17 month old loose poo

[6strings1song]

Hoping to get some advice from others who have experienced the same.

DS 17 months old has had intermittent loose poo since late February. We put this down to drinking too much oat milk/fibre and potentially too much probiotic. He has CMPA and we were making our way up the milk ladder. Got to the top of the ladder, but noticed explosive nappies about 6 hours after porridge with milk. We have cut milk, yoghurt and the probiotic out since mid March. Just sticking to oat milk in porridge and not letting him guzzle the stuff. I tried reintroducing the probiotic, but next day had a return of the poonamis.

End of March he got a vomiting bug, which I caught too. Definitely a bug. No diarrhoea with the bug, but he has had random loose poo on and off since then. Blamed strawberries and too much squash as there seemed to be a link, so cut those out. The poo is just voluminous and wet, kind of like curry sauce (sorry tmi).

Now last Wednesday he was sent home from nursery with "loose poo". This then progressed to 1x vomit, diarrhoea and no appetite the following day (x 10 liquid poos). So assuming another bug within 2 weeks! Since then, the frequency has reduced, but still doing random liquid poos about 3 - 4 times a day. GP did a stool sample and all negative.

We are dosing him with enterosgel regularly, bland died and obviously he is off nursery. Do you think we have just been really unlucky with bugs, or is there something more going on? I am wondering about toddler diarrhoea, but with the bugs it is hard to tell the woods for the trees.

I am completely frazzled and wondering how the hell I am meant to work if he just continues to have intermittent liquid poo for months. Nursery has a 3 loose poo, excluded for 48 hour policy.

I think it could be a mix of bugs and being intolerant. Upset tummies tend to be more sensitive to dairy. Often little ones have to stop having anything dairy for a while.

Are you totally excluding dairy (in everything)? If not, that's what I'd do first and keep a food diary. You might spot triggers e.g. too much soya, tomatoes etc...

@Pancakeflipper Thanks for replying. We haven't excluded all dairy. Kept on with cheese and baked dairy. His initial symptoms of CMPA were redness and hives on contact, which seems to have resolved, but perhaps we are now contending with a more classic non igE allergy. He has tolerated cheese and baked dairy for over 6 months. Yoghurt and milk were newer introductions, so we cut them back when all this started.

He has had very minimal cheese over the last week. Baked dairy he has had.

We also have a similar issue with egg (hives on contact), so it is a difficult diet situation all round. He tolerates baked egg thankfully.

No advice but just to say before Christmas, my son then around 4 months old, had diarrhea intermittently for around 6 weeks. Stressed me out and I was so worried as he got really sore with it and sometimes had small amounts of blood and mucus in it but GP ran tests and everything came back normal. Then just as quickly as it started it just disappeared and he's been fine since. GP mentioned that there were some 'unusual bugs doing the rounds' at the time so assume it was a bug in the end.

@WithOneLook There is definitely a lot of horrible bugs around this year. I think norovirus is at an all time high. It is so hard to know if it is just endless bugs one after another, or something more chronic.

With your DS, did he have normal days and then loose days? Sometimes we have a day of 1 poo, then the next day it is floodgates.

He is currently snoozing on my chest, bless his soul. Obviously feels tired and run down.

@6strings1song yes some times seemed more normal, some days he wouldn't go at all and then other days multiple episodes of diarrhoea. My little boy didn't seem bothered or unwell in any other way. It was very strange and I was relieved when it passed! Nobody else in the family caught it either, not even my toddler which I thought unusual for a bug but as it resolved itself I can only assume it was.