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Weaning

Is DD (15mo) constipated? Why and what can I do?

10 replies

KikiShack · 05/01/2015 12:27

My 15 month old daughter really struggles to poo, she grunts and strains and sometimes screams out a bit. The poo is hard and sometimes one large egg, sometimes little pellets like rabbit droppings.
The confusing thing is she doesn't eat much solid food at all. She is proving very slow to wean and mostly sticks to milk (bf first thing and last thing, sometimes some bm during the day too, otherwise cow's milk in the day).
She drinks some water, qunite a lot of diluted juice some days too when we give it to her: she'll have a full plactic beaker of watery juice (approx 50/50).
Food quantities are (it varies lots but I think this is average):
Breakfast at 8.30 2 tbsp of baby porridge (made up with 3 tbsp whole milk) or half a piece of wholemeal bread, also a half a satsuma and maybe half a small pear or a couple of inches of banana.
Snack at 10ish (not every day ) half a baby biscuit or a bit of banana, cows milk
Lunch at 11.30: 3 prawns, a satsuma, a teasp of cream cheese. Maybe 3 chips or a soldier of wholemeal bread too.
Snack 2pm: fruit, cow's milk
Dinner 5pm: 1 scrambled egg, a soldier of wholemeal bread, a satsuma, half a pear, sometimes also 3 tbsp natural yoghurt.
BM at 5.45 then offered cow's milk at 6.30 before bed.
She's on the 99.6 centile, has always been on or above it, and is healthy and hapay and a pretty good sleeper so no other worries except the pooing.
She poos most days, sometimes 2-3 times a day, and misses maybe 1 or 2 days a week. Lots of wet nappies.
Any thoughts?
Ps I know the variety of food is bad- she has pretty much the same every day with a small amount of variation, but she absolutely refuses to try anything other than prawns, sausages, chips, bread, cream cheese, hummus, yoghurt and fruit. We try new things about twice a week and they're always refused. About once a month a new food is added but often a previous favourite is then dropped!

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KikiShack · 05/01/2015 22:23

Poo bump

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KikiShack · 06/01/2015 22:47

Another bump- some help and advice would be much appreciated please!

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Artistic · 06/01/2015 22:57

Hi, my advise could be outdated as my DD is now 7. But I remember that when I introduced cows milk she got constipated! She had been exclusively fed breast milk for 6m. After that SMA until 1 year. Then cows milk - but she got constipated..so I continued the SMA until 2 years & then reintroduced cows milk - successfully. A doctor friend told me that her gut might not be ready to process cows milk...so I just tried this & it worked. Hope this helps...

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KikiShack · 07/01/2015 09:52

Thanks for the suggestion artistic, that hadn't occurred to me. I might try some formula for a couple of weeks instead of the cow's milk and see if that makes a difference, cheers!

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seaoflove · 07/01/2015 10:01

Take her to the GP. They can prescribe something like Lactulose for occasional use. You don't need to put up with her being in pain and passing hard stools.

Sometimes it has nothing to do with diet or fluid intake either - sluggish bowels in babies and children is really common.

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Artistic · 07/01/2015 12:13

You can also try giving her Prune juice...it's a natural laxative. You can give this on a regular basis as part of her diet to keep things nice & easy.

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seaoflove · 07/01/2015 13:07

The only problem with prune juice is it tastes so horrible, a baby isn't going to want to drink it. Lactulose is sweet and syrupy and it's easy to get a 2.5ml dose in.

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BouleSheet · 07/01/2015 13:18

we went to so many doctors about this - we were recommended "P fruits" (so pear, peach, prune), Duphalac (a lactulose: apparently not absorbed into the gut so you up the dose til poo is the consistency of toothpaste), water, and so on. The only thing that worked for DD was Duphalac and 10 years on, it has never recurred. But at the time she used to have prune porridge (prunes and oats) for breakfast every morning.
DD's constipation/hard stools caused a tear which made her fearful of the pain and thus we ended up in a cycle of holding on and then every movement being incredibly painful and traumatic. Not fun - but the lactulose did sort it out.

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KikiShack · 09/01/2015 21:38

Thanks for the additional suggestions. I bought some lactulose just because Boots stock it and are on the way home from work, so fingers crossed!

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SmallBee · 10/01/2015 04:21

My DD gets constipated easily. Looking at your menu I can tell you both eggs & bananas are really binding so try & switch them for something else? My DD is currently addicted to blueberries.
Not sure how true this is but I've also been told there can be too much fibre in wholemeal bread (pasta, rice etc) so it's actually better to do white bread, but I've been meaning to double check that so you should too.
My DD loved prune juice, I diluted it with water at 80/20 (prunes being 20) but since been told prunes can give you bad wind & DD is a windy queen.


Lactulose works SO well. Give it three or four days to work & then be prepared for squishy poos.

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