Smelly poop and farting (BF babies only!)

[etwahl]

I thought breastfed poops aren't supposed to smell bad? hers do, although I don't mind them, my friends make comments. Is that normal? Also, she farts a lot - like adult farts. Is that also normal? Just wanting to make sure that something in me isn't producing a huge amount of gas. She rattled the bed this morning when she was lying down and really was farting a lot.

Tammy,
Mom to Lauren Genevieve
03/12/2003

[nigele]

Tom's poops were really smelly and he had really loud gas, too. I had heard that breastfed babies didn't have smelly poops but mine sure did!!! (Maybe they are less smelly than formula poops?? I don't know..)

[deenass]

Tammy,

My son is a few days younger than Lauren and when he farts it's LOUD! He especially does it when he's nursing. My friend's son does the same thing while nursing...it's a sound (and a smell) only a mother could love!

It's not that breastfed poops don't smell bad, it's that they don't smell AS bad. So it seems like you're okay if you still think they're alright.

And all babies pass gas. There are burps, farts and various other assorted noises but that is totally normal! A friend of mine used to say that she could tell when her baby had a poop not because of the smell, but because of the loud, explosive farts that would accompany it. I never heard this myself, but she compared it to thunder!

I say that my daughter will be very popular with the frat houses when she goes to college. She's blonde, blue-eyed and burps like a champion. :-)

[stillplayswithbarbies]

My daughter passes gas, loudly, and it is smelly. Her poops smell like breastfed poops, I don't know how to describe it. If you were expecting no smell at all, that isn't correct, but it doesn't smell like adult poop.

...Karen
Jake age 12
Logan Elizabeth 3/25/03

[Andrea S]

On my first weight check with the ped that is the first thing I asked. B/c I thought bf poops did not smell. She said that it is perfectly normal for smelly poop/farts I remember her saying something about it depends on how long is sits inside them. Andrew had very loud and frequent farts when he was Lauren's age. If the gas seems to be hurting him I would give him mylicon drops or the hylands (homeopathatic) gas tablets.

Andrea
mom to Andrew 8/14/02

I could NOT get over how, in all our childbirth classes, the instructor kept saying how breastfed babies' poops were odorless. I knew it had been a long time since I'd been around newborns, but as the oldest of 5 kids, I also knew that the poops were most definitely NOT odorless. I kept my mouth shut, though, since I figured they were trying to give one more reason to bf.

But one thing - if you think they smell now, just WAIT until solid foods come. And once the baby is fully weaned - YOWZAH! I know the INSTANT Ainsleigh has pooped, even if I'm across the room.

And DH and I laugh all the time how "grown-up" her farts sound. He replies, "Ahh, she's growing up into quite the young lady!" :)

[dogmom]

I don't really believe much in the momma's diet=breast milk connection. (colicky babies and the like) But there was a week when my DS diapers were quite pugent which was when I had several highly suspicious meals. (Cauliflower and the like) I tried to change my diet and it went away. As far as gas, that's been going on since my milk came in. Sometimes my husband and I will be sitting there, we hear a huge fart, look at each other, and then realize it was the baby. One male friend of ours just didn't believe a little baby could make that much noise.

Jeanne
Mom to Harvey
1/16/03

[C99]

Nate's farts are LOUD. I mean, so loud that my husband and I cannot always tell that they are Nate's and ask each other to determine whether the noise was made by one of us or by the baby.

And I think BFed poops can be smelly, but not really what I would call stinky.

I agree that bfed baby poops aren't necessarily odorless but they definitely are better than a baby on formula or solids. We have always called them "buttered popcorn poops" because they have that weird smell like microwave popcorn before it's popped. But, having said that and also adding that I don't always think the mother's diet is the culprit, when Wesley was a baby he had horrible gas that smelled like a grown man's and unregulated poops that seemed painful. It turned out that he wasn't able to digest the milk proteins in my breastmilk. After I cut dairy from my diet, the smelly gas went away and the poops seemed more normal (the right color, consistancy, etc). If Lauren seems to be in pain, you might want to investigate this further. If she seems fine, then just chalk it up to the weird intestinal system that all babies seem to possess! LOL!