bottle feeding - constipation

[bubblechops]

Hi,

Wondering if anyone can help - have a 5 week son who is very constipated. He's solely bottle fed (aptamil easy digest) & hasn't done a poo for almost 48 hours now. Nappies are very wet & heavy. He has a terrific amount of wind though, & gets colicky in the evenings. Will gripe water help? Or do you have any other suggestions? Am getting quite upset seeing him in pain & so uncomfortable.

Thanks

HI bubblechops, has he been windy since birth and had digestive issues? DS2 was a lot like this and was also on an easy digest formula - Cow and Gate Comfort. We saw a chiropractor at 3 weeks as he was windy, colicky and very constipated and she helped massively. As it turned out his neck was jammed in 3 places from a very quick ventouse delivery and the colic was a side effect of this in that he was gulping down bottles as the sucking reflex was easing the discomfort in his neck.

If you don't want to go this route you can google "colic massage" which definitely helps, especially the massage which goes round in clockwise circles on their tummy - guaranteed poo every time with DS2 especially if done after a warm bath!

Boiled water slightly warmer than room temperature also seemed to get things moving and we used infacol before every feed which also seemed to help a lot. Never used gripe water but I know a lot of peope swear by it.

Also, our chiropractor told us that it doesn't matter how infrequently our baby had a poo, it was the consistancy than mattered , apparently anything thicker then toothpaste is constipation.

HTH

PS - another thing which helped (we did this on the advice of our chiropractor) was to put 1 Omega 3 and 6 capsule in 2 of his bottles in a 24 hour period, we used the eye-q ones and when I did some research on the internet the only side effect was a laxative effect which is what we wanted. It didn't give him diahorrhea(sp?) but just got things going iykwim!!

Thanks v much firststeps. Will try the massage & also take a look at infacol. Good news is that a few hours ago there was a big full stinky nappy - hooray!

He had tongue tie when he was born, & isn't able to form a proper seal so takes in lots of air when drinking. I think this isn't helping, but no health visitor or midwife has any advice that has helped so far.

Thanks lots

try just plain warm water, i know a baby who didnt have a poo for 10 days and walm water done the trick!

Cooled boiled water this really helped with DD who was in sim situation when she went onto ff (because her stoopid mum gave up bf another story tho!)

Gripe water will help with the wind as will infacol although I found that to be a faff as you have to give it before a feed.

To ease the constipation side use cooled boiled water with a tiny teaspoon of apple juice that's what I was recommended by my HV before anyone shouts in horror! It worked a treat though!

Hope this helps let us know how you get on.

plain warm water & tummy massage helped. Now have a much happier little monkey! If only he would sleep during the day a bit more..!

Just to add that 48 hours isn't at all unusual. Certainly nothing to worry about and I don't think it means he's constipated at all. He was obviously uncomfortable, but constipated is when their poos are really hard and pellety - the time it takes them to do that is almost irrelevant.