I think my breastfed baby is constipated...

[Sarahlou8]

Hi, can anyone help?

My baby daughter is 11 weeks old. On Christmas day she cried, whinged and screamed pretty much all day. On boxing day morning she did the most explosive poo and went back to being happy. Didn't think much of it at the time, it seemed to be a one off.

yesterday she did not poo at all and cried and cried continually, despite feeds, cuddles, entertainment. She was impossible to settle last night and I assumed she had tummy ache.
This morning...well! Put it this way, a complete change of clothes in order, it reached almost to her neck.
She was positively laughing afterwards and I've just spent the last 2 hours with her happier than I've seen for ages.

I didn't know it was even possible for a breastfed baby to get constipated. What can I do? She takes nothing else other than breast milk. Should I give her water?

Thank you.

she's not constipated if it is still soft when it arrives. It is also common for breastfed babies to go up to a week (or longer!) without pooing without them being constipated. You could try bicycling her legs and a bit of tummy massage when she is unsettled and see if that helps

My baby is BF. She goes for days without pooing but she has done since birth. I don't think it's anything to worry about except that it's unusual for her? If it happens again, maybe look at your diet? I don't know if this would make much difference but it's advice that was given to me.

Borrowed wife's moniker but as its me that mostly deals with these problems -
Ours doesn't go days but I know just what you mean by seeming constipated. Particularly in the early months he seemed to have something like a 27 hour cycle at the end of which he would produce a series of pretty big (and liquid) discharges. Often as you were in the process of changing.

Tummy massage (circular motion clockwise) did seem to help in settling but I found that it was often very difficult to get the tummy sufficiently relaxed to actually start the massage. Something that seems to help a lot is to use a hairdryer with a good noisy fan (white noise no distinct note) to play a warm stream of air onto the tummy then to start massaging gently. The combination of warm air and white noise seems to help our baby to relax. (In the early stages it was almost alarming - you turned the thing on for a minute or so and zonk - latterly it has been less effective). Using the tips of the fingers you can gently explore to find the 'knotty' bits and work to relax them.

Obviously you don't want to cook your baby so make sure that the overall temperature of the room doesn't get excessive and don't hold the hair drier too close!

I'm afraid this method is rather high maintenance from the carers point of view - the baby gets to sleep but you don't!

Other things that have helped for us have been CDs of wave sounds (I suspect rain sounds would work too)

One way of getting this EBF babies going a long time between poos problem in perspective is to put the question the other way round - what exactly is there in breast milk that a baby should need to eliminate - so perhaps it only indicates that some babies are more efficient in processing their feed.

mine is similar

try the massage it might be tummy ache/wind rather than constipation, see techniques on you tube

cooled boiled water/sugar water cannot harm them and keeps things moving

and LENTIL SOUP! this has worked on my not pooing baby twice! I felt like shit though as overdid it last time!!!!

Mine is now 4 months and is alot happier I think it just took his digestive system a while to warm up, and he still only poos about once a week

Try strawberries - not too many as they can be quite acidic, but if it's constipation, they may just do the trick.

Patsy - do you mean me to eat them?

Sorry, wasn't clear was I! Yes, you to eat the strawberries.