baby poops nonstop

[jooksing]

My 7 week old baby is exclusively breastfed, and there seems to be no end to his pooping. At just about every diaper change (about 8 times a day), every time I think he's nice and clean (thoroughly wiped off, diaper rash ointment applied in all the right places, fresh diaper perfectly in place), he'll suddenly let out more poop. Or we'll actually make it off the changing table, I'll be buttoning up his outfit and ready to take him to the living room for feeding, and suddenly I'll hear a loud toot and know that his clean diaper is now soiled again. This happens repeatedly - I often go through 5-6 diapers in one changing. Last night, it took me from 3:30 am to 4:45 am to change his diaper, and that was only because I finally decided to walk away after the 6th diaper (which still had a little bit of stuff in it).

As you can imagine, it's driving me crazy. By the time I'm done changing him, it's already about time for his next feeding (am feeding him every 2-3 hours). I feel like all I do is change and feed him! And of course by the 2nd or 3rd diaper, my sweetie is screaming his head off (so would I, being confined to the changing table for so long). He has sores on his tush from all the poop (which is also why I'm so nuts about getting him clean - my husband tells me to let it go after the 2nd ruined diaper, but I just can't).

I called my doctor about this, and she says since his poop is normal for a breastfed baby (mustard yellow and seedy) and since he's gaining weight and seems very healthy, she's not concerned. She said all I can do is wait it out until he gets to the point where he only poops every few days (which breastfed babies are supposed to reach from 3 weeks to 2 months of age - I have been waiting and waiting for that day to come...). Her only advice was to wait a half hour after feeding him to change him (I change him between sides). #1, that's not practical because he usually falls asleep after feeding - if I changed (woke) him after, he'd never get any rest (neither would I); #2, it obviously wouldn't work anyway, since if half an hour were all it took, we wouldn't be having these hour+ marathon changing sessions.

Is anyone else having this problem? Am I being too anal (no pun intend) - should I just let it go after a certain point, as my husband advises? Like I said, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm not even going into how expensive this is getting (flying through diapers, wipes, ointment at an alarming rate). I just want some time here and there where I'm not changing or feeding him!

[proggoddess]

We would always wait for "three blasts from the foghorn" before changing our DD's diaper. Those might be 30 seconds apart, or 5 minutes apart, but it would always come in threes. And when she was very young, it might take her 20 minutes from the first scrunch of her little face to her being done and we'd change her diaper.

All I can say is if he has diaper rash, perhaps he might be sensitive to something you're eating? But he's gaining weight well, so it's probably not too big of a sensitivity. Our DD is sensitive to dairy and she was not gaining weight well and pooped very often with large loads each time.

Try letting him nap with his diaper off on some cloth diapers/towel/old t-shirts. Might help clear up the diaper rash.

[searchdog]

I second the previous poster on waiting a little while to change the diaper to make sure baby is finished. My daughter was the same way your baby is and we had a HORRIBLE diaper rash at about the same age. Here is what we did and it worked great. A friend gave me this recipe for home made wipes. We used these from about 2 weeks until just the other day DD is 17 weeks now. (If it looks like we are getting a rash I will be making more wipes) We would also put Vaseline (actually generic petroleum jelly) on her bottom after every change to create a barrier between her skin and the next "explosion". We still use Vaseline, but have gone back to regular wipes. So far so good. It gets better I thought we would go broke going through 12-20 diapers a day at first but it did slow down. Try the wipes and Vaseline it works!!!!

1 Roll plain white Bounty Paper Towels
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon baby shampoo/body wash
1 tablespoon baby lotion

Just cut the paper towels in quarters (that is what we did you can make them bigger it you want) boil the water, then mix in the shampoo and lotion and pour over the paper towels. Put in some kind of container that seals tight, we used a Tupperware container. I didn't use bounty towels but that is what the recipe calls for, we used the Kirkland Signature paper towels from Costco. I think the key is they need to be just plain white. I would use about a quarter of the roll with the one cup of water sometimes I needed more liquid so I just made a little more. It isn't science so you can make more or less liquid. Feel free to email me if you have any questions or just want some support it gets better I promise.

By the way we tried diaper rash creams first it made it worse! The wipes and Vaseline did the trick!