! (Last December) After holding it for 18 days, getting a hospital enema and still no BM. After a 5 day cleanout: enema one day, suppository the next, 2 tbls of mineral each night for 5 days in a drink and the half scoop of Miralax she finally started going daily on her own and has been doing great since. All the fresh fruits/veggies/whole grains and flax oil,water, etc.. will NOT make your child go poop (this is all my child ate). Once the colon is stretched out from holding, the stool becomes impacted and the child is unable to push it out. It will just collect and some liquid might get by. The name of this condition is Encopresis. My daughter had this for over 3 years and was written off as constipated. I was told to up the fruits/veggies/whole grains, etc.. she was on everything whole and natural. Get some help from someone who knows about Encopresis now so she isn't 5 and still holding her poop. This is very common and she will get better. If you live in the Inland Empire, email me and I'll give you the number of the specialist we saw.

Don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions, I know how you feel!
M.

Hi J., my 22 month son went from every day to every two days atleast partly coz he's become such a picky eater (if at all) so what works for him is the Dole fruit cups in peaches and cream, and I eat raisin bran cereal (tasty) which sometimes he'll eat with me and within an hour or two or that day he goes.

best of luck!

Hi J.:
I have a 2 years old baby with the same situation. At least the Miralax works well for him. But the most important to say is that you can buy whole wheat (I buy it in Henrys), you can add this to fruits or yogurt, it work very well for constipation. Good luck

M.

Hi J. -
Yeah, we went through something similar and it is not fun. What we found with a our little boy is that it is best to get rid of all dairy (especially cheese) and bananas in the diet. Also, when several days have passed without a poop, we inserted a suppository into his bottom...he hated this, but it can save a kid's life if the poop just won't come out.
Laxatives just didn't work for our son, and it can dehydrate little bodies.

All of this does pass (no pun intended), so hang in there.
- L.

No dairy products they plug up the system. Canned peaches or pears, and not very healthy but chewing gum...Epsin Salts very small amount in the bath. 1/4 cup in a bath and it will work within a day. Cheese is the worse thing. Blessings

Hi J.:
I know this is difficult watching you sweet little girl go through this.Unfortunately now she is afraid to have a bowel movement,for fear its going to be painful.You need to get her back on track,and the only way you can do that is through (diet) You need to cut back on the milk first. That is a contributing factor for her constipation. The reason is, that the more milk she drinks,the fuller it makes her feel,therefore she is eating less,and not geting the fiber she needs to cure the constipation.(It is not recomended) to give her (straight apple juice)Like alot of fruit juices it contains(sorbitol) a (natural occuring sugar alcolhol)This can cause cramps and bloating. If she insists on juice,then dilute it first with water.What helps her constipation,is the (fiber) in the flesh and skin of the apple. If she likes her apple peeled as my kids did then the flesh of the apple is fine.(Cut out the little snacks,and give her meats, fruit,a variety of veggies, and oatmeal or cream of wheat.make sure she gets her breads. Stay away from rasins right now,or anything with seeds,that could cause pain while passing. Just cut back on milk,feed her more food with fiber.That will get her going again,and once she realizes it doesn't hurt to have a movement,she'll stop holding it. The very best to you and your darlin girl.

You have a classic case of battle of wills going on. She's figured out that she can manipulate and control you because she won't poop. It doesn't matter that it hurts because she would rather fight the battle with you. I have a couple of nieces who do the same thing to their parents, and once they laid off and let her be in control (total control) of their pooping they were fine. She is only 2.5 she's going to have accidents, it's not the end of the world!!! What have you ever learned perfectly the first time in your life? We make mistakes we have to allow our children to make them also, and yes sometimes their mistakes mean more work for us, but is it more important to raise a child that is responsible for herself or "perfect"?

If a child feels that they have no control over things in their life they will take control over whatever they can even it means hurting themselves. Perhaps you need to let her take a little more control of things in her life not just pooping.

I have 5 children and I have learned through sad experience that when I decided when my kids had to poop, pee, eat, sleep, play, we had nothing but problems. My oldest son would sit on the floor and fight the urge to have a bowel movement, the more I hassled him the longer he held it, and the worse it was when he couldn't hold it any longer.

Just relax, she's still learning about her body and the more you try to tell her what she is feeling the more she will fight you so that she can be in control. She's learning a very painful lesson but the more you try to tell her what she is learning the more she's going to fight you.

Think about your own life, do you really know when you are full? Do you need someone to tell you when you are really tired? Do you need someone to tell you when you are too hot or too cold? Do you like it when people tell you "I told you so.."? If you don't like things then neither does your daughter. Now don't get me wrong I don't believe in letting kids do whatever they want when they want, that is not responsible parenting. I do firmly believe that we have to teach children to be responsible for themselves, and sometimes the best way to do that is to let go of a little bit of control.

www.loveandlogic.com is a fabulous website for parenting tools. It has changed the way I relate to my kids and has taken off a lot of pressure.

Good luck

I had similar cases with both my sons: when the older was 15 months and the other an infant of four months right after he started feeding solids). What works for them is fruit juices at least 8oz a day for my older son and 6oz for my infant. Concentrated apple, pear, or white grape juices. It works real good. I mean, they both now have regular daily bowel movements. Another thing is to try to give more soft and not hard food that are not easy to dissolve. Hope it helps. I will pray for your little princess. God be with you.

My niece went through the same thing. However, part of her issue was diet. Her parents would just put a pull up on her and let her poop that way. She held it because she hated using the toilet. (She said it felt way too big and she was afraid of falling in) I found her one day on the bed trying to poop in a pull up and she was crying and squirming because it hurt. I do not know your daughter and how she behaves, but my niece was a very old soul (similar to myself) and so I sat down on the bed with her and talked to her. I asked her if she liked how it felt when it hurt to go poop and she said no. I told her then what she needed to do and she never had another problem. She was not consuming enough water. When the body needs water the intestines will pull it back in from the fecal matter. When it dries out it is possible to go a few days without moving your bowels. Now she only drinks water. However she had to make the decision herself. By using Miralax on your little girl you are teaching her bowels to not work on their own. A dependency can and will probably occur on the laxatives. Here are a couple of other options ... I don't care for the first one but it works. Apple juice. Apples contain a lot of fiber to help the bowels work optimally. So anything apple really... apple juice, sauce, whole apples. If she is refusing her favorite fruits it's probably more of an uncomfortable issue than anything defiant.
Another thing that you can do for her is a vitamin C flush. Basically you have to load the system with vitamin C. It will eventually give her diarrhea when you get her to a certain point. I would assume for a 2.5 year old that it would be somewhere around 2000mgs. Don't worry... Vitamin C is water soluble and the body won't store it so it's non-toxic unlike your fat soluble vitamins.
But first try talking to her at her level about if she likes being in pain or not and how she has TOTAL control over whether she's in pain like that again. It may not work for your daughter like it did with my niece, but it's worth a try! Good luck :D

J.,

I know exactly what you are going through. My daughter will be 5 years old next month and has suffered constapation problems for the past 2 1/2 years. She is also on Miralax, but gets it daily. We have had to do MAJOR clean outs in the past, and that is NO FUN. You definately don't want to get it to that point. When my daughter gets backed up for more than 3 days, I give her 3/4 of a square of Ex-lax (told by the doctor to do this). I too did baby enamas, and it turned out to be a huge mistake......she remembered them for a long time, and was even more scared to go. My daughter, like yours, eats tons of veggies and fruit, no sweets and drinks mainly soy milk and water. However, I MUST keep her Miralax doeses daily because she had trained her body to hold her bowels.

You might want to see a pediatric Gastrointestinal Specialist (we have) who can give you more insight into the problem. Please don't let it get too out of hand. My daughter wound up being dianosed with Encopresis and I have had to deal with trying to reverse this for the past 2 1/2 years. Just last month she started wearing underware daily instead of pull-ups.

I'm not trying to scare you. I just wish someone had warned me to not let things escalate a lot earlier.

Best of luck to you.

L.

I had the same problem with my three year old and Miralax works well for us. The doctor said I could keep him on it for a while, but don't like that idea. So, if my son has even a small sign of a harder stool, I will give him a 1/2 capful until it is normal and then stop and so on. Also, I found that pure organic (not from concentrate) apple juice and also prune juice (organix not from concentrate) and don't delute it. Also, I have heard mineral oil added to juice, but haven't tried it.

Hope this helps. It is so awful to see them in that much pain.

You may want to try prune juice. I haven't experienced what you are going through, but did have one bought with my son when he was two. I had always mixed his juice with half water, but used the prune juice full strength. He had a movement within a short time. Maybe a little prune juice each day to get her into the routine?

your daughter needs water. Apple juice, prunes, aloe vera juice also help. Learn basic reflexology and give her foot massages around the stomach, colon area. a quick internet search will on the subject will show you how. Learn about homeopathics, they are great and have no side effects. please dont put her on prescription drugs!

Constipation is common in toddlers as they are learning to toilet train etc. When my daughter went through it at this age as well, we were referred to a pediatric Gastroenterologist.
We were told that constipation like this is two-fold issue... it is physical/biological and emotional. For your daughter, since she eats well and healthily... you may want to increase her liquid intake... water, pear juice, prune juice, "whole" apple juice, which is what was recommended to us. Certain foods are "binding" and certain foods are not. So feed her liquids/foods which will promote a looser stool... (sorry I don't remember all of them).

Keep in mind that overcoming it, the constipation, can take from a month to several months. As the child gets more and more constipated (by "with-holding" it), the stool gets more and more impacted in their system....then this makes it more and more difficult to pass stool, and it makes it more and more painful to go to the toilet to let it out. It becomes a vicious cycle.... then, because of that, the child "withholds" even more.

For us, in conjunction with a good fiber diet and liquids, we were told to give our girl Mineral oil. (I forget the quantity)... but, this will internally loosen the stool and soften it and make it easier to release it, diminishing the associated "pain" from constipation. I would not overdo laxatives/suppositories etc. on a toddler. I do not know about Miralax either as we never used that.

You may also try to try Homeopathic alternatives. I'm sure if you do a Google search there will probably be things that pop up.

This is just my experience and do not intend for this to be a "prescription" for your girl. However, in our case, it took about 1-2 months for my daughter to get over the constipation problem. If your regime for your daughter is not working... I would recommend seeing a specialist. Remember, that as the child withholds from pooping and gets more constipated... the system gets more impacted and it just exacerbates the problem.

Just wanted to share our experience.... Good luck, I know it's not comfortable, and take care.
~Susan
www..cafepress.com/littlegoogoo

Hi J.,
I've been through this with both my kids. My son got so bad he threw-up after eating and finally needed a GI clean-out. I don't suggest going through that! With my daughter, we've had her on Lactulose for years. Here's what my doc has told me...You need to keep your child on the meds daily at a working dose for 1 YEAR. The intestines stretch when they constantly hold in their poop and it takes a year to get the intestines back to normal. This is not something to take lightly because the GI clean-out is horrible. I have also found that my daughter gets constipated when her allergies flair up. When we get her allergies under control, she gets better with the constipation as well. I have also found that limiting milk intake seems to help a bit and eating carrots seems to really help get things moving (more than anything else). Hope this helps.

Have you thought about giving her like cranberry juice to help soften her pooh. Or another juice that saftens it up.

I know this really may not be a solution but whenever my 2.5 year old gets constipated I give hi cranberry juice and out it comes.