Ask anyone of my friends what’s the one thing I’m truly terrified of as a mom and they’ll tell you, poop.
I promise I wasn’t always like this. Especially before becoming a mom, I was the friend to moms that would offer to change poopy diapers. I often felt terrible for moms having to deal with this day in and day out. So I was always quick to say, I’ll change poopy diapers.
I even did adult care while studying at university which involved changing adult poopy diapers. And I wasn’t terribly bothered by this either.
But for some strange reason, I freak out when dealing with poop with my own kids. Especially when it’s really messy. Perhaps it’s the lack of control in the situation.
I’d say it was around the time I had to start potty training my oldest I started to become afraid of handling poop messes. Literally terrified. I would handle it, but I definitely did not keep my disgust inside.
Unfortunately I’m almost certain my fear may have transfered to my oldest. But in the worst way possible.
You don’t have to be disappointed in me about all this- I’m disappointed in myself. But we are all Maturing Mamas. I’m positive there’s someone out there that carries my issues as well. So I’m going to be completely transparent.
My oldest showed signs of fear of pooping in the toilet when she was about 3. It would happen at random too. Or perhaps I simply never noticed the signs that caused her to suddenly hold her poo till she had an accident.
We seemed to have a handle on it for a bit, until she started kindergarten. My theory is, she started holding her poos at school out of fear of asking to use the toilet. This caused a condition called encopresis which my pediatrician diagnosed her with.
According to my pediatrician, when a child holds their poo for too long it can cause the lining of their intestines to stretch which then causes poop accidents because they don’t feel the need to go poop.
I’ll admit, at first I was beyond frustrated at my big girl. I thought she was simply choosing to poop in her undies. I had no idea it was a medical issue.
Our pediatrician prescribed a laxative which our big girl had to take every day to help get any old poo out of her intestines and tighten the inner lining.
We also had to start from the beginning with potty training her and learning a whole other level of patience. I had to switch from punishing her accidents to rewarding her pooping in the toilet. It’s not been easy but we’ve had fewer and fewer accidents since starting.
Thank God it worked out for us to start this new potty training routine during spring break too. So she’s not having to go poop at school multiple times a day.
What we do is, give her the laxative first thing in the morning. We then tell her to sit on the toilet until she poops after every meal. And she’s literally gone poo every time.
We’ve had to reteach her how to properly wipe (another thing I think scared her) and reward her with a mini marshmallow after every poop.
I was honestly terrified about starting her on this laxative. I thought she’d have like insane diarrhea or something. But it’s proven to give us more control over her properly using the bathroom.
This has not been a fun journey but it’s helped us in our process of potty training our youngest as well. And hopefully we won’t have the same issues with her. I swear I’m working on not being afraid of poop. Or outrightly expressing my disgust at it.
