BF 4 day old, no dirty nappies for nearly 48 hours - should we worry?

[HolidaysQueen]

Hi all -

My son was born on Monday and had good dirty (brown at first turning to green) and wet nappies until we left hospital on Weds afternoon, although I think the amount of poo was decreasing with each nappy. Since then we have had lots of wet nappies but no dirty nappies.

The midwife came yesterday at about midday, so nearly 24 hours since he'd had no dirty nappy and she wasn't bothered by it, but he still hasn't done a poo. Midwife not due back until tomorrow. I'm not sure how worried to be. Any advice?

A couple of other clues which may or may not help:

1. He's a little jaundiced but nothing major
2. He appears to be feeding well (can hear milk gurgling down his throat into his tummy) and happily, although I wonder if I need to be feeding a little more frequently than perhaps I am - he's feeding every 2-3 hours at the moment day and night, for at least 20-30 mins at a time, but spends most of the night awake with his hands stuffed in his mouth sucking.
3. I think my milk is just starting to come in - noticed a change in consistency last night and had first leak onto bed this morning
4. He doesn't seem constipated - tummy soft and he doesn't flinch when I touch it so assuming not tender

All help gratefully received! DH and I aren't sure if we are just being paranoid, sleep-deprived first time parents or if this is something to worry about. Most of the advice I can find on the internet is for babies when the milk has come in, which mine hasn't yet so that doesn't seem quite relevant yet.

Thank you! HQ

Hi HQ, hope you're enjoying your lovely LO.

DS2 didn't poo after meconium for 10 days, like yours tummy was soft etc. MW weren't at all concerned at first, but by ten days they were starting to get edgy. I increased his feeds to at least offering hourly and I would suggest you try that, as hand sucking may just be stemming the urge; the thing that worked in the end though was that they put gave him a massage over the entire bum area which seemed to stimulate things along.

Oh also keep an eye on and count wet nappies and skin tone, just to check he's well hydrated.

Holidays, lack of poo in itself is not a worry, but it is a sign to check for other things, like effective milk transfer (get someone who knows what to look for to check) and weight (have him weighed naked on digital, recently-calibrated scales).

2-3 hourly is not frequent for a baby of this age, and I'd worry that the jaundice is making him too sleepy to feed more often.

You can encourage more feeding by holding him skin to skin, and by responding to every little feeding cue.

He, and the feeding, may well be ok - lack of poo would not be constipation at this age and stage, but a sign he is not yet feeding well. But no panic - just feed more often and get his weight checked out. He should have stopped losing weight by now, and be no more than 10 per cent (tops) below birthweight...if he is 10 per cent or more, then it's a sign feeding needs to be fixed and to happen more often.

Good luck with this.

congratulations on your ds!
do you not still have a mw coming every day?

Thanks guys - I feel so much better this evening after trying some of your tips and then talking to the midwife!

I started a little list of when we'd changed nappies, been feeding etc. since I could remember (probs from about 4am this morning!) to keep an eye on things like Peachy suggested and realised that his wet nappies were not happening quite as often as they had been and that he was getting more and more lethargic. This sent me panicing, so I tried skin to skin as Tiktok suggested but he was too sleepy and then immediately too distressed when we tried to feed, plus he had stopped sticking his tongue out properly to latch on so wasn't even latching correctly and then withdrawing from the breast when I tried to express a little milk into his mouth to get him interested.

I phoned midwife in panic (only see them every other day here and she's not due until tomorrow) and explained. She suggested aside from the poo (which we can worry about tomorrow) it might actually be a side effect of the jaundice but also of my milk coming in because she said his distress/fussing sounded like he wasn't liking my milk as the flow had probably changed. She made me get in a warm bath, put hot flannels on my boobs and express. Although they weren't feeling engorged, the flow suddenly became much better.

I got back into bed for more skin to skin and it was like a miracle. In hardly any time at all, I got a baby latching himself on, milk flowing freely, baby sick on the duvet for the first time, a big fart (sorry, TMI!) and then a completely sated baby who has been sleeping in his moses basket for the first time without fussing! This was about an hour ago - about to go and try and rouse him for more of the same to try and keep things moving nicely.

Thanks guys! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the poo, but will also be upping the frequency of our feeding and taking to bed naked to do it

good news!

Hope you get lots of poo soon

Well done. And it's so refreshing to hear a story about a midwife giving good bf advice.

I just like hearing Tiktok wishing people lots of poo.

Wishing you lots of poo too Tiktok (well it's only courteous).

Great news HQ

Hi there,
We went through the same stuff with DS a few weeks ago and the midwife referred us to the hospital....where DS was given a supository (sp?) which worked within minutes. Since then we have had no problem with bowel movements. Some may think it's drastic...we went with it as we were so sleep deprived and worried!!

Thanks Emmyem - I'll bear that in mind. He's still not had a poo but is now feeding well and having wet nappies so the midwife was okay about it this morning when she saw him . They want me to call tomorrow and Mon if still no sign of it so I will ask them about that if still no joy then.

Hi,
Just to let you know that our baby went through the same thing. Didn't poo after the meconium for about a week. I was advised to increase the feeds (he didn't have a great latch and was losing weight), so I basically fed him constantly until we figured it out and the poo came a few days after we cracked the feeding. From then on he just pooed every 4 days until he was about 3 months old. He's nine months now and does 2 poos a day - you can set your clock by them!
If he's producing wet nappies and seems happy (and it sounds like you've cracked it with the feeding - well done!!) please try not to worry too much about the poo - my bet is you'll get a huge explosive one pretty soon and maybe your baby is like mine and just isn't a very prolific pooer!
Good luck and congratulations!!!

My DD did the same and I posted on here for advice (would have been mid February 2007) so if you do a search you might find that post helpful. I was very worried about it all but the poo eventually happened after a week. I had no concerns about her or her feeding until we had no poo lol. But in hindsight, I think she cleared the meconium REALLY quickly and then had a lot of bowel to fill - poo when it arrived after a week was copious and bright yellow. And I've never been so pleased.

As tiktok mentioned on that thread, of course it's reassuring to know that it does happen to others. But it's also worth being a little bit 'paranoid' and keep an eye out for other signs that everything's OK. I think feeding more often is worth doing if there's any doubt.

Sorry guys - I really thought I'd posted here to update you and just noticed that I hadn't!

On Saturday evening DH went to change nappy and shrieked for me to come and look... 3 days worth of poo had come out in one nappy! It smelled horrid and was a really dark brown. We ended up having to bath him to get rid of it all! He did the same thing on Sunday and suddenly yesterday became all regular (5 dirty nappies, all yellow) and now we can't stop him!

I never thought I would be so happy to see poo

Holidays this is good news

The lack of poo, the browness when it came, the yellowness and frequency of it these days is all entirely consistent with a baby who was not feeding well at first (prob to do with the jaundice and sleepiness) and is now perfectly well on track and taking what he needs to thrive and establish a lovely milk supply

HQ congratulations on Leo and so glad to hear you're having lots of yellow poos.