I need advice on how to help vanessa out with this. She is much better now than she was a week ago but I have different people telling different things. I was told by some straight apple juice should help. I have been giving her milk of magnesia she likes that, it seems to help cause she will yell for me in the middle of the night to wipe her butt and get her clean panties. I am getting a bit fed up with different advices from people. I also at one time gave her a retal enema and that helped. Any pointers? The only thing I can think of is to put vasaline on her butt hole when I get home to help.

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Mommy to Vanessa

If this is an ongoing issue, sounds like her diet needs to change.

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Fruit juices such as Prune Juice, apple Juice and Pear Nectar (in that order) do wonders for constipation. Prune is, of course, the mother of all natural constipation cures. There are child glycerine suppositories if it is a long-term thing and her digestion has gotten too far to cure it by juice. There is also castor oil, which they say is pretty fast acting (but if my system had to induce that stuff, it would try and get it out at lightning speed too.)

You do need to look at her diet. You also need to assure that she is getting plenty of water throughout the day. Water lacking in a diet is the #1 constipation culprit. She may be getting plenty of stuff to drink, but it may not be the right stuff.

Watch out for things that tend too bind. I personally have problems with starches. Too many high-carb foods, and I can't go for days...sometime up to a week!

Another thing is to verify that she is not having a psychological issue to going in the pot. Some kids that have become absolutely against going in the potty can cause themselves to stop pooping. Has she had a high resistance to going before the constipation problems started?

The final step would be talk to the doctor about medicine that she can take. I would personally talk to the doctor much sooner about it...but medicinal cures would be a last resort since you need to find the trigger that is causing the constipation and not just mask it by something that could cause her long-term issues with regularity down the road.

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We used to give E apple/prune juice every day for her constipation. We also used the enema. Suppositories didn't work at all. Taking Eleanor off of milk has helped a lot. I haven't had to give her an enema in months.

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