Frustrated Mommy - poopy problems once started solids...

[sophiesmom]

Help!
I'm so frustrated with DD's bms. She is BF and started solids about 6 months. Prior to that, she had the biggest watery stools ever. I posted here, and also was working w/ her dr. Tried omitting lactose, no help. Had stool samples done, she was fine and dr. wasn't worried.

Once she started cereal her stool got thicker and I was happy. But the beginning of September she started getting backed up. She would only push out small smudges, and get upset because she was getting a bad rash and it must have burned. I did a few suppositories and she would go, but then right back to backed up. Finally dr. told me to use a mineral oil stool softener, and she had 1 or 2 doses and cleaned her out so i stopped... and then she was backed up again. Said this can happen to some kids when solids are introduced into the system.

She's still having problems, pushing out these huge stools (not rock hard, kinda like silly putty texture). The dr. said she should not have formed stools at 8 months. So now they've told me to give her the softener every day in her food. I thought she'd become regular, but not really. Sometimes pushing out small ones, then sometimes bigger, but still getting upset when going.

I stopped rice cereal a long time ago. Avoiding bananas. Have tried prunes, pears, peas, prune juice or apple in her cereal (she doesn't like to drink it). She's drinking water w/ meals and starting to consume more.

Anyone have any advice/ideas? I don't know if I'm overreacting, or if i should give her a little more softener (she's getting 1 tsp of Kondramul a day)...

Thanks!!!!

[ged]

Just my experience, but what helped for us was lots of water and increasing her fiber intake.

My DD also had constipation issues once she started solids and it stressed me out completely. Her former ped (before we moved) said to give her juices, but that didn't work for us. I just kept pushing the water, and gave her prunes with her cereal (mixed grain was better than oatmeal in our case). We also started giving her flax and probiotics in her yogurt, which also helped.

Now, she's 19 months and gets some prunes maybe every other day. Flax every other day as well. Still lots of water. And lots of fruit. Her BMs are much softer and usually no longer pebbly. If she does have a pebbly poo during the day, she usually will have 1-2 more softer ones that same day (this now happens once, maybe twice a week...though it used to be more frequent) Our current ped. has no problem with that. But in general, she usually has 1-2 soft BMs per day and rarely has a hard time with them.

I think your DD will get better in this regards, solids are just harder for some kids to adjust to. At least that's what I think.

[elephantmeg]

What I ended up doing at the same age/problem was taking him off cereal completely for a few days and fed him pears every morning until he was regular again. I then took him off the infant cereal alltogether and started him on something called baby flake oatmeal which I add water to and microwave for a minute and mix with fruit. It is definitely more chunky-which is OK with my DS-I've made most of his baby food and he's used to texture. The other thing I did was steer clear of bananas which seem to bind him up more. I really didn't find that juice helped much at all.