Breast feeding and baby poo.

[Writerwannabe83]

My 6 week old DS is EBF and there has been a dramatic change in his bowel movements.

For the first 4 weeks of his life he pretty much had a dirty nappy every time we changed it and then it started to reduce until it was only 3-4 a day.

However, he has not not had a poo for over 36 hours now which is completely not like him!! He is really straining (though not appearing to be in pain) and is passing lots of wind but there just isn't any poo.

I know BF babies can sometimes go up to a week without a bowel movement but I thought the reduction in dirty nappies would be something that would slowly taper off, not go from typically having 3-4 every day to then having absolutely nothing for this long a time period?!

Has anyone else had this happen??

With dd sometimes didn't have a dirty nappy for a week, followed by a the nappy from hell! This is normal provided baby does not appear to be in any pain.

My DD sometimes didn't do a poo for a week and then did a perfectly normal one, no poonami, which was disconcerting, like a week of poo just vanished.

If you want to help, try clockwise circular massage around the tummy button with olive oil on your fingers, followed by cycling the legs. Although this might just produce wind!

It can change suddenly - overnight at about that age ds went from pooing in every single nappy to once a day or so, and it changed again for a few weeks after the first lot of vaccinations. Having said that, if you are concerned then I would give e your health visitor a ring and have a chat.

Apparently for the first 6 weeks, breastmilk has a laxative quality to ensure that all traces of meconium are expelled.

From then on, the baby uses most of the components of the BM, leading to less frequent bowel movements.

At 6 weeks DS went from pooing after every feed to pooing once a day, maybe once every two days. That happened overnight!

LLL have some great info on BF babies and their poo habits. If your baby isn't uncomfortable and the poo is still liquid then I think everything is likely to be fine.

DS has now pooed. The first time it was quite normal but the second one was a HUGE amount!!! Thankfully my DH was on nappy duty, there was poo just everywhere

Hi writer, I had exactly this and also freaked out, but I think it's everyday normal. DD is now 7 months and had suddenly stored pooping 4 or 5 times, sometimes for 4, 5, or once 8 days! She's a perfect picture of health, and her 'strikes' coincided with wonder weeks I think- possibly this is a coincidence or maybe there's something in the theory that during developmental leaps they need to use every single calorie going so don't produce much waste- bm doesn't have much waste in it.
I think that so long as your baby produces wet nappies, seems in a normal mood generally, and doesn't have a solid tummy then they're fine.
Be prepared for the next poo strike in a few weeks to last longer!!

Normal. DS went from every nappy to 3-4 a day then to every other/few days by around 6 weeks. My friends ebf little girl went 10 days once!