A solid food and poop question

[momathome]

Delightful title, I know! ;) Julia is 7.5 months-old and is finally eating baby food. She does not like cereal but will do jarred apples, bananas, and pears. She is also doing the Earth's Best breakfast jars (apple pear oatmeal and the like). Since she has started consistently taking solids, her poops have been an absolute mess. They have been very sludgy in consistency and just an absolute ton. This has led to multiple diaper blow-outs and outfit changes. (Including at the Nordstrom Half-Yearly sale yesterday, where she scored a new outfit simply because she destroyed the lovely Hanna dress she had on!). She just had another blow-out this morning. Is this normal? My other 2 did not do this, at least not as frequently as Julia is. I also don't remember their poops being so sludgy. We are using stage 3 Pampers Cruisers, which had worked quite nicely until her poops changed. Thoughts? Suggestions? TIA!

[momma_boo]

Lauren, no good suggestions but I offer you my sympathy. My DD is just a few days younger than Julia and it sounds like they have similar poop.

I have to sheepishly admit that the daycare has dealt mostly with the nasty blowouts (I can figure it out immediately when I walk in and she's wearing a different outfit).

But I wanted you to know that the "sludgy" poop was not abnormal. We have that as well. It's almost like watered down pudding, isn't it?

Perhaps the absence of cereal is the reason her poop isn't as "solid" as your other kids were, since baby cereals tend to bind?

Oh, I have a poop story to share. On Monday morning, I was changing her diaper while watching Good Morning America. I got distracted and she crawled away. No biggie, I figured she'll get some fresh air on her tush. After a few minutes, I look up and notice some "stuff" on several areas of the carpet. The girl pooped and was crawling all over the place, leaving a trail behind her. It was pretty gross. DH tried to help clean the carpet while I cleaned the baby and I swear he was gagging. Thank goodness, Oxy Clean actually got all the stains out!

[momathome]

Yikes, Esther, ew-ew-ew! The joys of motherhood, huh? I was thinking the lack of cereal may have something to do with it. I have tried both the Gerber rice cereal and the Gerber rice with banana cereal and she was a no-go on both. She will only do the jarred fruit and cereal blends, which are of course a lot more expensive than just the box of dry cereal! I am working on veggies with her and she won't do sweet potatoes - what baby doesn't like sweet potatoes? She spits it back at me when it is something she doesn't like. Challenging girl, that one. Hope your little ones are doing well!

[Moneypenny]

At that age, DD has similar poop but I think it was mainly because she would go 7-10 days between dirty dipes - you can't help but have a huge messy diaper when you've got a week's worth of poop to get out! Could she be having a reaction to one of the foods? I think apples, pears and oatmeal are all "poop inducing" foods, so maybe cut back a little on those and see if that helps.

Susan
mama to my cutie pie, Avery
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We made it to a year!

[mudder17]

You could try oatmeal cereal. Kaya did NOT like rice cereal but loved plain oatmeal cereal. It's not as binding as the rice cereal (which is partly why we introduced her to oatmeal first). And yes, the sludgy mess is normal, although with us, it did vary somewhat. But for the most part it was pretty sticky, very rarely was it formed. Fortunately, we didn't usually have blowouts. But one thing I will mention--sweet potatoes are NOT binding. :) We balance her bananas with sweet potatoes and carrots when she gets into a banana stage.

Eileen

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Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz