anti-constipating foods?

[strangerthanfiction]

19 month dd is for the first time a bit 'bunged up.' She keeps telling me 'poo poo' and pulling her nappy and straining til her eyes bulge out of her head but nothing comes.

What's the best way to deal with this in terms of diet? She eats lots of broccoli (no other veg apart from occasional pea) and always has wholemeal bread and pasta. She doesn't like any kind of fruit but will drink apple juice. She has about 18oz milk a day and a bit of water but I can't get her to drink any more than that usually.

prunes are definatly the best...always work for us. stew them until soft and either puree or cut into small pieces.

also, in no particular order:
raisins
kiwi
oranges
figs (cook as prunes)

cut out bananas for a few days.

I know this is all fruity...maybe you can disguise pureed friut by adding to a yoghurt or something similar?
Also if constipated it very often means she is not getting enough fluids. maybe experiment with some new flavours of squash/pear juice/orange juice?

when my dd was constipated the gp adviced me to give her grape juice (apparently grapes are good for this sort of thing)which you can either get from a fruit tin (if you read the label, they're often preserved in grape juice) or a carton of grape juice. Don't worry about sugar content because it's onlt a temporary measure and she won't be drinking it for many days. Also pears are good to eat for this problem (either fresh , soft ones, or again tinned variety) - maybe you find tinned pears in grape juice! wholemeal stuff is good but it needs a lot of liquid to go with it for it to work properly, that is to go through the system properly. perhaps, try and avoid pasta, bananas, rice, potatoes, hard cheese -i.e. cheddar, and eggs for a couple of days, but offer fruit (soft type) and any vegetables (on the off chance she might eat them) - boiled carrots, turnip, parsnip, beans of any kind. Also, my mum told me that when a baby is constipated try and feed him/her some porridge, when the baby has diaorheea offer him/her cooked rice or rice pudding.
i think the idea is that everything that goes through is best if it's soft and has fibers and as much liquid as possible. just for a couple of days don't worry about vitamin intake -it doesn't matter if you cook the carrots for too long, as long as she eats, that's fine, the fibre matter is still there. hope this helps. sorry it's a bit chaotic...

oh yes, prunes. forgot about them. i remember giving her some purreed at that time. boiled for quite a while and mashed them (without the skin). she only needs to eat a small amount really at a time (mix them with the porridge). it's really sweet, she might not like them

weetabix helps my 16 month old dd, or lots of fruity yoghuts or puree fruit like those heinz tins. She doesnt like to drink juice which doesnt help.

molasses is fabulous as is natural senna (use under supervision though)

Thanks everyone. I don't think I'll have any success with prunes as every time I've tried them she's definitely not keen. I did get her to eat a fragment of plum this afternoon. I also cut out yoghurt today and that does seem to have helped. She's been eating more yoghurt lately than ever before and I'm sure I've read / heard somewhere that dairy products can be a bit 'clogging.'

Since giving ds Flax seed oil for his eczema his poos simultaneous became easier to pass. Porridge oats for breakie?

My DMs friend who is in her 80's now was a childrens nurse many years ago. She told me to try one small square of dark chocolate (Bournville will do) and this has always worked for my children, (and on the rare occaision I have needed it - it worked for me too). They like it too!!

toddlerbob, how old do they have to be before you give them this, and how much: my ds has mild eczema, and i'd love to give him flaxseed oil if he's allowed it, he is 6 1/2 months (but i weaned him at 4m)

I gave it to ds from 7 months, basically as soon as he was eating meaningful amounts of solid food. I give him about a tablespoon a day now, but I worked up from half a teaspoon.

It can take 2 or 3 months to show any effect, so don't give up after a week. Keep it in the fridge, only mix with cold food and use within 3 months of opening. I used to mix it with a little bit of food, which I gave first to make sure he got it, but now I just stir it into the main bowl because I know he will hoover it all up.

Some people rub it directly into the skin, but I prefer to grease him from the inside out!

How about prune juice too. I used to give ds1 the stewing liquid from the prunes diluted with some water. And pureed stewed prunes mixed into nat. yoghurt or porridge. The results were always explosive!!

thanks toddlerbob, i'll try that immediately!

Sophable: Maybe keep us posted on progress on the allergy board?

Ooh ... dd loves plain chocolate. Just like her mom. Ok, will try that, that's a new one for me! So far she's not gone for any of my fruit attempts and never eats breakfast cereal, especially not porridge. Actually doesn't really eat breakfast, maybe a yoghurt. But that's another story!

Orange Juice is good.

Beetroot is good - my dd loves it and it usually has the right effect! Also exercise helps - so give her plenty of chance to run around.

No worries with exersize! She gets a romp in the park in the mornings, a romp somewhere or other in the afternoons and hardly sits still when she's at home.

I've never tried beetroot, will do so, thanks. She doesn't like orange juice, only apple so far but I'm going to try grape as well.