Hello!

Help! Has anyone got any tips, aside from prunes, prune juice, chocolate flavoured laxative, and suppositories, as none of these have worked, our little girl refuses to poo, she holds onto it, for upto a week if not a week and half and when it comes out they are tennis ball size, literally! We are starting to get worried, we tried getting her onto the toilet for number 2’s which is what started all this, but there has to be a solution…. MHN has said it will come out eventually but it’s so concerning! She will sit there a few times a day and go red faced as she holds it in! What’s the best remedy for a constipated toddler?

Posted by Kylie 21.11.2012


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  • Try fruit and water intake. Otherwise there’s some stuff at the pharmacy that makes it easier. It coats the stools and helps them out easier. I’ve forgotten what it’s called though but the pharmacist should know


  • Try increasing her fruit intake – that might help.


  • Water, water, water. Any fiber you add should go with an increase of water intake otherwise it has the opposite effect.
    My eldest daughter has had lost of constipation and I went to the Gp when adjustments in diet didn’t help. Gp prescribed first Lactulose then Laxoberal. With Laxoberal her stool became too runny and she didn’t have control any more. So then I went back to just water increase.
    My youngest has currently constipation. She has Down Syndrome and it’s hard to get her to drink enough water. I encourage it by drinking water before doing a reward activity. Besides that she gets plenty of fruit, soaked prunes, seeded breads and fiber in her diet. I tried Lactulose and use at the moment Movicol Junior.


  • use water alot and giver some yogurt every day it really works


  • A little brown sugar dissolved in warm water is meant to work well. Hope you’ve sorted this as it doesn’t sound good


  • Lots of fruit. And maybe put her back in nappies for a while to take the pressure off?


  • It doesn’t sound like she is constipated as you say she holds it in, which is probably what’s causing the constipation. Brown sugar in warm water works well for this tho


  • Kiwi fruit helps with constipation in children.


  • Lactose is really good. You can get it at pharmacy.


  • Make some prune balls


  • There are really good answers on this!


  • My son suffered from chronic constipation for years and was hospitalised for it a few times. Few tips…seek professional help eg. child psychiatrist, GP, etc., we used a reward system for when he did go (has to be something he really wanted otherwise he just didn’t care!) and the best tip…stop talking about it to the child! Putting pressure on them just makes it worse…


  • You can buy Coloxyl and Senna suppositories from the chemist.


  • You poor thing! My daughter was diagnosed with chronic constipation and we tried everything. The only thing that ended up making her go initially was an enema and then to maintain so that we didn’t disrupt her bowel, she started taking paraffin oil each morning (after about 2 days it started working well). That was our solution.


  • This post is very helpful, thank you to everyone for their answers and suggestions!


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