Lack of poo!

[perkster]

My 4 month old has not pooed for 5 days now and I guess I am just looking for reassurance that he will be OK.

We have changed his feeds slightly last week by introducing formula to him in a bottle that is mixed with breast milk, he gets 3 ozs (90ml) mixed roughly half and half with my breast milk depending on how much I express, if anything there will always be more breast milk.

We do this as he is teething and basically I am being used as a teether before bedtime OUCH! so this way his dad does the bath, bottle, bed routine which they both enjoy.

I know babies can hang on for a while and that formula makes poo a bit firmer but it's now 5 days and I am now starting to wonder how much longer he's going to hold on! He is fine in himself and his weeing is normal but I have noticed today he seems uncomfortable and I wonder if it's due to the lack of poo.

I know, another paranoid mum but wondered if anyone else has had similar issues?

we went 8 days once when he was exclusively breastfed - it is not unusual

I know it can be normal for babies to go for a while without pooing when they are mainly r breastfed. Have you tried introducing more things into your diet which would encourage you to go to the toilet, this can sometimes help. Have you tried a different formula to see if that helps?

If nothing changes in the next few days I would take him to the gp. Can you mix bottles like that? I've never heard of it before?

Was told by gp that bf baby can go a week between poos. We were on day 5 today but there was a massive nappy just in time for dh to deal with before work!

Not sure about the formula aspect, hopefully someone else will be along soon with experience on that.

DC1 pooed with every feed. DC2's record is 12 days.

It's normal for ebf babies to not go for days at this stage, but if he's normally been regular and the change has coincided with your introducing formula, I might be concerned that it's the formula causing the lack of poo and that therefore it could be constipation. I can't quite gather from your post whether it's just the one bottle of mixed ebm/formula that he's getting or whether it's all his feeds? If just the one then I'd hang on for a while and see what happens; if it's all the feeds then I might try changing formula and see whether that has any effect.

He only gets a bottle before bed, he is b/f for everything else. I express before going to bed for next days bottle which usually involves falling alseep on the sofa and waiting for the other half to wake me up to express.

We're off swimming for the first time this afternoon, knowing my luck we'll cause some sort of environmental disaster!

hollyoaks I had not heard of mixing bottles I just knew he would need a top up as my boobs are quite empty at that time of day and didn't want him to go to bed hungry. I did a bit of research which says this is absolutely fine. I like the fact that I know he's getting all the good stuff from me with just a bit of formula to bulk it out.

One thing it would be worth going to see the GP about would be anal stenosis. This is where the anal muscle is too tight and can prevent poo from coming out. It might be that if the poo is a bit firmer due to the addition of formula, it is now too firm for your baby to pass. Often this is not picked up until the baby starts solids ie has been fine to pass poo from breast milk.

DS2 was born with this and was relatively easy to relax the muscle over time. We were told for the first few weeks that it was completely normal for babies not to poo but actually it did turn out that he had severe anal stenosis. If you think your baby is uncomfortable then go and see your GP.

Also one further tip (look away now if you're squeamish!), if you want to relieve constipation gently twist your little finger (covered with latex glove and KY!) up to the first knuckle into his anus. If there is any poo waiting to come out, relaxing the anal sphincter will help (can be bit messy so have nappy underneath!).

gloriana Haha! Thanks for the handy hint, I am not fazed by such things, I would imagine most women are after childbirth! He has had pooey stains round his bum so I am hopeful he won't need any intervention but will see how it goes.

I will keep an eye on how uncomfortable he is, I know there has been some real stinky wind being passed since formula was introduced but his dad seems to always get these (thats my boy).