Dealing with Baby's Constipation

    A friend and I were talking about baby constipation today, and I decided I should share with you what I did when my little one went through this phase when we first started giving her solids. My daughter was always very regular with her stools, till I started giving her solids when she was about 6 months old. After about a month of feeding her solids (along with breastmilk), I noticed that she was having a poopy diaper maybe every other day. I really wasn't concerned though because my Pediatrician had warned me that her stools would change because of her new diet. But after a couple weeks, I noticed that often she would only have a poopy diaper every three or four days. Now, knowing my daughter, I knew this was not normal for her and I should do something about it. I did call the pediatrician to make sure that Baby P. was okay though, and our pediatrician said that they are only concerned at this age if they go longer than a week between bowel movements and look like they are straining.  

    So what did I do to help Baby P. become regular? I focused on solids that would help with her irregularity and I'm happy to say that it worked for us and that she has at least 1 poopy diaper a day at one year old. 

I gave her a:

• Sippy cup with heavily diluted apple juice: At lunch and dinner time, when I normally would give Baby P. a sippy cup of water... I instead put a little organic apple juice, heavily diluted with water and gave that to her twice a day.
• Purees that help: At this point in time we were feeding her solids 2 to 3 times a day (usually purees and some finger foods). After doing some research (see this article) I found that some foods help promote stools and others promote less stools. The following foods have been known to help with constipation:
• Peaches
• Prunes
• Pears
• Plums
• Apricots
• Peas
• Avoid foods that cause constipation: There are certain foods that can make a baby constipated. So make sure to lessen the amount you feed of these foods to your little one during this time. Those foods are:
• Bananas
• Rice Cereal
• Oatmeal
• Apple sauce
• Make sure to have a good mix of foods: Don't give your little one too much of one type of food and not enough of another. You don't want them to have too frequent of stools or constipation; so you need to find a happy middle ground. Often the first few months of solids, a child's digestive system is just getting adjusted to this new type of food. So you want to make sure you give peaches and bananas once they are regular again.

Please note: if you have any concern or worry about your child, make sure you contact your pediatrician. I am by no means an expert, I just share my personal experience/solutions that have worked for us. But each child is different.