Constipated breastfed newborn

[naturelover]

DS is 12 days old and exclusively bf on demand.

He's not constipated as such, but only poos about 3 times in a 24-hour period, which the midwife says is fine. She looked at the nappies and said they were ok (though to me they look very solid compared with DD whose poos were very runny).

Anyway, DS seems to be in discomfort, often for a couple of hours, straining and grunting, before managing to do a poo.

A couple of times we've given him a teaspoon of cooled boiled water (on midwife's advice) which seemed to help. But I was always told an exclusively bf baby doesn't need anything else.

A friend suggested cranial osteopathy. Has anyone any experience of this for constipation?

He did have quite a hard delivery so I was considering cranial osteopathy anyway.

Sounds ok to me, but prob best to go with the midwife who has seen the nappies and confirms their normality.

Straining and grunting in a newborn is not discomfort. Newborns who are uncomfortable cry.

my son was like this...it sorted itself out, would just recommend feeding as much as possible while he's constipated.

Our baby (5 weeks) does lots of grunting too. She pooed yesterday for the first time in 7 days - apparently this is totally normal (and we're lucky not to have to change pooey nappies so often!!).

Bf babies can go for three days or so without a poo.

posie, this is only normal in older babies, and it's a lot more than 3 days

The OP's baby is pooing regularly, anyway.

newborns do strain and grunt regardless of poo. They just make funny faces and noises all the time.

Might be slight wind, might just be the odd sensation of being out in the world and having limbs they can wave etc! I very much doubt it's constipation which is (I was always told) practically unheard of in exclusively bf babies.

Tiktok, again I am surrounded by misinformation given out by GPs

It's normal, OP. It's complicated relaxing one muscle while you tense another! Your DS is not constipated, particularly if his poos are runny.

posie - what did the GP say?

Actually it was years ago and amongst the plethora of misinformation included:

babies can go for a week without doing a poo (ds1 had dark green poo that I later learned is a sign of hunger)
that I should give ds1 a dummy because he was greedy and that's why he was vomiting after a feed.

Hmmm...babies can go for more than a week without pooing, though, and green poo is ok, and really doesnt have to mean hunger (just occasionally it might be a sign of under-feeding but usually not).

Vomiting after a feed can mean the baby is self-regulating the amount he/she takes and getting rid of excess...not 'greedy' though! It can also mean other things.

My 12 week old has been going about once or twice a week for the past 4 or 5 weeks. Less nappies! That said, he farts something chronic for at least a day beforehand and wobetide the one of us (me or the DH) who has to change the nappy as there is A LOT of poo