Constipation advice for 2 yr old - foods to avoid/add?

[Travellerintime]

Hi there,
Ds has never had any problems with constipation until two weeks ago. At this time he had been prescribed an antibiotic for an infection, and seemed to get a bit of an upset tummy from it, so poos were quite loose.

Ever since we finished the antibiotic, he's been constipated. He does go every day, but poos are quite hard & compacted. His diet hasn't changed and although he doesn't drink masses, again this hasn't changed.

It's obviously not a chronic problem yet, but I'm wondering what might have triggered this off and how to address it in terms of diet.
Thanks

Dont give him bananas. Advice for adults is for lots of fibre but I have always gone the other way for dcs and given them less as ime high fibre foods can really bung them up.

Is he having some live natural yoghurt everyday? and lots of fluids?

He's pretty fussy, and at the moment won't eat yoghurt. But good idea, I'll try to think of a way to re-introduce it. Fluid intake is okay, not brilliant.

I've had this for some months (ds is nearly 2) - drinking fluids particularly dilute juice is key, and as much fruit and veg as you can get in him (which was a problem as he'd gone from eating everything as a baby to discovering CAKE and insisting on eating bread and refusing most other things).

We ended up having a few suppositories to get rid of blockages (if you end up with small bits of poo oozing out, that's probably the problem) and then using lactulose twice a day which isn't a laxative, just stops the bowel absorbing so much water. Lots of omelettes containing spinach, tomato puree on bread, hummus etc. He will play with fruit but not eat it.

GP said that bananas actually aren't bad, just not like other fruit/veg, but I restricted them anyway. He was getting better slowly then got a minor tummy bug and a touch of diarrhoea which sorted everything out...

Agree, no bananas - and same goes for carrots. Lots of dried fruit, esp prunes which go down very well as they are so sweet. Orange juice v good too.

DS (22 months) got a really bad bout of constipation when we went back to the UK (we live overseas) for a visit and it has come back a couple of times since then. I found really cutting back on dairy helped and lots of fresh and dried fruit.

Re bananas provided they are ripe they can help to regulate things. If over ripe then the opposite might happen.

DS (22 months) got a really bad bout of constipation when we went back to the UK (we live overseas) for a visit and it has come back a couple of times since then. I found really cutting back on dairy helped and lots of fresh and dried fruit.

Re bananas provided they are ripe they can help to regulate things. If over ripe then the opposite might happen.

Thank you all for your suggestions. Hasn't been going on long enough for me to take him to the GP - I feel they 'll think I'm overreacting. But I do think it's a bit odd that it's just started out of nowhere. Will have to use all my ingenuity to increase fruit/veg intake - like yours, notcitrus, ds has gone from fab blw eating superstar to liking bread, bread & bread...

I have found with my kids that a teaspoon full of cooled peppermint tea works. If your child is a bit older then they may be happy to drink more than this. Also I try to do for children (and myself) but the probiotic drinks are good way to combat the effect of the antibiotics on the gut. Good luck!

Thanks Stokese - I keep thinking the antibio might have upset his gut flora (if that's the right word) so good idea re probiotics.

My DS is prone to constipation (he is 3, but has suffered since around his 2nd birthday).
We find if he is drinking a lot of milk, that will trigger it. As a remedy I think the best things are raisins, water, pears, baked beans, sweetcorn and any greens.
For my ds it can be a bit of a vicious circle as when he gets constipated he goes off his food and only wants milk. It is a very frustrating condition!

I remember having this when ds1 was about the same age as your ds - he drank quite a lot of milk at the time and a friend told me to stop with cow's milk and try him with soy milk instead - he loved chocolate soy and it really did he trick!

We kept dairy down to a minimum for quite a while and eventually reintroduced it with no further problems

Seriously - soy milk is your answer!

probiotics after antibiotics are a must

Another really strange thing that seems to work is a spoonful of dissolved brown sugar. It was mentioned to us by 2 relatives - one who is a child nurse and the other who is a child minder. It's quite easy to get down them too . DS also very fussy so increasing veg/fruit intake was/is difficult.

I didn't know that about carrots - that's the only veg he'll eat

Thank you all for good suggestions. Interesting, Jenniferturkington, he has kind of gone off his food as well - I have no idea what he is surviving off at the moment.

best way to hide veg is to make soup or include veg in spag bog type sauce. If you liquidise cooked veg, he will never know and you will also get liquid into him that way.
It's a long slog after a/bs, keep going.
Go easy on dairy though.