My nine month old is pooping regularly - once to three times a day, but his poops have been HARD. Poor guy. I've been giving him all the stuff to eat to try to help him - peaches, yogurt, prune juice, etc. Nothing seems to help. What can be done to soften his stools?
I second the Karo syrup suggestion. My pediatrician suggested that I start using it when my little guy was 4 months old. I put about a tablespoon in 4oz of juice or formula 1-2 times a day. It worked like a charm!
Red Seedless grapes are a natural laxitive too and you can try those. Just peel the skin off and chop it up in small bites for him. Poor little guy. Prune Juice should have worked. If you use that again, make sure you are diluting it with water. He may be too young for the straight stuff. (if you already are, that is fabulous).
Also if you are formula feeding him, you may need to change his formula. We tried the formula that has the "iron" in it, and we had to stop giving our babies that because the iron was making their poop hard too. We put them on the Enfamil Prosobee for not only the colic they had, but for the easier digestion as well.
Hope he gets to feeling better. :-)
Give him lots of water, juice, no dairy or bananas (very constipating) and encourage him to get lots of exercise crawling, cruising, just plain old moving as much as possible to get blood to his organs and keep things "moving." Put toys out of his reach to get him to move towards them. Our ped said lack of physical exercise is the main problem in most of the constipation cases she's asked about, regardless of the child's age, and her suggestion worked with my granddaughter and little guy. She even encourages parents to exercise their babies legs in bicycling movements when they're too little to crawl to help with constipation.
Hope something works soon.
AAAWWWW!!!! I'm sorry!! this is sad!! i remember when my guy had a hard time pooping!!! You see them grunting and hurting... :(
water, pears and prune juice...
No bananas or rice - those are what you use when he's got "leaky poops!!" the BRAT diet - bananas, rice, applesauce and toast...
GOOD LUCK!!!
LOTs of water and some juice. lay off the dairy, even yogurt. Pears are also REALLY good!
my poor lil guys go through bouts of the hard round poo's.....the only thing that works for my babies is to put just a little but of dark Karo syrup in their bottles, just 1 or 2 times a day. after about a day, usually less, they soften up. i do second the idea of more water though. and once i gave my oldest 2 of the small things of baby prunes, not the juice the baby food, and oh man was 2 waaaaaaaaay too many, he was pooping all day long. if nothing else helps i'd take him to the pedi to make sure he is okay!
Applesauce and apple juice was always a sure fire way to get things softened up for my girls. Is it painful for him to have a bowel movement or are they just more solid that you are used to? Have you recently weaned him from breastfeeding or added a new food...that could be causing it too.
are they really tiny and round? because that is constipation even if he is going several times a day.
Prune juice/1 oz, pears, grapes cut in 4's peeled, and peaches. My kids were incredibly constipated and the prune juice worked the best. My daughter GI Ped gave me that tip and it worked like a charm. Beware of a warm bath adter the prune juice though, yikes! GL to your baby boy :(
