constipated kid | Mommy Adventures

Tag Archives: constipated kid

The suppository

“You need to go to the toilet Hannah. It’s not good to hold it in.” My words fell on deaf ears as Hannah once again sat on the floor, her face betraying her secret. It’s the same face she pulls when she’s doing a poo, except when she suddenly sits on the floor and makes the face, she’s not pooping her pants, she’s desperately holding it in. If I ask her why she’s holding it in, or if she is, she denies it or changes the subject.

I don’t know why she does it, but the poo suppressing has only been happening for the last month or so. At first I wasn’t really worried, she’d hold it in for a while and then go to the toilet a few hours later, perhaps the next day. Recently though, it’s been getting worse. Suddenly, she’d stop what she was doing and sit on the floor, silently clenching with all her mite with increasing frequency.

Often, a tiny bit of poo escapes during the clenching, upsetting her and perpetuating the cycle. Her stomach started protruding and not in a squashy, chubby sort of way. Her appetite was practically non-existant. Needless to say, we called the doctor. I was going to wait until yesterday when we could see our usual doctor, but she was floor sitting every half an hour or so and hadn’t pooped in a number of days, so I called the after hours doctors that come to our house.

He told me to give her plenty of fibre containing food like salad, and to drink plenty of water. The small accidental poops are apparently “overflow” that she just can’t hold in. Oh, and he told me to get some glycerol and put it up her bottom.

Yes. You read that right. The very thought of putting something up my child’s bottom was terrifying.

Getting an almost 4 year old to eat a bunch of salad is not exactly a walk in the park either, especially one who is not eating much of anything at the moment. Instead, I had to be creative. As soon as the doctor left, I looked up which foods contain lots of fibre and found that raspberries are full of it.

Hannah excitedly ate about 1/2 a cup of frozen raspberries after I told her they would help her poop. Next, I gave her the last of the apple crumble that we made because apples also have lots of fibre (and our apple crumble is not full of added sugar).

She really likes pasta without sauce, with frozen vegetables mixed through (and no, I don’t mean whilst cooking, I mean after the fact. She won’t eat cooked vegetables, frozen is her preferred vegetable state), so I bought some wholemeal pasta that has way more fibre than regular pasta. Peas have heaps too, even frozen ones.

For desert, I wanted to make black bean brownies not only because they are delicious, but also because black beans are packed with fibre. Unfortunately, they are also rare in these parts. I have only found one shop that stocks them but not frequently. Sigh.

Instead, we made peanut butter cookies. The ones whose main ingredient is chickpeas, which also have a lot of fibre, but not as much as black beans. I know, that sounds disgusting, but they are actually delicious. If they are warm, not so much if they are cold. Weird, right?

So they aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing, but they are delicious and good for you 🙂

And then came the dreaded suppository.

“Time for my medicine.” Hannah said happily. Since kid medicine pretty much tastes like lolly water, it seems more like a treat than a cure.

“Errrr…it’s not one that you drink baby, it goes in your bottom.”

She looked at me for a second, deep in thought. “It goes in my bottom!” She giggled. Apparently that’s funny. Probably because she’s never had anything up her bottom.

I put some lube on the small suppository, and it went right in. It didn’t hurt her, or cause any sort of discomfort. In fact, she wasn’t even fazed apart from saying it tickled. Phew, she won’t be scarred for life.

10 minutes later, Hannah took off down the hallway, running as fast as she could.

Trip. She went down face first and immediately started crying.

Oh no, she’s twisted her ankle.

Luckily, she didn’t.

“I had an accident!” She cried.

“That’s ok, you just had the special medicine in your bottom, we’ll just clean it up.” I didn’t realise it would work quite that fast.

The next day, she had 2 giant accidents at preschool, plus one on the toilet, then 2 at home, so I guess all that fibre and the suppository is working, and the backlog of poop is finally being freed.

I just hope she stops holding it in. The doctor said it’s quite common at her age (which makes me feel slightly better about the whole thing).

If you enjoyed reading this, please vote for my blog. All you have to do is click the link below. That’s it… Clicking the link brings you to the Top Mommy Blogs home page. You don’t have to do anything else. Any clicks from my site to theirs is a vote. THANKS!