My child refuses to "let the poops out"
by Stacy Nagel, Ph.D.
My daughter is 2 years, 5 months old. On and off, over the past several months, but especially the past month and a half, she's been withholding her stool. We've got her on a high fiber diet (which isn't easy to maintain -- there's no such thing as high fiber cheese or yogurt), she takes a dose of Senokot each day, and she says she'll "let the poops out", but we continue to see her straining to hold it in.
I hate to traumatize her with enemas, but she recently got to the point where she wouldn't even sit or walk because she was trying so hard to withhold! Do you have any advice or suggested reading material? I'd be most grateful!"
My suggestions really depend on whether or not your daughter was going poopy in the potty regularly before she started having problems withholding her stool. If you are currently trying to potty train her and she is withholding, my advice would actually be to "back away" a bit and try to wait a few more months until she, herself, indicates that she is ready to "let the poops out." Pediatricians and developmental psychologists have found that potty training often becomes a control issue between the child and his/her parent(s). When the child feels like they control the issue, they are more likely to actually train themselves. When the child is constantly reminded of the issue, they sometimes will feel overwhelmed, and will engage in a power struggle with their parent(s).
We had a similar problem with my daughter while we were potty training and our pediatrician suggested that we might be focusing on the issue too much and if we try not to say ANYTHING about it and let our daughter decide when SHE was ready, it might work better for all. Perhaps "laying low" on the issue for awhile and allowing her to wear pull-ups instead of underwear will help.
However, if you daughter was already going pretty regularly on the potty and has stopped over the past few months, you, of course, don't want to make her switch back to pull-ups or diapers. My daughter was still not going poopy on the potty even after age three. So, our pediatrician suggested that we let her poop in her underwear and then make her clean the underwear. Not only did I not like this idea for hygiene reasons, my daughter actually ENJOYED cleaning her underwear the one time we did try it (that wasn't supposed to be what happened --- the cleaning of the underwear was supposed to make her NOT want to have to do it again and to WANT to go on the potty instead!!)
What did we finally do? We used rewards, which I never thought I would do, but, guess what? It worked. We told our daughter that if she TRIED to go on the potty when she had to poop, she'd get a sticker at the end of the day. Then, we said nothing else about it during the day (that is, we didn't remind her to go or ask her if she had to go). We rewarded her for any level of trying (that is, even if she didn't go on the potty every single time, but tried to go most of the time on the potty). She wanted the stickers, so she went poopy on the potty. We only had to give her the stickers for about five days, and then she would go on the potty without the reinforcement of the stickers being necessary.
So, it really depends on whether or not you are in the midst of potty training or had already potty trained and now your daughter is stopping what she used to do. Either way, I would try not to make the poop issue a main issue and try your best (and I KNOW this is hard), not to ask her if she has to go a lot or remind her to go.
Enough Poop