The Poop Scoop (again)

Poop withholding.  uggggg. It's a killer! Anyone heard of it or dealt with it?  It's pretty simple. Basically the potty trainee does not GO 2! EVER! Apparently 1 in 5 children potty training go through it. And lucky me Conner did it. It was crazy and hard and stressful and not awesome at all and included dr visits and everything. (he once went 7 days with out pooping an ounce! SEVEN DAYS!) So since 1 in 5 go through it I figured unless I had 6 kids (which I was sure would never happened since I never wanted to potty train another human being as long as I lived, let alone 5 more) my odds said I had served my sentence. Right? Right? WRONG! My sweet cute fun little Sophie is now holding in the stinks. and boy does it stink!

first day potty of training!!!

I did the 3 day potty training method (totally recommend!!!) mid January and she did beautifully with #1. It was amazing! But the 2...not so much. So I've been doing a lot of research of how to help her and let me tell ya, everyone's got an opinion. Here's what I've learned thus far: ahem

 Poop withholding is always about control. Unless the child is terrified to go. Poop withholders are always just scared.  Just ignore it. By you not caring the child will not be stressed about it and get over it. If you ignore it and don't nip it in the bud then it could turn into a life long psychological problem and they might become the rooftop killer. Tell your child that poop is stinky and gross and make a big deal about it being icky and yucky but don't ever talk about poop in a negative way. It will make the child even more afraid of it. Put a pull up or diaper back on them and let them go in it. Never put them back in diapers or pull ups once potty trained, it just confuses them. When they do poop have a party! Wear hats, do a dance, eat ice cream, throw a parade, ride a pony, buy them a car, but don't make a big deal about it because pooping is what is expected of them.
Give them mineral oil. Don't give anyone under the age of 12 mineral oil. Give them milk of magnesia. Don't give anyone under the age of 8 milk of magnesia. Give them Miralax. Don't give them Miralax. It's probably anthrax.

Thanks google search people.

All joking aside, I don't think anyone who has never gone through it can fully understand just how stressful it is. If I tell anyone about it most people tend to brush it off and say "oh. That sound's weird, I've never heard of that. It will pass I'm sure. She's gotta go sometime!" and I know it will pass, but people don't realize how hard it is to get to it passing (haha no pun intended. really!) First of all it is probably pretty unhealthy to keep the stinks inside so I stress about that, but the hardest is the pain that the kids have to endure. There's the waking up in the middle of the night crying that her bum hurts, or her tummy hurts, and wants me to fix it and I as a mommy have nothing I can do but tell her to poop. There's the sitting on the potty for 1 1/2 hours straight in the middle of the night while she tenses up straight as a board to hold it in every time she feels an urge. There's the bum rashes, and the hiding and shame when she finally can't hold it and has an accident in her kitty underwear. It kind of breaks my mommy heart. And it doesn't help anything that it's tax season so my tax accountant husband is non existent and I'm dealing with it as a single momma which  is pretty fun.

 

So wish us luck, say some prayers, send us some pixie dust and let's hope we can get this little girl over her big fear of the big 2! (and if you are a 1 in 5 who has gone through this and have any tips I'd be happy to hear them!)

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!