How To Improve Your Toddler’s Pooping Routine?

Having a kid changes your life, and you don’t understand this thoroughly till you have a child at home. Suddenly your life revolves around your child, and your happiness is linked to your child feeling well, eating full meals, meeting growth milestones, and pooping on time! Yes, the moment you step into parenthood, the topic of your kid’s pooping begins to get a whole new recognition. While an infant poops numerous times, the duration increases with the passing months. As your child enters the age group threes and fours, there will be times when you notice your child is holding his poop in, which will change their appetite and eating habits. If you are facing the same problem, we are here to help. Go through this article to know tricks to make your toddler poop on time.

Why Do Kids Hold In Their Poop?

Even if it might seem like the end of the world to have your kid hold their poop in, it’s not uncommon for kids to do that. The main reason kids stop going to the bathroom could be fear, development, or control. The bathroom might be relaxing and pretty for you; it is scary for most kids. They also have irrational thoughts of falling in the toilet and getting flushed away in poop land. The sound of flush is also scary for the little kids.

The other problem is that the stool will collect and harden if your child hasn’t pooped for a while, which is when leakages happen. So once you are done with hospital visits, laxatives, and stool softeners, your kid can be back to stomach cramps because of the poop. Also, if your child had to pass a hard stool, the memory of the pain can make them stop going to poop altogether. The lack of water and high amount of starch in food might aid the problem of constipation.

One of the reasons why your child refuses to poop could be any kind of stressor like a change in routine. You might like shifting from your home to your mother’s, but it’s a massive change for your child.

What You Can Do To Help Your Child Poop

While enemas effectively treat constipation, it can be somewhat traumatizing for your child. Some kids even refrain from pooping as the thought is unpleasant to them. Since it is more of a mental issue, you need to focus on treatments that start from the mouth.

The Treatment That Works

The best and age-old treatment of easy bowel passing is mineral oil. It is not absorbed by the gut and works best for kids over the age of 1 year. However, anal leakage or lipoid pneumonia is a risk if you overdo the dosage. It also risks gastroesophageal reflux, neurodevelopmental abnormalities, and aspiration (1). This is why you should avoid it for children under the age of 1 year.

Also, you can have discussions with your kid about how important it is to discard the waste from your body in the form of poop every day. There are many kid-friendly books and videos that highlight the importance of pooping and how it needs to get out of the body every day.
There are also tactics that work surprisingly well! You can make your older children pretend that they have the same problem and they hate to poop. When you put your toddler in a position to help, your toddler will love to show them how to poop!

You can also make it a game of who poops first. You give them a glass of water, make a chart, and the one who poops first gets a star! Yes, this has the highest chances of triggering the poop competition!

How To Encourage Healthy Bowel Habits

• Focusing on eating healthy is what helps improve your child’s digestion. The diet should include whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and juices. However, the quantity of juice should be less than 120 ml of pure fruit juice.

• Your kid should also stay active throughout the day. The more the toddler walks about and stays healthy, the better the bowel movements will be.

• Educate your kids about the importance of pooping every day. You need to put in the effort to make the potty time enjoyable. It can be reading a book about pooping, singing a potty song, or even adding stickers and colors to the washroom to make it a fun place.

• Do not use ‘stinky’ and ‘dirty’ terms with poop. If your kids feel conscious about it, they might hold on to it, so nothing is dirty about them.

So parents, when you were in your prime years, did you ever think that you would read an article about how to make your child poop and pray for your kid to poop? Well, that’s how life changes, but there is nothing more rewarding than your little one growing up healthy and wise.. Always keep in touch with your pediatrician and research the issue before panicking about it. So, do you have any home remedies or tactics to help your child poop? Let us know in the comments section!

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