Children's Constipation Remedies After Bowel Surgery

We need water to function and it is especially important for constipation. Kids tend to gravitate toward milk, juice and sodas, but there's no good substitute for plain old water. If your child has difficulty drinking water and you aren't sure what to do, here are a few suggestions.

Require water before special treats. My son loves soy milk and frequently asks for it. We started requiring him to drink a small glass of water before he could have milk. On bad days, we even tell him he has to drink his water before he gets his shoes to go outside!

Create coupons. Let your child have two juice coupons and a milk one, for example. She can use them any time during the day, but the rest of the day, only water.

Get fun water bottles, fancy drinking straws or other accessories. These can make even water fun! Your child is far more likely to drink water from a bottle with a twisty straw and their favorite Disney character on it.

A high fiber diet for kids is easier said than done if you have typical children. Most kids gravitate toward carbs and junk food. It really, really helps to start them off early on vegetables and fruits, but even so, it can be tough to get your kids to eat the right foods. After bowel surgery, however, diet is very important and could mean the difference between daily enemas and having your child use the toilet on his own regularly.

So, how do you get fiber into kids? You have a few options.

Feed your kids lots of fruits and veggies. My son loves carrots and lettuce and is currently on a green bean kick. He will also munch on raw corn, so I make sure to keep those four vegetables in the house at all times! You have to work with what you've got. I also bake things like zucchini muffins, carrot bread, banana bread, etc. Any food in high fiber is great.

Add fiber to their diet. Sometimes you just can't get enough fiber into a kid through food, especially if you have a picky eater. That's when you need to turn to something else. I add Benefiber powder to my son's drinks and some food. It's colorless, odorless and totally undetectable, so you can hide it in just about anything.

Give regular food a boost. In our house, flax seeds appear in many foods. I toss them into salads, add them to our cereal and bake them into cakes. These suckers are great for adding fiber! You can use whole or ground flax. Whole wheat bread and pasta are great in place of regular foods, as well.

Opt for high fiber snacks. Kids tend to graze more than they eat, so we offer our boys healthy high fiber snacks. Popcorn is a particularly popular one around here. I just add salt to it, nothing else. Dorian also enjoys strips of crunchy lettuce to munch on and slices of orange or pieces of fresh pineapple.

Basically, you have to figure out what works for your family. Make food fun, not a fight. I've found that if I just keep including a food on my kids' plates and don't push them to eat it (I do ask them to try it each time, even if only a microscopic particle), they eventually eat it on their own.

One of the biggest issues that we've faced with our son is that he just doesn't respond normally to laxatives. He needs higher doses than usual and even then, they barely take effect. However, one that does work with him is a senna-based laxative. I'm always very anxious about his possible discomfort, but this one really doesn't cause any issues and is gentle so it doesn't cause diarrhea.

We live in Guatemala, so we don't have as many options as those living in North America, but there are some excellent products for children these days! I've highlighted my favorites below.

You can also use a combination of laxatives. My son loves getting a few drops of glycerine on his tongue and it helps loosen things up. We also have him take codliver oil on a regular basis which has helped keep things regular!

One thing we have discovered over the years is that exercise really helps my son beat constipation. Being a kid, he loves to run, jump and climb, but when he's not feeling well, he tends to curl up on the couch and pout. So, we do things like play follow the leader or tag to get him moving.

Obstacle courses that get kids bending over, crawling and stretching are excellent for promoting bowel movement. In fact, crawling is really, really good for it. Pretend that you're a dog or a cat and have your child imitate you. He will quickly start moving things through!

We try to balance our son's diet and laxatives so he doesn't need enemas all the time, but sometimes, things get stuck. When he was about 18 months old, a few months after his colostomy closure, Dorian had an intestinal blockage. We didn't know about it until it was almost too late.

First, he got very, very skinny, while his tummy stuck out. He didn't want to eat, which actually wasn't that abnormal, but then he didn't want even his milk! And then, he started vomiting feces. Everything got stopped and came right back out. It was awful and we rushed him to the doctor who had us do multiple enemas in the same day. They worked, thank goodness, because he had only a partial blockage. Since then, we have been on the lookout for this possible problem again and we use suppositories first, then an enema if Dorian doesn't manage to get everything out.

Enemas aren't pleasant, but for parents of kids with an imperforate anus, they are necessary. Wherever possible, keep your child's diet full of fiber so you can stick to the easier methods of handling children's constipation.