Infrequent Bms in Toddler

My daughter two year old has a constipation problem too that we have been treating successfully with dietary changes too. Lots of strawberries, oranges, grapes, apple sauce, raisins. Limiting milk products and cheese. We do do lots of vanilla greek yogurt. No bananas as much as possible. Whole wheat bread and whole grain goldfish or cereal bar snacks. Our whole family has had to change our eating habits because you can't have that tasty constipating/irregular foods around, and have everyone else eat them but her. :( my family has fallen in love with soups. It seems to make them all more willing to eat vegetables and legumes. There are lots of yummy and easy soup recipes out there especially on allrecipies.com. But whatever you do, try to do away with highly processed food as much as possible.

I'd look again at the pediatrician's thought that it's "normal for her" to go every three days. No, it obviously isn't! It's not normal for anyone, and besides, she's so uncomfortable, is telling you she has that feeling of needing to go (unusual in a 2 year old), and she's changing her eating habits because she is full and bloated. When feces build up in the colon, it's the start of many other diseases as well, so you want to get the jump on this before more and more "sludge" sticks to the wall of the intestine and creates more problems. In addition, potty training is impossible with a child who's already so uncomfortable during bowel movements. That's part of the reason they start holding it in - because they know it's going to hurt. But of course that only compounds the situation.

Take her off bananas for now, and cheese. Try to hide veggies in other things - like sweet potato pancakes (use any latke recipe but use sweet potatoes or at least half & half white & sweet), give her cut up veggies to dip in hummus or ranch dressing (kids love to dip! Make your own hummus if the store-bought is too spicy), add beans (mashed up kidney, pinto, navy) to anything you can (like burgers and meatloaf and falafel patties or nuggets which kids love). There is also a patented kids' supplement that can be added to water or the almond milk that will give her additional nutrients (which helps when she's spitting out the veggies!) and help regulate the colon. I have a lot of friends who have seen a huge change in their toddlers and they've been able to skip all those elimination diets and have much more comfortable children. Something patented has been through so much more testing and is proven safe and effective. Very few food products can achieve patents. There's an excellent one available on line direct from the manufacturer.

First I am sorry you are having to deal with this.
My daughter is 2.5 years old and have been battling constipation for about a year. Our ped said she is just a slow mover. This didn't alarm me as I am as well. We started her on miralax every other day and that help. I was looking for a way to get her off of that because your bowels can become dependent on that to work. Through closely monitoring her intake we found her triggers, bananas, apple juice and some types of cheese. She as well can not drink milk she loved her plain organic soy milk but the brand she loved changed the flavor to "improved" and she hasn't liked it since. We have tried all types of milks with no success.
What does wonders for us is a cup of greek yogurt every day. I do buy the big pack at costco but I do not use the fruit in the bottom of the cup. It has enough flavoring already that cuts the sugar down. Then every morning she gets a 8oz glass of orange juice. I have not seen a difference of pulp to no pulp. My friend at work was having the same issues with her son and found oranges worked for them. My daughter hates the texture of oranges but loves orange juice. Did the same thing:) She has a gummy probiotic and gummy Flintstone vitamin every morning after breakfast. Since starting this regimen we have only had to give her miralax maybe three times in the past 7 months. After the glass of orange juice she only get water the rest of the day. One day a week she can have a half glass of cranberry juice cut with water. We pretty much cut out all juices except for orange.
I really hope this helps. Good luck!

Well if she's straining and uncomfortable then it's a problem. Offer less breads, crackers, pretzels, etc and more veggies and fruit. Have you tried letting her dip raw veggies in dressing? Most little ones love to dip things so that usually helps getting them to eat healthy. Also calling food different names sometimes works. Broccoli becomes trees, carrot sticks are logs or swords, home made chicken fingers were dinosaur claws. Fun times.

My granddaughter is one of those slow movers too. She is supposed to do the metamucil? every day to help her go. She seems to have more issues when she takes too much fiber. If she eats even half a banana, which half a banana is an adult serving of fruit, she gets plugged up for days and days. So we don't let her eat banana's. Some of the other fruits are very constipating too.

If she's going, then it's all good. There is no "right" timing for BMs. Some go once a day, some once a week. As long as she's going - it's good.

(this is a quote from our Ped)