if I eat more, baby will poo more - another HV/BF myth, or not?

[MamaChris]

dt2 (6wo) only poos every few days, and has been like this since about 10 days. when it's been a while, he gets increasingly fussy, wanting to feed, then pulling away to scream repeatedly. finally, he produces a copious poo. I think the screaming relates to tummy ache?

anyway, HV (who is always trying to persuade me to eat more) now claims dt2 would poo more often if I ate more because that would make my milk richer. is it really worth me trying to force feed myself? could really do without the days of fussiness, but don't have space/time to eat more! (I am eating plenty already btw)

Total crap as far as I know. What you eat doesn't change your milk 'quality' just maybe the taste?!

I have heard an HV encouraging someone to eat more steak and cheese and stuff to help baby put on weight more quickly.

That's barmy

www.kellymom.com/nutrition/milk/change-milkfat.html

some facty stuff

Good god, boll*cks and tripe!

Where do they get these numpties from?!

www.kellymom.com/nutrition/mom/index.html

HV full of shit (no pun intended)

Plenty of babies only poo every few days, it's just the way they are.

thanks all for some facts. we can happily carry on as we are then :)

RUBBISH - this HV is in urgent need of some updating.

Your diet will make no difference to the 'richness' of your milk - neither what you eat or how much you eat.

And even if it did increase the 'richness' (which it wouldn't) this wouldn't enable him to poo.

Did she really, really say this?
Dear me.

Oh blimey

You might like to contact her manager to suggest that she has some 'training needs'

What total bollocks!
Some babies poo every half hour (or so it seems) others every few days. Whatever you eat will not change that.
Have you looked into baby massage techniques for speeding up the digestive system of your dt? IIRC, massaging round the belly button with the heel of the hand in a clockwise or was it anticlockwise direction speeds thing up if that's what you want to do.
However I wouldn't worry about it.

Ps if the ill informed HV keeps trying to get you to eat more, is there a reason for this? Are you very underweight? Make sure you are taking care of yourself!

tiktok, yes, she really, really said this! apparently he's using up everything in my milk, hence infrequent poos. if I eat more, my milk will be richer, he won;t be able to use it all and will have to poo it out. now I write it down, it's clearly nonsense.

and she's the most pro-bf hcp I've encountered. she says it's "fantastic" I am exbf. she also says I can carry on bf for the "full 6-8 months" if I want (I did point out I fed ds for longer than this). my midwife, otoh, basically said I wouldn't manage to feed twins without top ups.

our hospital is going for baby friendly something, so apparently they will all be retrained soon.

PS SGertie, yes, eating plenty, honestly. packet of gingernuts beside me as I type :)

Well of course maybe she has discovered something that science is not yet aware of.

I think we could perhaps do a MN study into the effects of eating more or less on BF babies poo. I am BF at the moment and would volunteer myself to eat more chocolate to see what it does to my babies poo. All in the name of scientific research of course

You could make a formal complaint about her advice.

I'm with cupofcoffee in volunteering for the experiment.

jeez louise

I would also like to volunteer for the eating more experiment!

DS poos more if he eats more, but that's because he's now getting solids too. Stands to reason really.

Ds2 went from pooing every nappy to now anywhere from 3-8 days. He doesn't struggle or seem upset but is a bit more sicky the day before he poos. I was told by a hv to eat more oranges to help him poo!

It ounds a bit as if she's worried about your weight, and is using this as a reason to try to get you to eat more. Are you SURE you've not underweight? And are you SURE you're eating properly?

seeker, I am not at all underweight. eating not necessarily the most healthy diet right now (bit heavy on the chocolate), but getting plenty of calories.

cinnamon, dt2 does get upset for a couple of days before he poos, so would like to help him. I like oranges, but suspect it's another myth?

she's coming again in 2 weeks so will ask her then if she has any evidence for her "eat more" advice.

cupofcoffee, angeldog, please do report back on your scientific observations

Don't worry about it then. BF babies often don't poo very often - breast milk is so perfectly designed that there isn;t much left to make poo out of once the baby has absorbed all it needs from it!

DS (10 weeks tomorrow) has just gone from pooing about 5 times a day to once or twice - he is definitely finding them a bit tougher to get out now, is wingeing and wriggling a bit beforehand, where as there used to be no struggle at all.

TBF if someone told me to eat more steak and cheese to make my milk "richer" I'd do it even though I know it's bollocks, purely becuase I like steak and cheese and I'm greedy I am happy to also join the experiment!

my HV told me that smetimes a bf baby can go 11 days without a poo and not to worry if it happens, but ds was very regular.

Utter rubbish as others have said. It's nice to hear of a pro-bf hv but that is some serious tosh she's spouting! My ds would only poo every 4 days and now it's several times a day- I miss the four daily poos!

slight hijack-
tiktok I was on a thread the other day where a poster had received nhs bf training and had been told that due to 'hormonal changes' that a woman's milk quality would deteriorate over time and eventually be of no nutritional value- a long time, three years was the number quoted. I and several others tried to correct this but the poster was pretty immobile. It is rubbish, right?! A woman might start menstruating at 3 months postnatal or 19 months postnatal, and hormonally change, but bm 'quality' and nutritional value will not deteriorate, I'm sure of it! But your expert opinion would help reassure me I'm not making this up...

apologies for the hijack again!

coldcomfort: that is seriously bad information. If you can, find out which training this person had received. The trainer needs retraining/reporting/supporting to get a less rubbish bit of info across. Or, can you direct me to the thread where this misinformation was being chucked about and I will do a bit of sorting out? :)

Mothers' milk does change over time but it does not deteriorate.

For example one study found the milk produced by mothers feeding their one-year-olds was higher in fat and protein than the milk of mothers feeding younger babies. This makes excellent sense - nature does usually get it right, anyay - because typically, toddlers of this age are getting a range of other foods and simply don't need/ask for the volume of breastmilk they did have in order to grow, and they are able to walk/crawl and so are less likely to be near the breast at all times. Nature's brilliant answer? Make the growth giving components of breastmilk more concentrated.

Thanks tiktok, the thread is here

I bloody knew it, it just doesn't make sense, but didn't have the time/resources to quote research at the time.