Our 3 year old always struggled but it got worse when we started committing to toilet training. We saw our GP who advised Junior Movicol on a particular schedule, and gave us lots of info regarding diet etc. We followed it and it worked amazingly well. Now he takes 1 every few days and it’s all he needs. Definitely worth GP visit.

You can add more fibre by simply switching to wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta, brown rice – SO much better for adults too. If she doesn’t eat vegetables try baking them into cakes and muffins (eg oatbran and apple muffins, carrot cakes, zuchinni muffins) and use the wholemeal flour…. so much better and you really can’t notice a difference in taste. Be careful with products like metamucil that isn’t recommended for children without consulting a doctor first.

Does she like fruit? Pear juice, prunes, dates, mix them in foods she likes ie date scons. Does she drink lots of water? There are fibre granules she can take and things like metamucil

Fresh fruit is good, particularly oranges,apples, pears, plums etc. A great one to get things happening would be pear juice and prune juice. Stewed prunes would be my number one suggestion, but not sure if a child would like them

Yes I think bran disguised in muffins or cookies is a good suggestion!

Mandy1973, how is your daughter now? I am following this as my daughter is same and I am feeling so bad for her as she only do it 1 or 2 a week. Thank you ladies for all the suggestions.

Stewed prunes. Prune juice. Wallaby mince us good to promote regularity too

get crafty with meals. prune, date muffins cupcakes etc

A friend of mine was told by their local GP that her son was too busy playing or otherwise occupied that they “hung on” and didn’t go to the toilet when he should. When that happens the moisture gradually leeches out of stools and they become hard to pass. At that point is painful and a child will not persist. My friend used a reward system to encourage him to go instead of hanging on. When he got into a regualr routine of going when he needed to the constipation problem ceased. He was already getting plenty of fibre and drinking plenty of water.

tinned prunes blended into milkshake

Best of luck with this. Remain vigilant. It’s a distressing and can get worse. I have no hints or tips, because nothing worked for my daughter. :'(

I have this problem with my daughter – we have had to manage this since she was only 10 months old unfortunately. At the moment she is pooing 4 to 5 days out of every 7, and whilst I would love it to be every day, it is significantly better than the every 3 or 4 days that it could be.

How we got to here: First thing I did was get a calendar and some really pretty shiny stickers, and hang both in the toilet. Every day that she did a poo she got a pretty shiny sticker of her choice on the calendar. It encouraged her to try pushing, and also was a ‘pride chart’ for her to see what she had achieved (because when your child is constipated doing a poo is an achievement!), plus it is an easy reference for you to see how you are progressing.
Next step was drinking lots of water during the day. I would say remind her that drinking lots of water made it easy to poo, which meant she would get another sticker. The added benefit is she would urinate more, which meant sitting on the toilet more, and hopefully encouraging her to poo. We also added a morning and afternoon walk to the routine – the walking helps stimulate bowel motions. Sometimes she wouldn’t want to walk, so I would say we had to collect leaves, or find sticks or something like that (count the number of birds we saw etc) to get her interested in walking.
I also sneak fruit and vegies into her food if she won’t eat them herself (grated up in meat, plus add in lentils / kidney beans to meat sauce). Thankfully she does like to eat prunes, fresh dates etc. Cut back on ALL dairy products, limit the amount of bread. And avoid the enemas – they can affect the muscles in the bowels, leading to constipation being a lifelong problem unfortunately. I did use them too, but was warned off them by a paediatrician. Ducolac drops are a better alternative – take 5 drops before bed, and it will happen the next morning. We used these then weaned the number of drops down, but I only use if it has been 2 days since she passed a bowel motion.

Good luck – I know how distressing it is for you, and your daughter, and I hope my experience can offer some help for you.

Good old bran disguised in muffins or cookies will help!

Thanks for your ideas. I’ve tried the dried prunes, prune juice, dried apricots…she won’t eat any of them! Will give the pears a try!

Stay away from bananas, buy some parachoc from the chemist. Up her water intake with some hydralyte or a bit of pear/prune juice. Hope it all goes well; it’s really awful when they are so constipated!

Pears can help a lot and also dried prunes.lots of water. Totally agree with what answers you have already been given

I can only tell you what caused my sons constipation and that was cheese.Every time l turned he was into the cheese but l thought its healthy he’ll be OK, wrong! ! So for about 12 months he was banned from cheese until his system got back to normal. Then every now and again he was allowed a bit of cheese, ever since his been fine. I wish you lots of luck.

Dried prunes help a lot. You could try giving her some every day and see if it helps.

So sorry to hear but it’s all in what she eats. Cut out too much hard cheese and white breads, go a wholemeal. Make sliced fingers with your wholemeal bread Dip in Boiled Egg. Make mini-muffins with grated carrots and Zucchini or make your own fried rice. Soup is great even if you can pop some barley in it, this will help. Make your own juices I suggest buy a Kambrook Blitz to Go ($40 Big W) with water mix beet juice, carrot juice, and cucumber juice and ice. (You can make this and freeze it into ice blocks. Kids love these and don’t know how healthy they really are. )This tastes great you could water it down but it works well.