The Poop Scoop

warning: This is a post about poop. I'm a mom and this is my life. you have been warned:)

So as I said in my last post, Rusty had his surgery on his shoulder the first week of November. The week before Sophie hadn't pooped in like 6 or 7 days and when she finally did man oh man it was the blowout of the century! (Ok I have a feeling that we're going to say "poop" a lot so to make it more reader friendly let's just say "fluff" instead)I hoped that it was just a one time thing, not fluffing for a week, because she seemed to be pretty uncomfortable and sad towards the end of that week. But the day of Rusty's surgery she hadn't gone in 3 days and was sad and grunty so I called the Ped. office and they wanted me to bring her in to see the doc. So I had a recovering from surgery husband who needed a lot of attention, a newly potty training little boy, and a non fluffing baby who needed to see the doctor. I dropped Conner off at a neighbors house and took Soph to see the doc. They said that they like to see babies who are this little with poop problems because it could be a sign of intestinal troubles (Oh no!) but luckily that wasn't the case and they sent me with the orders of 1 ounce of prune juice a day and glycerin suppositories as needed if she hadn't gone in 4-6 days just to get things moving. For those who don't know (I had to have the doc write it down for me because I was like "a glycer-what a what?") a G Suppository is a little pellet thing that you stick up their bum and it stimulates things and in Soph's case she fluffs in about 2 minutes. So now if they ever ask on who wants to be a millionaire you will win. Anyway, that and the prune juice started things going which was awesome!

But when one problem ends another starts. I guess because life just can't be that easy. 2 days later Conner, who didn't really have the whole fluff thing down himself in the potty training department decided to stop going all together. So we bought him a big blue Jeep toy and put it on top of the TV stand and said when he got a big fluff in the potty he could have it. Well he just started ripping off his pants and couldn't get to the potty fast enough! He sat on the potty for over an hour and no fluff came. And after that he just didn't go. It seemed to start out as he couldn't go and turned into he wouldn't go. He held it for so long that he was making himself sick and he had would wake up with a fever of 102 degrees in the middle of the night crying that it hurt. No matter how many times I told him that all he had to do was go fluff and he would feel all better he still wouldn't go. I called the pediatrician and they said to increase his fiber (lots of fruit, no dairy, etc) and see what happened. Well nothing happened and so I called again the next day (by how we were on day 6) and they had me bring him in. They said that he has a common condition with potty training called poop withholding where the child is simply just afraid. We'll just call it poopaphobia. (or I guess fluffaphobia) The cure to fluffaphobia is time. That's it. They need to get over physiologically whatever is making them scared to go and it could take up to 6 months! So doc said to give him some miralax in apple juice and it should force him to go by the end of the day. Well he still didn't go until 2 days later! That's how much he didn't like it. But he finally went and got his Jeep yay! but he was still scared to go. a month passed and we were still having troubles and I would call my mom up every week almost crying and just talking about my non-fluffing children's potty habits until I found this:

I can't I won't No Way: A book for children who refuse to poop. The ugliest book in the world and makes not a lot of sense half of the time but it's about a little boy who is scared to fluff and one day just does and it's great and fantastic. Something in this really poorly written crazy illustrated book clicked with him and he went the first night I read it to him and has been relatively great ever since. It took him about 3 months to really get over things and some days he dances around and I ask if he has to go potty and he says "I just holding my poop" sigh. but that only last like a day.

So why tell this reeeeally long story about fluff? (and sorry it's so long. I tend to ramble...) well I had no where to turn when I was going through this. Most people I talked to didn't even know it could be an issue and just said "sorry" and I was just so lost as what to do. I don't know if it was just a combination of everything happening at once or WHAT but this was really so hard and I think and I would  have loved to have a recommendation of a book like this.

So that's my poop story. And just in case anybody wants to know Sophie reverted back to her old ways is just one of those magical babies who only fluffs once every 10 days or so. But it definitely saves on wipes! So if your baby is like Sophie then that is normal too and don't freak out like I did!


The End!