Giving baby brown sugar to drink

[shinyshoes]

My baby hasnt really pooed properly for a few weeks, when she does its like putty/plastacine and quite small,, she might only do one once every 2 or 3 days as well.

She strains whilst she poos, and alot of times she smells as though she has a pooey nappy but 8/10 times its empty.

We took her to the docs last night, armed with her latest deposit and the doc said I have 3 choices.

1. cooled boiled water (we give her a little drink anyway daily, so we know this dosent work)

1. cooled boiled water with brown sugar.

1. Medicine,

Now the G.P. was reluctant for me to give her meds as he thinks the baby will rely on it as a way to poo and therefore make her bowles lazy. He suggested I give her option number 2 between each feed for 2 weeks.

I really want to help her and have given her one dose so far, but I dont want her hooked on sugr, high as a kite from a suger rush. getting used to the taste of sweet things at her age, andf her baby teeth coming through black from giving her sugar.

What would you do, would you do it every feed for 2 weeks, or shall I just do as I'm told and follow the G.P's advice as he knows best

Thanks X

How old is your baby, shiny?

Why is brown sugar water better than plain water? Is it that the baby will drink more of it?

I thought the sugar acted in the same way as the sugars in Lactulose which is sometimes prescribed for constipation. It causes the bowels to retain water and so makes the poo softer and easier to pass. The extra water obviously helps aswell. That's my understanding of it anyway.

Baby will be 7 weeks on monday JamesAndTheGiantBanana

I just read up on this, apparently if you give them sugar in the form of Karo corn syrup (that may be american, I'll have a look what the UK equivalent is, or use brown sugar!) in with their formula milk, the excess of sugar in the gut will cause a sugar-diarrhea which will get everything moving.

I think you can use watered down fruit juice too, but the reason why the website I read recommends putting the sugary substance in the feed is that there are already sugars in formula, so they get the excess of sugar necessary to shift anything faster than they would if the sugar was dissolved in water and given between feeds.

Apparently you can also give them lactulose (stool softener) it's very gentle, although it IS a medicine I suppose. hth

when dd was tiny and her poo was a bit hard, the midwife suggested water with a touch of orange juice in it. It's works in the same way as lactulose but I guess is more gentle.

My ds (16wks) has really bad constipation. I find a bottle of diluted apple juice clears him out (orange juice didn't work for him but did for bm's lo). Tho I do find the result quite explosive so try not to do it more than twice a wk.

is she breast or bottle fed?
do you think she is in pain at all?
if not it may be normal...

Luvaduck

She seems unsettled rather than in pain, she is formula fed, Aptamil.

Thanks for all the replies BTW, do you think that the orange, apple, fruit juice suggestions will be OK given her age?

The sugared water thing may well sound awful but hot damn it works. I did this with both of my formula fed babies.

Babies are born with a sweet tooth.

I wouldn't give her any fruit, tbh. Just sugar.

The reason fruit sugar is better for adults than refined is because they are more complex - babies don't need complex.

It sounds to me as if the orange juice is about giving sugar (fructose rather than sucrose). So I'd give the one likely to work most effectively.

Not tried brown sugar. But will give it a try.

Shinyshoes - how much sugar to water were you recommened? How do you disolve the sugar?

One oz of water, he didnt recommend and amount of sugar I just put in 1/4 teaspoon

Coastalmum, it dissolved itself, I gave the bottle a swirl around and I made it up with boiled water then let it cool first

Thanks shinyshoes will try that in the morning

aptamil caused that in my little one .i had to try all the other milks to find one that suited but in meantime i used brown sugar water solution..it helped plus i did use lactalose in some incidents

used both the brown sugar remedy and the water down oj with dd1 - she was formula fed but also on diuretics which caused terrible constipation at times. Both remedies worked.

the brown sugar in water def works. I used this with ds2 and it really got things moving!

I gave brown sugar to my DD she was small I think under 3mths. It become too upsetting watching her strain all the time and she was fine after. Also gave lactulose on Dr's advice. Both worked and I had a happy baby again.

shinyshoes, echoing what bambi suggested -try some different formulas. I used SMA for my ds when I switched to formula as it is what my sister had successfully used for her ds, but it gave my ds bad constipation. Somebody suggested Aptamil so I tried that and the constipation went.

Other people I know have had the same thing - one formula is great for their dc, others will give them constipation or a very runny bottom. And what works for one baby causes problems for another - it just comes down to trial and error, trying each one for at least a few days unless there is a really obviously bad reaction to it!

There seems to be some unwritten law that thou shalt not change brands of formula, even the hv I saw seemed very surprised when I asked her about it. But questioning her (and anyone else I could think of) about why we shouldn't change (especially when there was a problem) and nobody could come up with a decent answer. or any answer really. only thing I could come up with was that it was the power of the marketing, that once the brands get you hooked onto their milk they don't want you to change to something else...

good luck!

brown sugar will help.....but be prepared for what comes out!

There will probably be quite a lot of it