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anyone's dc have constipation with solids?
prior to starting solids, dylan was only pooping about 1x/week. we started giving him infant probiotics (with pedi's approval/recommendation) and with them he'd poop every other day.
so we started him on solids at 5 1/2 mos, when he appeared ready and very excited to eat from a spoon. because of his "sluggish" system, we skipped rice cereal and went straight to oatmeal, which still caused him to be painfully constipated. we tried barley without success. we gave up on cereal altogether and started avocado, which was a little better but still causing him many sleepless nights of pushing and grunting without actually pooping. we even resported to suppositories (at pedi's recommendation). at some point, he just stopped being excited about eating solids (but would still nurse). so at his 6 month appt the pedi said to back off for a week or two, give his body time to get back on track. we give him 2 oz prune or pear juice everyday and that seems to help things along. he seems interested in eating again so after a week of no solids at all, i started letting him eat pear or apple pieces in the teething feeder/net thingy and he loves it. i think we're going to reintroduce nonconstipating foods after thxgiving, but i'm nervous.
i haven't been too concerned about this overall but am starting to question why everything seems to constipate him! we've been in contact with our pedi at every step and i trust her, so i know we're doing the right things. part of me just needed to get this written out. but the real reason i'm writing is to find out if anyone else's dc had these issues and if they eventually resolved. any related experiences you can share would be appreciated!
(i am xp-ing this to 6-12, but wanted to ask you mamas too:)
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Re: anyone's dc have constipation with solids?
Sounds exactly like my dd. We have just taken things very slowly and not pushed it. I try to give pear, prunes or plums at least once a day. We limit bananas and apples. Never did cereal.
My ped said some kids just take longer for their bodies to adjust to solids. We were doing karo syrup in a bottle with BM for awhile but I hated pumping everyday. So we started probiotics and took things slowly. I like you, thought something more must be wrong.
We still only do 2 meals a day sometimes and she has really started refusing purees. So now I'm slowly giving her table food. She never really had the pb poop. She went from BM poop to formed.
Things are better, but I'm still taking things slowly.
Was/ is he ebf'd other than the solids? Before introducing solids my ds was a once a week pooper and I loved it. Everything I read said that with ebf babies after the first month or two the poop schedule can be anywhere from twice a day to once every week and is completely normal. As long as the poop is soft bf poop then frequency has nothing to do with constipation - it's all about consistency. I'm not flaming - I'm just curious if there was something else going on that made the pedi classify him as actually constipated at that point rather than just normal ebf bowel movements.
After we started him on solids he did go through some issues with constipation - I think that's fairly common actually - but none were painful like you're describing. Just would go through waves of more difficult to pass poops that were definitely harder in consistency. I started making my own cereals at that point so I could make sure I was using good whole grains for the fiber (brown rice cereal, steel cut oats, etc) and tried to give him non constipating foods regularly (pears and prunes were staples - I also made my own prunes which seemed extra pruney to me
I also tried to stay away from too many constipating foods like bananas and apples - he'd get them but it was more like every few days for bananas rather than every day like the pears.
Once I got a good hang of what was binding and what wasn't, things got a lot more regular (heh heh). Plus, it takes their systems awhile to get used to processing things other than milk and that's part of what contributes to the constipation. After they've had food on a more normal and consistent basis, their system does much better with it.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Here's some good constipation info on Wholesomebabyfoods.com:
https://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/constip.htmthank you, smurfette, and the rest who shared their stories. yes, i should have written, ds is ebf (aside from the solids). and yes, i did know that many ebf babies only poop 1x/week. the problem was that he would get uncomfortabe, irritable and lose sleep after 4 or 5 days. that's why we started with probiotics.
all your answers are reassuring! we're going to go really slowly with this. i know he doesn't need solids and that at this point it is just for the experience of eating and tasting different things. just needed reassurance that he will grow out of it:) ebf is easier anyway - lol!