My daughter seems to have "hard" poop ALL the time. She's only 7 months old... does anyone have any idea of what kinds of foods I could feed her that have a laxative effect? I've been using apple juice, but I don't want to give it to her daily unless we don't have any other options. Any suggestions?
We had luck with baby food prunes. Check the labels for foods that contain fiber- bread, cereals, etc. She's little for 'real' food, but when she gets there, cereal and high fiber bread works well. Beans are high in fiber too.
Good luck!
My daughter had the same issue. My pediatrician recommended prune juice. It works great and fast; but she also told me that 2oz. of apple juice daily was a great way to keep her regular and only use the prune juice when it got bad. We were lucky and she liked prune juice, slighty warmed. I was also told by an amish woman to give a tsp of black strap molasses. I personally couldn't try this one, but sometimes the amish remedies are the best. Good Luck!
Hello Amber
You can try prunes(baby fod),papaya(this work very well a lest in my kid and my self), water, please no juice, no apples no bananas and give some massage in her tommy with warm water and washcloths.
Anna
This may seem nasty but with all 3 of my kids we put some kayro in their bottle/cups and they went.Also pruines(baby)and do the"bike"exercise with her
HTH
Jenn
Instead of apple juice, how about pear or prune. You can even try feeding her prunes. Also, you can add a little karo syrup to her bottle.
Hope this helps!
Not sure why someone else said no to this, but bananas work very well for both constipation and diarrhea. Bananas help to balance things out in the digestive tract and this has been recommended to me by 2 different doctors.
Are you feeding her rice cereal? My son always became very constipated with that. I switched him to oatmeal and things are fine now.
Good luck,
Karen E.
Hi Amber,
I would suggest any kind of fruit. Grapes really do it for my son - as do blueberries and strawberries. Since you baby is so young, you may want to give her strawberries yet, but you can cut grapes up into little pieces and give her a bowl of them - that should help.
Judy
I am a nurse in a pediatrician's office. We usually tell parents to use white grpae juice 1-2 ounces mixed with 1-2 ounces of water. Also, baby food pears and prunes work really well. Increasing the fiber helps too, and cheerios are great for that. Hope it works.
Hi Amber,
I give my daughter rice or oatmeal cereal mixed with stage 2 prunes and formula (my daughter is also 7 months old) almost every morning and that keeps her regular. When she gets really hard I give her prunes for lunch as well. It really works great.
Sue
Prune juice or prunes or plum baby food are great sources of fiber. Apples, watermelon, anything that is fibrous or has water in it will help. Even just a plain sippy or bottle with a few ounces of water can do the trick. I have one that is more constipated and we used all these tricks and it worked.
Apricots work really well - the juice or the fruit.
Susan
My son was the same way almost since birth. Our pediatrician recommended juices that start with "P" to poop - Pear & prune. She also advised that we could mix malt in with his formula. Malt may be purchased at stores that sell supplies to produce beer - we used 100% Malt Extract. Your doctor should advise how much should be mixed in with the formula/milk. Now that my son is older, he still gets malt through Ovaltine.
Note that we were advised to avoid Bananas & Apples - as they bind. We were also advise that certain types of cereal could act as a binder & that we should avoid rice cereal.
GIL Pediatrics are in Magee Woman's Hopital - they could provide specific instructions on treating this condition.
My pediatrician told me to use white grape or pear juice. Apple juice is binding. Also lots of water may do the trick. Hope it helps.
Hi! I assume that you've been feeding more solid foods lately as your DD gets older? Are you also using formula, or are you breastfeeding?
If you are breastfeeding, a simple solution is to cut back a bit on the solid food, and breastfeed more. Breastmilk is a laxative. If you are using formula, the iron in the formula could be the issue. You may want to check with your pediatrician and make sure you aren't giving too much formula to your DD--I know there is an upper limit somewhere that most peds reccommend, but I'm not sure what it is--I never used formula.
As far as foods...most fruits and veggies help with passing stools. Canteloupe seems to help soften things up, as does prunes. Definitely also make sure your DD is drinking enough water in this hot weather.
I will also note...a couple of people mentioned making up your own food for your daughter, while others said things like "she's too young for 'real' food." Ummm...what ever did we do before Gerber came along? ;-) None of my kids really liked babyfood. My first daughter absolutely refused to eat baby cereal (we ground up cheerios and she would eat a bit of that), and ate very little of the other jarred foods. Once I accepted with DD#2 that jarred foods didn't need to be the main solid food supple, but rather just a conveniance when I didn't have time to find something "real" that was appropriate for her (and then her 2 brothers that followed), things went a lot better. She ate beef barbeque when she was just about 8 months old! She was trying to get my sandwich, and I thought that I'd just give her some to get her to quit bugging me...well that was the end of bland baby food for her! Go slow of course with seasoned foods...but in many cultures they give seasoned soft foods even to small babies. It may help your child to be a more adventurous eater as she gets older.
Good luck!
I gave my son some prunes mixed w/ another fruit from a jar.
My ped didn't recommend juyice until after 12 mos but maybe a little prune juice mixed into water. how about more milk? Maybe more liquids would help soften it. hm???
Hi Amber,
My daughter had the same problem when she was that age. She would actually cry when she tried to have a bowel movement. I felt so bad! We tried a lot of different things. Apple juice definately works, oddly so does gatorade, although I understand your want to not have to juice up your daughter every day. Sometimes just getting them on a different eating schedule will work. In the morning try just giving her a bottle and baby fruit(pears or peaches work well). And save the thicker foods like cereal and veggies for lunch and dinner. That is a great way to regulate a baby and that way you typically will know when to expect the messiest diaper of the day!
rasins (though 7mo. may be too young)
***dr. said give 4oz of prune juice (comes in the little Gerber juices, too; even a little would do the trick)
try giving more fiber (i.e. cheerios)
good luck!
liz
Hi Amber. I had the same problem with my daughter and oatmeal worked great. Apple juice didn't really do much, but oatmeal did. Try it and let me know how it works out.
Most powerful is definitely prune (step 2 baby food as well as juice) but even tomato works wonders. They are what I stick to and they have always given guaranteed results within 4 to 5 hours!
Manju