4 week old baby pooping CONSTANTLY

[Solicitor123]

Hi all

My baby is 4 weeks old and was born weighing 5 lbs 11. For reference, she is now 6 lbs 14 and therefore on the smaller side. We are EBF.

Since she was born she has been feeding hourly, round the clock. However, since about week 3, she has been pooping all of the time.

She hates having her nappy changed and cries whenever I do it, but with each hefty cry, some poo squirts out. This is the same whenever she coughs or sneezes; poo will squirt out. This means that I am often standing and changing her nappy, and then having to start the whole process again as soon as I am finished if she decides to sneeze or cry some more. It is not uncommon for me to have to change 5 nappies in a row because of this.

Also, whenever I check her nappy there is always some poop in it. For example, tonight my husband changed her before we ate our dinner and within 20 minutes, there was more poop in her nappy.

Last week she had nappy rash for the first time so I have been checking a lot to avoid this happening again, but I have never checked and seen a clean nappy. There is always at least some poop in it.

I don’t know what I am supposed to do save for standing and changing her nappy every 30 minutes all day long. Is this normal? What am I doing wrong?

I really don’t want her to get nappy rash again, but I also can’t feasibly change her every 30 minutes.

Looking for advice and any similar experiences?

She's still so little. Ebf babies do go more often. For now I wouldn't worry
Maybe put a liner in the nappy so you can change that more frequently?

And if she's 4 wk old and this has happened since wk 3 - it's not a thing yet.
You're doing great
Next week it'll be something else that's changed

If in weeks to come it doesn’t change then could try an elimination diet to see if there are dietary triggers like dairy but too early to tell right now - hope it passes (excuse the pun!)

My combination fed baby did this, it suddenly changed around six-eight when LO changed to going once every day or three. I actually can't really remember when it changed, only that we had the first big blow out nappy on Father's Day...

If you’re worried about her skin, put barrier cream on at every nappy change. I like putting lanolin on DD sometimes tbh, bepanthen or any other barrier is fine though. If she does get nappy rash I would pay through the nose and buy mitaneum from vinted or somewhere, it’s completely worth the inflated cost to me and has worked wonders with both our girls as babies.

At that age I was changing 10 poo nappies on my daughter a day and she would do 1-3 poos whilst I was changing her nappy often projectile and we learnt quite quickly to sit side on to the changing mat not at the end!

I think on bad days she was having over 20 a day. She pooed before a feed, during a feed and after a feed so we switched to waiting until she had finished her feed to change her.

It turned out she has multiple food allergies.

Ebf babies to poop alll the time, it because up until 6 weeks i think, your breast milk has a laxative effect to stop them becoming constipated, wouldn’t worry xx

We had this with DD. I remember it being awful at about weeks 5 to 6. It just got better by itself after a few weeks.

DS would poo 12 times a day and this did turn out to be a dairy (and other) allergies, but his frequent / sloppy poos carried on for many, many months.