BMs...what's normal now that we started solids?

[Liziz]

Sorry in advance...gross topic, but I've googled everywhere and searched these forums and can't come up with an answer!

Until a couple weeks ago when she started solids, DD was EBF. It was normal for her to go 2 and sometimes three days without a dirty diaper. Now that she's started solids, is this still normal, or should she be going every day? She's eating ~2-3 Tbsp of food 2x/day right now.

For the past week or so, I've noticed straining and grunting, and some cries of pain that seem to stop once she poops. The poop has been much firmer than usual, but not hard or dry or anything. Now, it's been almost three days since her last dirty diaper. Overall she seems fine though...occasionally yesterday and today she strained and grunted for a minute, but then stopped. Since Saturday, she's had only pears, avocados, peaches, plums, and green beans, which my understanding is should all be non-constipating foods. Should I be doing something more at this point to help her go, or does she still sound fine? Now that she's on solids, when do I worry in terms of no BM?

Again, sorry for the gross topic....who knew kids would make you so focused on bodily functions!

[Blue Hydrangea]

My experience with DS was that when we started solids, his gut needed time to acclimate, so there were some longer time periods between dirty diapers than there had been when he was EBF. I'd guess that your DD will acclimate and she'll have a new normal pattern for herself.

When we started dairy after 1 year, that's when I saw the very different dark little rabbit-pellet like poops that signaled constipation. This went one for a couple weeks, his dr. said it was ok, and then once he was acclimated to dairy, the problems stopped.

[Liziz]

That makes sense, thanks for the reply!

[Mommy_Mea]

There was definitely an acclimation period with solid foods. Both my boys were EBF before starting solids at 6 months, and both went days without pooping once we started solids (normally 1x/day poopers). Everything started moving fine on its own after a few days!

[Simon]

Are you offering water to drink with the solids? For us that made enough of a difference. We find the BMs to be a little more firm, after starting solids, but straining or signs of pain I would be sure to offer some prunes (alone or mixed with something else) and offer water to drink. They don't need any real volume of water, but sometimes that helps move things along.