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We use Miralax and it's been amazing! So easy and effective...

Good luck with Dr. Tom! He saved Charlie after months of misery... he's a true miracle worker.

@luckypenny: he still takes a small dose daily. We've been slowly weaning him by lowering his dosage over time.

I was also concerned about that article, but further research put my mind at ease! And our son is so so much happier.

@luckypenny: Disclosure: I didn't read the article...but Miralax is not absorbed and therefore extremely safe. Hope things get better for you and DD soon!

@luckypenny: I've seen pediatric gastrointestinal specialists give 4 capfuls of Miralax every four to six hours to children to clean them out. That is a LOT of Miralax.

Like @FliegepilzHut: noted, Miralax stays in the gut and just attracts water molecules, which is how it makes poop soft. Many of the medications we use on children are not technically FDA approved for use in children. Honestly, I could take the word Miralax out of that article and substitute it for a lot of medications I use regularly on kids. Medication safety studies are tough to perform and, at times, questionably unethical to perform on children. For better or for worse, anecdotal evidence is what we've got to go on. It is not very reassuring for a mama, I know, but in my opinion, long-standing constipation is far worse.

@luckypenny: Long term, I do think that dietary changes and natural remedies are very important. Bee wrote up some of the changes we made along those lines:

http://www.hellobee.com/2013/05/22/treating-constipation-with-dietary-changes/

http://www.hellobee.com/2012/01/03/toddler-constipation-remedies/

They were great, and helped a lot. But in the end, they weren't enough to fix the functional constipation - which we learned had a psychological component (a phobia of pooping) along with a physical one (the consequence of holding in all that poop on the rectum). The Miralax consistently treated the physical symptoms, which allowed the psychological phobia to be subside relatively quickly.

We've been lowering our son's dosage of Miralax steadily over time, and I feel good about our journey. As for research, everything we found regarding Miralax's safety was from scientists who indicated that it was safe... while everything I found about Miralax's dangers came from online postings by parents who were worried that it wasn't natural. In the end, I decided that the risk was worth it given how severely encopresis can affect a child's life.

My thought process when we went through all this was to use the Miralax to cure the functional constipation, and then see how quickly we could wean off of the Miralax and rely on natural remedies/dietary changes. What ended up happening is that I kept on lowering his dosage to fast and re-constipating our son, and causing functional constipation to start to develop again. Since then, we've been reducing his dosage at a much slower rate - and it's been a much happier medium.

I wish we hadn't had to rely on Miralax to get here, but I have to admit that we never would've gotten this far without it! Good luck!!

I am not sure what functional diarrhea is but my DD starting dealing with constipation as a baby. Around 2.5 I finally went to the dr and they put her on Miralax - it worked and I know its safe to use long term but I just couldn't fathom doing that - on another forum I was on someone said her Naturopath suggested OJ and Fish oil every day so I tried it.

I stayed on the Miralax for 2 weeks while starting the fish oil and OJ and then held my breath and stopped she miralax.

Its been a year now just being on fish oil and OJ and she hasn't dealt with any constipation.

@luckypenny: some of the doctors I work with have their pediatric patients take senna (sometimes along with miralax, sometimes instead of). Senna works as more of a stimulant, while miralax make the stool softer. Usually its given before bedtime, does its magic over night and then parents will have their children sit on the toilet after breakfast. Good luck!

@luckypenny: Yah we did the scratch test... he came up clean!

There's a family history of constipation, so we weren't too surprised when it came up as an issue. Bee and I did a month of Whole30 meals which gave significant relief on that front, so we suspect that diet is a factor.

As Charlie gets older, we're transitioning his diet to include less dairy, bread and sugar - which has been helping a lot! It's been tough because he doesn't eat a huge variety of foods as it is, so eliminating food groups has been hard. But as he gets comfortable eating more and more types of foods, it's getting easier to swap out food groups. His diet changes have enabled us to lower his Miralax dosage a lot, so I feel like he's on a good path!

@luckypenny: So obviously I don't know anything about infant / toddler constipation but I have friends that swear by a drink called Kiwi Crush which is basically pureed up kiwifruit. I do know that it's often given to patients in hospital so maybe that could be worth a try? Hope you can get it sorted soon!

I feel like that article is kind of fear mongering. It's essentially saying that there is no evidence of a problem, doctors have been using it for years and feel comfortable with it, it's not as good as dietary changes, but it's not technically approved for the off label use. Which is a big so what in my book.

LO was significantly constipated for a while. We used miralax. Now when he gets backed up, we add in a lot of berries, grapes and raisins and a little bit of juice.