Hellobee Boards

Yes, my youngest, we potty trained at 3, and he really was NOT into it. It was a struggle and a fight, and eventually bribery worked... partially. We were able to pee train him using bribery, but he refused to poop on the potty and he would hold his poop until his nap or nighttime diaper. As a result, he definitely became constipated, which then made it impossible to even attempt to poop train him.

We ended up tweaking his diet (more fiber-full foods, whole grain breads, reduced dairy, some apple juice daily) and that definitely helped. At 3.5, he was regular enough that he ended up pooping on the potty. But now (at 4), whenever he's constipated, he'll blame us "Dada gave me milk!! I need JUICE!" LOL.

So yes - potty training definitely constipated my kid. Tweaking his diet helped. If you can't seem to get a handle on it on your own, keep a record of his poop and talk to your pediatrician. I know a few kids who went on very low doses of Miralax to get constipation under control.

Ohhhh yes we had withholding and constipation like crazy with potty training. We had to give him restoralax every morning and I’m fact we still do a small dose every other day to keep him going a year after we fully trained him. We had quite a few really terrible situations where he would be writhing on the floor in discomfort but wouldn’t go as well as night wakings where he had to go but wouldn’t in his pull up, so we had to try many different things. DS was just over age 3 when we trained and we decided it was time to just do it so we didn’t go back, just suffered for 2 months ha. But after that it has been totally fine.

@autumnleaves: Mine would live on milk if I'd let him, but now he understands that milk makes his poop hard and juice helps make it soft. We try to limit him to only 2 cups of milk a day (unless he's sick) and then juice and water otherwise. I definitely think it helps!