What could be causing persistent non solid poo?

[Shamoy]

Sorry for title, didn't know what else to summarise it as!!
Dd is 2.5. She's always had breastfeed baby poo, never really graduated to solid poo!
When she was a baby, she was cmpi. She would get a facial rash, get sick, get a puffy face and have severe discomfort if she had milk. She was on a milk free diet from 6 months to just before she was 2. When she 18 months she had a milk challenge in the hospital and was pretty much fine except for some discomfort. We gradually re introduced milk between then and about 2 years old. She has been fine ever since.
With the exception of having loose poo all the time. When she was a baby less than 6 months she would poo between about 6 and 12 times every day. Now at 2.5 she poos about 3 times a day and always loose consistency. Not diarrhoea but like porridge consistency (sorry)

My older children are both diagnosed with a wheat allergy (through blood tests) and are on a wheat free diet. Seeing as their symptoms of the allergy before diagnosis were diarrhoea I have trialled a wheat free diet for dd over the last 3 weeks. Completely wheat free. For the first few days she had a couple of solid poos but since then she has been back to her normal self, with several loose ones a day. She is getting back teeth come through at the same time...

At the moment we are potty training. She is getting brilliant with wees but has no idea when she is doing a poo and just does it in her pants every day.

Am wondering if there is anything obvious that is likely to be causing this? I did wonder about trying her milk free again, although her poos have been like this even when she was milk free? Although she is still breastfeeding at bed time and I am not on a restricted diet (I cut out milk when she was 6 months to just over a year but found she could tolerate it fine after that)

We were discharged from the dietician when she started having milk again but am wondering if its worth getting referred back to them. Does anyone have any ideas of things to try or what it might be?!?!

Thanks! And sorry for the essay :-)

[gretagrape]

marking my place. Same problem with my 12mo son - has various food allergies, but poo suddenly became really porridgey about 6 weeks ago and has carried on ever since. Hopefully someone can enlighten us on this lovely subject!

[Shamoy]

Reassured that it's not just us!!! Hopefully someone who reads this will have some answers for us :-)

[Auntierosemary]

Sounds like the totally unhelpfully titled "toddler diarrhoea". This may be helpful:

www.patient.co.uk/health/toddlers-diarrhoea

My Gp referred me to this when we had the same issue with my older daughter, who is allergic to dairy. The problem for us turned out to be an imbalanced diet. Basically, you need a fine balance of fruit, fibre, fluid and fat. Too much or little of one can lead to chronic diarrhoea, or loose poo.

In our case, my daughter wasn't getting enough fat and was eating too much fruit. When you cut out dairy, it is too easy to replace snacks with fruit and eat too little fat. The dietician explained to us we had to stick to 3 portions of veg, two of fruit a day, and one portion is what child can hold in hand ie not much. And toddlers need 35-40% fat in diet. For non dairy allergic kids, most of this usually comes from cheese, yoghurt etc. with us, we have to fry lots of food and add olive oil - basically forget what we knew about a healthy diet.

Don't know if that applies to you but I'm guessing if your daughter had allergy issues before y may restrict her dairy intake?

Anyway, hope that helps!

[LackaDAISYcal]

gluten? you mentioned going wheat free, but did you elliminate other forms of gluten?

Sounds like it could be coeliac disease. Lactose intolerance is often associated with active coealiac disease, bt it can clear up after being GF for a while.

[Teapig]

We have porridgy poos here too. DD is 11 months and seriously allergic to dairy and egg. We have recently introduced wheat and I do wonder if that could be the problem.
The advice on diet imbalance is interesting. DD often has fruit and we need to fry more to keep up the fat balance.
Sorry for no advice but you're not alone.

[3nationsfamily]

How is her growth trajectory? We had similar issues with my DD at the same age and as well as the digestive issues she had a swollen tummy (gas build up) and the drop off in her growth (75th centile dropped to 25th in six months) was the key indicator that she was not absorbing the nutrients she was eating but it was all going straight through her. She got diagnosed Coeliac and was a totally different child within 4 weeks- didn't realise how lethargic and tired she had been until on the new diet she was suddenly bursting with energy.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Sounds like dd1 - lactose intolerant.

It was misdiagnosed as toddler diarrhea and then constipation until she was 4, took her off dairy - fine, did a few tests to check it was definitely lactose, no issues since. (bar the odd being a small child accident)

Her specialist thought she had cmpi and lactose intolerance as a baby but grew out of the cmpi before she was dx with either.

[gretagrape]

Not sure mine would be coeliac then - he's climbed steadily since going onto solids and is now just above 91st for weight and just below 91st for height. I'd need to look into lactose but I don't think he's being exposed to that as he doesn't have any form of dairy. It's weird though because he was having wheat for ages with no issues, but it's since I've been giving him bread that it all started (only tortillas and ciabatta as they don't have any of his allergens).
Maybe I'm overdoing the fruit and veg - he'll easily eat a whole plum or 12 grapes with his weetabix, and then half a banana or mango for afternoon snack, and I know that some days I get to the end of it and think he didn't get much fat. Back to the ever so anal spreadsheet meal planner then!

Sorry for hijacking, op!

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Oh, sorry I must have misread, i thought you said you'd reintroduced dairy.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Oh hang on sorry, mixed up posters!

[Auntierosemary]

Hi grape
Sounds like it def could be too much fruit in your case - it really doesn't take much. A whole apple in one go will do it for our daughter. Maybe try limiting it to two portions of fruit a day - one portion would be something measly like four grapes, a quarter of an apple, half a banana etc and three veg, portion size the same. It's really quite hard when you have already cut out dairy and soya. You have to even count things like humous and tomato sauce? We actually had to cut out all fruit and veg for six weeks to start with. Six weeks! Can't even remember what we fed our daughter but think it involved a lot of fried bread.

[gretagrape]

Blimey - he's probably getting way too much based on that then. He also can't have tomato, so I make a red pepper sauce and a pea/leek sauce which he'll have spread on bread, and probably at least 3 bits of veg with lunch AND dinner. No wonder he's poos are so toxic! Thanks - I will revise his diet and see what happens.

[Auntierosemary]

Good luck grape x
feel free to give me a shout if you want a hand in any way, just cos we have been through it all before and know what it's like trying to work it all out yourself with no help. Hope this solves it for you.

[naty1]

Our DD did lots of poos as baby about 12 a day ebf.
This has slowed down on solids but teething can cause diarrheoa as can eating soya.
She still poos 2-3 times a day but not diarrhoea at 21m.
But she does eat a lot.