My 16 days old daughter has diarrhoea - what do I do?

[Badgerwife]

The title says it all really. She has very wet stools, I can only guess it's diarrhoea, what do I do?

don't all babies that age have wet stools?

Breast fed or bottle? either way, I think it is unlikely to actually be diarrhoea though... Newborn baby poo is very wet (only really familiar with bf baby poo though)

There's wet and wet I guess... How do you know the difference then?

breastfed

she was having nice grainy and seedy mustard poo and it's turn into a right custard (sorry TMI!!)

Pretty normal to have explosive poo that ends up all the way up the babies back and leaking out of the sides of nappies, as far as I can remember anyway, isn't it just the babies guts getting used to milk.

If they're wet and bright yellow, with a sweetish smell, then that sounds normal , if mucousy and pungent perhaps not.

Have you eaten anything different? Onion used to irritate my youngest when I was breastfeeding.

Friends have been bringing us food but there's been nothing controversial. Maybe she doesn't like garlic bread...

In all seriousness, the garlic could be the culprit. I hope she feels better soon :)

Thanks a lot, I will try to relax.

BF babies' poo varies hugely from one poo to the next, and sometimes it is virtually fluid or custardy. It's very unlikely that there's anything wrong.

If she is exclusively bf, then there is nothing to worry about. Different babies just poo differently. My ds was pretty textbook and my dd only poo'd once every 7-10 days. We saved a lot on nappies!!! I ate completely normal diet which in my case included lots of garlic and spicy food. Nothing had any effect on either of them.

True diarrhoea is liquid like water.

Pasty, sloppy and custardy poos aren't likely to be diarrhoea.

And remember in a breastfed baby there is very little waste, so not much left to turn into proper poo!

Get used to liquid mustard - you've got a few months of it yet! Seriously, it all sounds fine.

they're supposed to be very liquid at that age. the kind that soak right into a nappy

Thank you! I shall now go, take a deep breath and enjoy the mess.