My 2-year-old daughter loves milk. She currently drinks 3 8-oz cups per day, including one at bedtime in a straw sippy. She likes it and I also think its still a comfort even though its no longer in a bottle. Anyway, she also majorly struggles with constipation, so we are looking to experiment with her diet (already eats lots of fiber and gets miralax). So we are thinking of eliminating/changing the milk, and I am thinking of rice or almond milk. Has anyone had success with this, and which do you/your kids like better?
Thanks so much!
I've never really heard of milk causing constipation. Nor does it sound like she's having "too much" to me, but I'm not a pediatrician.
Can she have water with O. or two meals instead of milk? Because water WILL help with constipation.
You will get a mountain of answers, but I suggest before you change anything, check with her PED.
A little prune juice every other day or so can help. Very small amount and may want to check with ped first. Also sometimes mentioning needed to poop or reminding her may help if she is holding it or too busy to remember to go too. Both of thse seemed to help with my son. I did talk to his dr, but their main advice was diet changes we had already done. I also sometimes leave him in his room for a little bit and the quiet time for 10-15 minutes helps.
you can water down her milk, as well.
personally i LOVE almond milk. it's sweet so it actually tastes MUCH better to me than cow's milk.
Our kids drink a gallon of milk each day and have had some issues with this too. BUT they also have normal days for long periods of time.
I think that the diet as a whole effects this more than just the milk. She is not drinking any excess, she is drinking what is recommended for her age. So I would just continue to work on adding more foods that help naturally like spinach and prunes or prune juice blends of juice.
You don't have to eliminate the milk, but just reduce it. Reduce her cheese consumption if she eats it too. Increase her water intake and her fiber intake. Increase her roughage too. It's not so much about eliminating certain things, but increasing others. Milk could be filling her up way too much, and since it's not nearly as nutritious as formula or breastmilk, it doesn't make a lot of sense filling her up with it. It's better to fill her up with veggies and fruits that will help her body digest things better.
A few raisins a day can help. They're as effective as prunes. Oatmeal, whole grains, carrots, apples, barley.
Reduce rice, potatoes, pasta and other starches as those can be binding. Same with peas and bananas.
Avoid sugary juice drinks, as those are the same as giving soda. It's also better that she gets the juice directly from the fruit and she gets the bonus of the fiber from the flesh of the fruit, which you don't get from juice at all.
I agree; I would also take her off dairy to see if that will help with the constipation.
I suffered from constipation for 40 years until, four years ago, I discovered that I am allergic to casein. After I quit eating/drinking all cow dairy products, not only did my constipation go away, so too did my asthma. I'm no longer taking any pharma drugs for my asthma--or my allergies.
Our family likes both almond and rice milk--we use these pretty much interchangeably. I also don't mind coconut milk, but my husband doesn't like the coconut flavor. We've also had hazelnut and like that flavor as well.
My daughter also had severe constipation when she was younger. We switched over to non-dairy milk beverages when she was 7. She is now 12, and we rarely, if ever, fight with constipation anymore.
Dairy is a lot harder on the body than most people realize. Some people are able to digest sheep and goat products; the casein enzyme is different in them than that found in most commercial dairy milk. We are one such family; we buy and use sheep and goat cheese and have no issues (my husband also has a casein allergy, and my daughter, although she's currently not allergic, did have a milk allergy as a baby).
Good Luck!
I have the same problem with my 3 year old, and the only thing that made a difference was switching to goat milk. The soy is actually MORE constipating that regular milk for her. And, the other ones are not as nutritionallyhealthy. I would give this a try. If you get WIC they will pay for it and you don't need a prescription like you do for some of the others.
We started with Almond milk, but after a few weeks my son had an allergic reaction, even though he's not allergic to nuts. My kids really liked the almond milk. Then we switched to coconut milk and my kids really liked that as well, but again my son reacted poorly to it after only a couple of weeks. Now two still drink the coconut milk and my son is on the rice milk. He really likes it, especially since it's so thin and has the consistency of skim milk.
Good luck!
I suggest adding two or three prunes to her diet each day. That will drastically help with the constipation.
We've dealt with the constipation in our house before. "Big raisins" (prunes), or a cup of coffee (doctored up with sweetener and creamer) for the REALLY bad cases, are very helpful.
Both of my boys still love milk. We are a whole milk household. :-)
