Constipated baby due to weaning

[emoo777]

My 7 month old has had a nightmare trying to do a poo ever since the start of weaning. Before that, until 6 months, he was exclusively breastfed and had no problems. Now he takes lactulose every day and I also give him glycerol suppositories when he hasn't been for 4 days. He is constantly straining and crying and really cries more over this than anything. Does anyone have any suggestions, or any words of encouragement? I am still brestfeeding and he drinks lots of water, diluted prune juice, eats lots of veggies etc. Is this just a stage?

Poor baby. My 7 month old has endless constipation probs but thankfully has been better since weaning (with the exception of week one of weaning when her bowels turned to concrete and she needed suppositories). She was the opposite to your son in the sense that she was ff and that caused the most problems!

Will he eat prune purée? I stir a little bit into whatever fruit purée DD is having for breakfast.

Honestly though, if Lactulose isn't working I'd go back to the dr. Movicol Paediatric might work better.

Hmmnnn... prune puree I have not tried. Will make some this afternoon - great to have a natural option. Good to know there are options beyond Lactulose, I will bear that in mind. Thanks so much for your help.

Hi, just wanted to let you know that we had awful problems with this at 6-7months. Goes by quickly so don't worry about it being a problem for long. We found prune puree to be great too - we gave it to dd after every meal! Also avoided bananas, carrots, potatoes, rice, apple - she ate lots of courgette, pear, avocado, green beans. It only lasted a couple of weeks, and then we introduced banana etc slowly. I didn't like giving her such a limited diet, but it really doesn't last long. At 12 months she eats anything and has never been constipated since 8 months I think.

Maybe it's to much solids. Try giving less solids, they should only be have 1-2meals a day at most at this age. upto 3meals a day by 9months.

That's interesting, I've never heard that before.

Would agree with getting him checked out.

In terms of 'softening' foods though - have you tried him on kiwi fruit? It always works for mine when a little bunged up. Another one that works, but do please check with NHS Direct / GP before administering, is a brown sugar water solution.

We occassionally have problems with constipation with my 9mo DD, I've found apricot puree works great - I just use the dried ones and soften them, then blend and mix with some yogurt.

Yes I know it's amazing HV don't seem to know that baby's of 6-7months don't need 3meals a day.

This is a good guid and follows the recomendations of the WHO it's aimed at breastfeeding but applies just as much to formula fed babys to.
kellymom.com/nutrition/starting-solids/solids-how/

My DS is now 10 months and constipation was the bane of my life... He would just strain and strain... We had him checked out and various test etc later DR said there was nothing wrong and that as soon as he was mobile it should sort its self out. He suggested warm water and doing the leg cycling thing, which never worked (well it did at the beginning of the weaning process when he was just having baby rice). However, once we were introducing more types of food it became worse, again. Tried lots and then my MIL suggested prunes and weetabix. I bought some of the Cow & Gate baby weetabix and a can of prunes in juice and I haven't looked back since. Works a treat. AND the Dr was right, now he is up and cruising his bowels are doing v well with out having to resort to prunes every day!

Also, I read a good tng about foods that bung babies up... BRAT, Banana's Rice Apple Sauce and Toast... All things that can bung them up, which is also good to remember when they are a bit loose with their poo too.

Well a combination of lactulose and prune puree seem to be working quite well.

Interesting point about the 2 vs 3 meals a day. Even the mumsnet weaning guide says 3 meals from 7 months so advice is conflicting and I suspect there is no right way. However the fact that my baby is so constipated makes me suspicious that I am not getting it right. HV told me to give solids and then milk but he eats loads and is disinterested in milk when I do it this way. I think I will switch it to the other way around for the momentand see if this helps.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

Maybe a bit late but just wanted to say DD2 was horribly constipated when weaning and eventually worked out the culprit was apple. She was obviously very sensitive to the pectin in it, and I couldn't give her any sort of prepared baby mush with it in - which is a pain as most of the jars/pouches have some in even if not in the 'headline' ingredients.

Really pleased you've found something that works. The link below is to a book I was given that was probably referred to daily for the first year, and weekly now. It is strong on sensible, rather than prescriptive advice.

www.bestsellers.ie/Book-289152-9781906353025_FEED_YOUR_CHILD_WELL_DUNNE__THERESE

Might be of use?

Well my DD hasn't had a good clear out for a week and a half. I have been stuffing her with prunes and they don't work anymore! Gave her Lactulose for 3-4 days... nothing. Have progressed to Movicol, one sachet yesterday and two today... nothing.

Thank god I have some suppositories, because without those she wouldn't have pooed this week at all. I expect I'll be getting them out tomorrow

She seems happy in herself but I can tell her belly is getting distended. Whenever she poos, I think "Great, hopefully the backlog will start coming now" but it never does. Lately it's a permanent cycle of going just a little bit every other day, so her poo is permanently hard and dry. It's driving me nuts.

Weekly constipation update!: I have started giving milk feeds one hour before food and moving away from puree towards a more baby led approach, so he is definately taking in more milk and less solids. Situation is still the same with him only really going every 4 days (and still being on prune puree and lactulose). He is less unhappy when he goes than he was so that is an improvement.
Good advice about apricot puree - will make some of that to add variety. Also interesting about food sensitivities - I will keep an eye on this. Some of the foods I thought would help are counter-productive, so it is good to know this.
hiviolet - how is it going? How old is your little one, and how far into weaning are you?
My doctor reckons lactulose for 3 months solidly is required, which sounds like a long time...

I really feel for you, we were in tears over my DD's constipation. The best thing we did for her was to dump the lactulose after 3 months and put her on Movicol. Please have a quick read over the thread I started back in Jan when we were at our wits ends. You need to get on top of this to stop it becoming more deeply entrenched, and your doc is right in that it needs to be a long term treatment. You are having to retrain your DS to stop withholding and being comfortable enough to go. Poor thing.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/a1373841-DESPERATE-Please-help-My-poor-DDs-constipation-is-making-her-so-miserable

I have MumsNet to thank for getting us to our solution, DD is such a happy thing now, makes me so sad to remember how she was. Good luck

Thanks, that is a great thread with lots of ideas of things to try. Things have seemed to get a little bit better over the last couple of weeks so I will see how things go and maybe try Movicol if things don't continue getting better. He actually did a poo sitting upright with his nappy on which has not happened since weaning : ). (I am obsessed with poo!)