Diarrhoea and dioralyte

[Spot]

My 5 month old daughter has had diarrhoea for four days now. Yesterday, on doctor's orders, I put her on a 24hr dioralyte fast and during that period she didn't produce any more diarrhoea. Now she's back on formula, with a bit of baby rice offered between bottles, but the diarrhoea's come back with a vengence. Should I keep offering her dioralyte feeds as well as formula to help rehydrate her? Any advice on how best to use dioralyte and manage diarrhoea?

I would love to know how to get a child to take dioralyte at all, our daughter has always refused! It sounds like you should probably stick at the dioralyte for another day - it contains all the salts etc they need and she won't starve, but go back and see the doc again too - or call NHS Direct

I don't know if this helps but when this happened to my 8 month old in Oman, we were told not to give any milk or dairy products at all when babies have the runs. Like you we did the dioralyte thing and went back to the bottle when the runs stopped. Couldn't understand what to do when it came back even worse after that until someone said, you're not still giving her a bottle are you?! What we were told to do is make a big jug of weak tea (without milk!) and put a pinch of salt in it and put that in the bottle instead of milk. No doubt there will be nurses etc horrified at this but it worked! You can also get a Milupa cereal whose name escapes me now, but it is what the aid agencies use in famine situations to give first feeds to starving children, we used to use that as well. Bungs everything up! Milupa also used to make a drink which smelt like aniseed which you mixed with water, but I havent seen it on the shelves for a while, not that I'm looking though! Its very hard when the child really wants food but I remember we went thru nappies by the box load! This advice came from our doctor, not some old bedouin by the way!

Hi Spot,
I would go back to the dioralyte, if it were me, but probably best to consult doc again.

My doctor advised that when you went back to formula to first mix it really weak, 1 scoop to 8 ounces of water, and then gradually increase the number of scoops over a few days if everything was still OK.