Constipated 7 month baby? Lots of blood on stool

[Charlotteap]

Hi, the last three days my baby has started waking every hour at night and just being completely unsettled we took him to the dr and the dr said his stomach felt firm so maybe constipation and prescribed movicol. Before giving it my son cried and there was a rock solid rabbit pellet type stool in his nappy and he’s since done 2 more of these but the last one , one end of the stool had lots of blood and a large patch in his nappy. The dr said on the phone , not an examine that it will be a tear due to the hard stools. But im struggling to give him movicol? He won’t take it is there anything else I can do , prunes? He had a couple bananas the other day and im thinking this hasn’t helped things

anything I can do to make him to movicol? Any other home remedies he’s on two meals a day, breakfast usually porridge or weetabix and fruit and dinner usually whatever we are having the dr said drop one meal and just breastfeed to help loosen him up. But he’s in so much pain I can tell as he never cries , he’s crying every few hours and last night didn’t stop for over 2 hours. Thanks so much in advance

Have you tried the tiger in the tree hold when he's in pain? that would help my DC when she had tummy pain.

Aside from prune juice and making him drink a lot of water (and avoiding all other food) I don't know what to suggest but I'm assuming time will sort this out.

I expect you're right about 2 bananas in 1 day being too much for him.

@Charlotteap I’m sorry you’re all going through this. My little one had awful constipation from 6 months old and is still using Movicol sachets daily now (he’s 15 months old). We were advised by doctors that it can taste quite soapy and a bit horrible! They said to mix it with some squash or juice to make it taste a bit nicer? We put it in his normal bottle to mix up with some juice and he’ll drink it like this. Is that worth a try?

x

Try tummy massage. That always helped my little ones. Google the specific things to try but there's one where you sort of move your hand across from one side to the other in a sweeping motion for example.

Other than that you could try manually helping them to pass the stool. I know it's gross but I've been known to apply some counter pressure on their bottom when I noticed them straining and in pain to help ease it out.

We were prescribed a drink that was water soluble that really helped too. Maybe ask about that. Laxido I think it was called.

Oh I'm so sorry, that sounds so painful for him, poor little thing. What kind of old is he having in the evenings? Can you add things that will loosen his stools a bit, like spinach or soft or cooked pear? Changing the proportions of carbs to vegetables might help as the veg can really help get things moving through.

If he won't eat these foods then maybe you can hide them in the foods he normally eats. If you don't purée the food for him already, then maybe pureeing it could help until he's feeling a bit better.

Hi we had similar issues and I have a few tips for things that helped:

• we were prescribed cosmocol, similar to movicol and the only way I could get him to drink it was to add a little squash in with it and he’d happily drink it all
• prune pouch in the morning with breakfast, we get the basic Tesco ones
• Tinned pineapple / melon with 1 meal a day, get the pineapple in fruit juice and not syrup. You could use some of this juice to mix with his cosmocol
• 1 serving of Greek yoghurt with the other meal
• no Bananas
• we also offer a 50/50 diluted apple juice and water at lunchtime but due to age you may not want to do this

my Boy is now nearly two and we keep up with the above and haven’t needed to use the cosmocol anymore and he’s much more comfortable passing stool

You must resolve this asap (I know you are) or it leads to more issues down the line. My son witholds poo having been constipated from early childhood :(

Along with the laxitive I'd offer watered down orange juice. Kiwi fruit works wonders. Also fried prunes if you put some in a jug and put some water in, let them rehydrate, puree them and spoon feed or mix into porridge.

Cosy baths. Tummy runs AND back rubs. Also something I thought was crazy but always seemed to help is to press your thumb against the sole of his foot, right in the middle. Press on, hold for a few seconds, release and do this a few times. I know it sounds weird but it did always tie in with when my boy did a poo not too long after so I felt it did do something !

Sudocreme for bottom every single nappy change

And if you don't get anything decent from that then I would go to a pharmacy and buy a 1g glycerol suppository. The longer he's constipated the more his bowel will stretch so you need to disimpact asap.

Dried prunes not fried!**

As long as you make the movicol/laxido up with the right amount of water you can then put it in nearly anything to disguise it.

Ask the doctor for lactulose instead of movical. My kids both really love the taste of lactulose. If not then mix it with fresh orange juice to disguise the taste a bit plus orange juice helps constipation too. Wheetabix is another sure thing to get it moving! I give it to my kids every morning when they are constipated x

Sorry for the late reply and thank you all for the great advice. Especially @fourlambbhunas i got some lactulose prescribed and he opened his mouth for more he liked it that much 😂 he then had two days of complete poonamis up the back! But the bloods stopped and hopefully all good. The dr said to use it again if he ever struggles like this and I will remember to use all the tips. Thanks guys

I'm so glad he's more comfortable now, it's awful when they are constipated and in pain! With lactulose you can give them a daily dose to keep them from getting constipated again, the back of the bottle will tell you what the maintaining dose is 😊

Yeh we stopped using laxido as you'd have to use so many packs of horrible powder in a juice and hope they drink it whereas lactulose is a syringe or spoon, family nice taste, done and dusted!

Glad he's not backed up any more