What Fresh Hell: Laughing In The Face Of Motherhood

This week’s question comes from Sarah:  My 22-month-old daughter is an infrequent pooper. She regularly goes 3-5 days between bowel movements, but recently she's started holding it. She's been sitting on the potty to pee for the last month or two, but she'll jump up and say, "no!" when she feels a bowel movement. This means that when she does finally go, it’s… a lot. She had a bit of diarrhea a few months ago and got a rash, so maybe she's remembering that it hurt? We praise her whether she poops in the potty or in her diaper, but she gets distraught when she goes in her diaper. Sometimes she holds onto us and cries. The few times she's gone in the potty, she seems less upset, but you can tell she doesn't like going. We don’t think this is a constipation issue. I am immensely anxious about this and worry that my anxiety is rubbing off on her. I'm constantly keeping track of the last time she pooped and wondering whether she needs prunes/Restoralax to help her go. These things have helped in the past, but I k