I was very aware of my daughter’s bowel habits until she was about ten or so. From about the time she was toilet trained, she was an infrequent pooper- maybe once a week. It wasn’t painful or hard, and the doctor said not to worry about it. I didn’t- and the only reason I knew her habits was because about once a week, she clogged the toilet.
I dont ask, but I am aware. Its something that seems impossible to turn off. When you’re a nurse and you go around figuring out who of your 25 patients pooped and who didn’t, then when you come home, you focus that awareness on those around you. I would never ask an adult, but when I see that glazed look on someones face, I say “do you want to grab a bran muffin and a walk” rather than uh…suggesting cheese. I watch tv and see politicians, or sports figures…(coaches especially during playoffs) and think “ah…he needs to have a good dump”
I’m done with the potty training, (of my son) and I thought that would be a relief. Actually now, I know more about my sons BMs than ever before. My son, announces everything about his BMs, from having to go, to if they smelled bad, or they are funny looking. (He’s three) Unfortunately, he neither wipes nor wants me to wipe, so I have nastly crusty undies to deal with. And he can’t figure out why I make him “SIT in the bathtub” every night, even if he went swimming, or washed his hands…
Ah if you dont want to shoot the shit about shit, dont talk to a nurse…
Yes, mostly when my son was a newborn. After the first two weeks, we realized he wasn’t getting enough milk from me to be producing bowel movements or to pee anything but crystals toward the time of his doctor’s appointment.
Since he’s a toddler, his system is a little more mature now and he’s getting the nutrients he needs and able to communicate with us if he’s hungry or thirsty, it’s rarely an issue, but I take note of his output more than I probably would have had we not experienced any problems when he was tiny.
I work with small children in Italy. Everyday the parents will want to know EXACTLY what they ate, and whether they poohed, and then what kind of pooh it was, the more detail the better. My boss was seriously thinking of putting up a board outside the class for all this information like they do in public nursery schools. People here are OBSESSED with it. If your baby doesn’t pooh everyday the magazines suggest you stimulate the anus… It’s madness. As for my baby, she goes when she goes, end of story, us foreigners have some strange ideas about raising children…
Ew.
The Small Girl’s 22 months old. The first few days she was at her new daycare they told me in some detail how often she’d crapped. I finally managed to get across, politely, that unless there’s blood in it or she’s visibly distressed, I don’t care. Sometimes she has multiple poops, sometimes she saves it up for a big assplosion. She seems fine with it and the diaper soaks it up and that’s all I care about.
Oh and its definitely a generational thing. Both my grandmothers were obsessed with the whole deal. One day, out at the camp (cottage) I had to get up in the night and go to the outhouse. In the morning I got a big inquisition about why I went out to the outhouse in the middle of the night rather than use the (toddler’s) potty. The real reason why was I was 16, and my grandfather was in the next room (no indoor bathroom, just squat on the pot in the one big main room that was kitchen, living room, dining room.) But Grandma would be upset or something with that so I thought I would appeal to her sense of sanitation. "I had to go “number two”.
Well that horrified her more than anything. Next thing I knew she was having a big discussion with my parents about my “going” in the middle of the night, wanted my mom to bring me to the doctors, etc etc.
Mom laughed it off, and told my grandmother that her kids would use the outhouse. When they had to go, whatever time of day or night it was. That ended that discussion, at least in front of me, or my mother.
Are German-style toilets (with the built in poop inspection shelf) common in Italy?
Not that I know of, there is no shelf, however the toilets are different from the ones I am used to in England. In Italy the inside of the toilet slants in quite drastically so you always have to clean the toilet after you have poohed. In England the toilets don’t slant in so you don’t need to brush while you flush.
I don’t know if this is so you can see how liquidy/sticky your pooh was, or just so it doesn’t splash you on landing…
We do, at least for Dweezil. Then again, he has encopresis so we’ve had to. Moon Unit’s habits though, we ignore totally unless she complains (which she hasn’t). And we haven’t paid any attention to it since she was potty trained.
I’m happy to say that my parents didn’t give a sh… oh, you know. 
My older daughter (7) will let me know if she’s got a problem. I don’t think about it otherwise, though I do bug her to drink water so she’ll pee enough.
My 4yo is finally over her year of poop issues, for which I am truly thankful. It started off with one night when she threw up and then didn’t poop for a few days. The next thing we knew, she was completely stopped up and needed an enema :eek: . For the next year, we obsessed over her bowel habits as she refused to poop until she couldn’t hold it in any longer, and then it hurt. We had to give her Milk of Magnesia nearly every night, which was a huge ordeal. Once she needed another enema, and we ended up in the hospital when it didn’t work.
Nowadays, her pooping is still an occasion for celebration. She does it on her own, when she needs to, but still sings out “Mommy, I pooped!” and I come in and help her wipe and congratulate her. It’s a little dumb, but far preferable to our former preoccupation with the contents of her bowels. Yay!
My mom only concerns herself with my bowels when I’m on post-operative painkillers. She makes a big deal about telling me I need to get enough fiber to counteract the side effect of the pills. Then again, she makes a big deal about telling me I need to take my vitamins any time I have ANY problem – from a bad hair day to a missing toe.
We didn’t until the day our son was crying and wailing about his stomach hurting… low on the left side, eeek! So we rush him to the ER, where they rush him into X-ray, and from there…
Well, from there it was actually a little disheartening. The doc showed us this picture of something that looked like a lumpy golfball sitting in the middle of our boy’s digestive tract. Poor little guy got a laxative AND an enema and still had to sit there grunting until the rock finally passed, crying about how he wanted to go home the entire time. Probably has some sort of deep-seated trauma about nurses with enema nozzles now.
(And I do mean rock. It clanked against the bowl when it finally dropped!)
The doc said it wasn’t too uncommon, especially in kids who liked lots of roughage (ours adores salads). These days we limit his rabbit-food intake to avoid a repeat performance, and he’s old enough to know in advance if there’s a problem.
But yeah, for a while we became the Poop Nazis. “Did you go to the bathroom?”
“Yes!”
“Did you go poop?”
"Um… "
“Get in there, squirt.”
“But DAAaaaaaaddd…!”
You lose toes often? :dubious:
I think that it’s important to have an open dialog regarding digestion and bowel movements. I had stomach problems for much of my young childhood (probably from the turkey with Mayo on Wonder Bread) that I never bothered to mention to my parents. I just thought it was part of life, a “rumbly in my tumbly”.
Girls for sure, have to be taught how to wipe, and reminded, and boys have to be taught to clean their privates, and reminded.
One time I spilled a box of oatmeal into a pot and made a bucket full. Well, what the heck, I poured a bag of sugar over it and ate the whole thing. The next morning I started cramping, and man, what a movement! But the funny thing was, the $hit floats!, and so, it’s sitting there in a pile, a mountain, almost filling the entire bowl ! I was so proud of myself. I kept calling for the wife to come in and check it out, but she refused. No fun.
Another time, I don’t remember what I ate, I just had to go lay a cable, that is, drop a couple of friends off at the pool, and somehow, they got caught there sideways! Fortunately, they succumbed to the second or third flush, but I thought that I was going to have to put my foot in there and stomp them down!
Anyway, I’m glad you brought this topic up!
Well, okay, just the one, and I didn’t lose it. It probably looked like I had, though, when I came hopping into the kitchen with blood pouring from my foot.
One hospital visit and three anaesthetic-less stitches later, my toe count is still 10 and my cool story count went up one.
I do, for two reasons. We’ve had the constipation issues, plus the reluctance to poop in unfamiliar toilets. I like to know when I should serve some food that will get my daughter going, and I also want to avoid going out to a restaurant when a 3 or 4 day poop is imminent.
I look forward to the day when I can stop caring 
I never worried about the bowel habits of our daughter. She seemed just fine, no complaints.
On the other hand, my grandmother, thinks that if she doesn’t shit three times a day, she’s constipated. Of course, she’s 91 and eats laxitives like they’re Tic Tacs. She’s hooked on ‘em now, so no one can change that.
My mother didn’t worry about my (or my siblings’) bowel habits. There were seven of us, so that would have been WAY too much poo to worry about!