Henry hasn't really pooped in over a week. Every night around 5:00 his stomach starts bothering him so badly and all I can do is sit there and watch him struggle and squirm uncomfortably. My poor baby! All I want to do is make it go away! His face seriously turns beet red and his whole body shakes as he tries to make something, anything happen.The transition from just breast milk to the solid foods/breast milk combo has been really hard for Henry. He's only five and half months old, so obviously we're still not giving him solids as actual meals- we're still in the introducing new foods stage. But every food we've tried seems to have some negative effect on his little belly and it gets so bad sometimes that even prunes and pears aren't enough to clear it all out.
This transition has been hard on me as well. I never really doubted my ability to be a good mother to newborn Henry. Sure, I had a boatload of questions and concerns but in the back of my mind I knew I was doing great. Breastfeeding made everything beautifully simple. Eat healthy, sleep well, feed baby whenever he cries. Now that H is beginning to need more nutrition than a diet of breast milk can offer, guys? I. am. terrified.
I'm scared of making the wrong food choices for my baby. Scared of filling his perfect little body with pesticides and preservatives and unnecessary sugars. Scared that I am not going to feed him enough or that I may feed him too much.
I am just now realizing that these are only the beginning of my worries. That soon we are going to be responsible for making HUGE decisions that will impact Henry's entire life. No pressure or anything, right?
vote for us, please?
26 comments:
oh allie. i totally understand this! even though i make all corbins food and his diet is about 99% organic i still worry. and since he's eating so much table food nowadays i always worry and think about everything awful that he's eating. just do the best you can and his tiny little body will start to get used to all this new food he's eating.
as far as the poo goes, i have no advice. its hard to know your baby is suffering and have no way to help him.
There is book called "Super Baby Foods" that gives a list of great first foods for infants that help with the bowel transition from breast milk to solids. My children had the same problem. Also, probiotics help with getting the bowel moving too, I am not sure if your little one is too small for that or not. I hope everything works out :)
And theres always prunes, right? I know that prunes did it EVERY time. Wish I would have tried that first.
I went through that very same thing with my youngest. I remember crying for him, and being ready to take him into the ER, when we finally got things to move on through. Have you tried a glycerine suppository? I might have spelt that all sorts of wrong, but, thats what we ended up using, and it worked. We only used them in emergency situations, as in, the baby hasn't pooped in a WEEK, where is all of that food GOING, and omg hes so miserable, but...
Good luck Mama. Hang in there.
i had this same exact problem with my son around the same age . it is a super scary transition , but trust your gut . Oliver (my son) who is now almost 11 months is doing great , i feel him what i believe is the best diet for him . we give him mostly veggies ,and oatmeal , grain mixtures , some fruit ( pears , prunes , applesauce , but he gets no sugar no meat , and no dairy (besides the obvious ) soy formula / up till recently breast milk . im not a vegan or veggie , i just noticed that this diet was what he and his system responded to the best . with the constipation , have you tried fleet pedia-lax or any liquid glycerin suppositories ? they work in mins are safe and gentle and are not absorbed into the babies system , ive only had to use it 2 times but it allowed my child some relief , Olivers doc recommended it , the age on it says 2-5 but its totally fine for infants . hope your little one starts to feel better
.
oye, i wish i could offer some super skilled advice on this one- but I think it's more of a trial and error thing- a natural cycle of life.
But no worries, I'm sure whatever decisions you make for your little man will be just right : )
You are such a great mama. Whatever way you choose to go food wise he is going to be a very happy healthy baby. For his constipation and tummy problems first you can try giving him some water. if he's eating baby food try some prunes and if those don't work a tiny bit of dark karo corn syrup will help him go. It will get better. :)
Don't let all that worry get you down! Ultimately, everything is in God's hands and you will be amazed at how reziliant kids are. Hey, look at you! You survived my mothering!!!!
-Mom
Kingston has this exact problem. Although I am not breastfeeding.. he was constipated a lot!
I had to end up buying baby suppsitorys to help him poop. He was in so much pain, it was so sad to watch and some prune juice and it finally got the job done. :(
When it comes to solids.. we also ended up going with organic baby food and its seemed to do wonders. Some little ones just don't do well with certain brands.
We buy the "earths best organic baby food" you can find it at target and we also buy "plum organic baby food" found at Babies R Us. I'm not even kidding you its helped so much.
Also, when I have time I make my own baby food from just produce at the store. I puree it in the blender then put it in ice trays and freeze it in the freezor. So when i'm ready to feed it to him I just pop out one or two cubes. Put them in the microwave for 15 seconds and feed it to my little man. He loves the home made kind so so much!
Hope this helps... Your poor little boy!! I can't imagine not being able to poopy. :(
Oh honey, I'm so sorry! That's so sad. :(
Ruari is so grumpy when she misses one day of pooping. I can't imagine a week. Have you called the doctor?
to help with the pooping give him about a tablespoon of caro syrup in a bottle and he will poop soon. do that until he does poop it will help loosen the bowels..
oh no! poor henry... i hope he feels better very soon :). now allie, don't worry, I am sure you are a fantastic mom and as time goes by you will become even more fantastic :)
Oh wow! You are all so wonderful, thank you for the advice! I'm am going to start individually commenting but may not get them all done in one sitting.
Jill: yeah, i'e been making all of henry's food too but still feel horrible about what's going into his body. i'm so glad to hear i'm not the only one who worries so much about this...
nichole: oh my goodness, that book sounds perfect! i'll totally be checking that out, thank you so much.
tia: i've had many teary nights over this. it's frustrating when NOTHING works, yet everything is still giving him an upset stomach. we just started the suppositories yesterday and so far those aren't doing anything :( i guess i know who's having prunes for dinner again...
kat: so it really sounds like it's something you have to play around with and figure out what's best for your baby...hmmm. this makes a lot of sense and hopefully henry will be able to be on a similar diet as oliver. i'm pretty weirded out about feeding my baby meat. we actually just tried the pedia-lax and still nothing happened. thank you so much!
bri: thank you so much! i'm beginning to realize that it totally is trial and error. that's scary though!
cole: oh thank you so much! we still haven't tried the corn syrup! i honestly think that's going to be our next step, it's really the only thing we haven't tried at this point.
mom: i hope henry is super reziliant, poor baby!
shawntae: thanks for all of the information! we have only been using one brand of baby food, maybe we should experiment with some others. lately we've just been sticking to pureed avocados and prunes, which is hard because i want to be introducing new foods. i love the ice cube idea, my mom told me to try that one too! does the food get freezer burned ever/how do you store it?
chelsey: haven't called the doctor yet but i have been close many times. he does go every so often, just nothing big. i think if he wasn't going at all i'd be in that office more times than they'd like!
jessica: we just gave him syrup tonight, hope it helps! thanks for the tip :)
mariel: you are always so sweet. thanks for the encouragement, this is so scary sometimes!
I know exactly what you are talking about. M went through that too, and more than once. First time the culprit was salsa I was eating caused him pain (I was breastfeeding too), and then it was baby rice. They say to give that first, and M could not eat that at all. I had to give him baby oatmeal instead, and that he had no problems with. I didn't introduce solids till later because breastmilk and oatmeal did fine. When he was 7 months, then I started introducing tons of food to him, but I made them all myself. The only baby food (jars) I have ever bought are prunes. Since you said prunes aren't working I'm not sure what advice to give you because that always works a few hours or over night for us.
So are you giving baby rice? If so that could be your problem. M would just push and push and nothing. Maybe a fart or two. Face red as a beet, and screaming. I tried the baby rice 6 months after stopping, and again a full day of trying to push out a poop. That was the first day we tried prunes and instant relief. Good luck and hang in there. xox
Sarah: Oh my goodness, I didn't even know that was a possibility and it would make total sense. We have cut way back on the rice, I only give him about a tablespoon now but maybe I will try oatmeal instead. You're the best, thanks!
still nothing after that ? did you try watered down prune juice and staying off solids for a day or so ? at this point i would contact his doctor . def play around with the diet , the meat thing is totally weird , we have decided not to feed him any meat untill he is old enough to understand what he is eating . my husband nor i are vegetarian but it just seems like understanding that something died for your food is important . plus we also felt strange giving his sensitive tummy meats . keep us posted on this . the breastmilk to food transfer is hard for everyone , hang in there
ok, so PELLA has serious constipation issues, I was told to SKIP the rice cereal as its "constipating" and go straight to solids....I also have to give her a 1/4 teaspoon of Magnesium which can be found here http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Vitality-Calm-16-powder/dp/B000OQ2DL4
It helps keeps stool soft, and also helps calm her nerves at the same time, WIN/WIN! I used to try water mixed with prune, and apple juice, and DO not want to use suppositories, why? bc I had the same issues as a baby, and my dad used them on me allll the time I became dependent on suppos. and enemas until I was about 13! ..I aslo give Pella a probiotic everyday in a bottle which you now get at TARGET which IS AWESOME!! heres the probiotic http://www.biogaia.com/
I hope you can find something that works, as every baby is different, But this system seems to work for Pella, shell go everyday for a 2 days then every other other day, never goes longer then 3 days w/out a BM, before she was going once a week "IF" I was lucky!!!
kat: i think i need to cut way back on the solids. sounds like i've been giving him way more than he needs, i finally called the doctor. she was kind of a bitch but basically said i need to keep introducing solids to him (even though he's constipated, wtf?) and that the way he's been pooping is normal. i think i'm going to try some prune juice tonight, and maybe some pears too...
marcella! thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this info with me. i hadn't heard about the suppository dependency, that's really scary. when i told my doctor that we had been using those occasionally she also told me to stay away from them. who would have known? thanks for bringing this to my attention, holy crap.
i don't know too much about magnesium and probiotics, are there any side effects and are they completely natural?
i'm glad to hear pella is doing much better, i remember reading about some of her tummy issues a while back poor baby....thanks again!
i think it wouldnt hurt you to also try to find a new doctor ! it took me awhile to realize that i know my child better then ANY doctor . as do you with yours , if something isnt normal (for him) then you are doing totally the right thing by experimenting with food portions and options. all babies are different and it makes me nuts that doctors have a chart/guidline that they squeeze all babies into . hope he starts to feel better
kat: yeah, i was pretty disappointed with the conversation i had with her. we really like our doctor but the nurse is pretty lame. i know there are babies who are started on solids later because their tummies just can't handle it but she was making it sound like i should be stuffing him full of new foods before he reaches six months.obviously it's the new foods that are bothering him, so why would i do that? what an idiot, that woman pisses me off.
Jonathan had a lot of allergies and related stomach pain and one thing that helped a lot was the I Love U massage. Starting at the bottom of H's tummy, do an "I" up his right side of his tummy. Then do the "L" (upside down, repeating over the "I" and then right to left at the top of his tummy, then the "U" (upside down) from bottom right, across top, then down the left side. This will help move the gas through the colon and help him feel better. You can repeat this throughout the day and several times each time also. Prayers are with you!
i seriously know EXACTLY how you feel! when we started poppy on solid foods at six months, i was still exclusively breastfeeding. and i was REALLY wary of any foods she would eat; always very worried about how she would react. definitely emotional stuff. i mean, you're created his ONLY source of nourishment up until now, and it is decidedly a strange feeling to give up a little piece of that and relinquish a tiny bit of the responsibility to outside products. sigh. sometimes this whole mothering thing can be darn tough!
i hope the transition to solids gets easier. i have to say, the first months for us were a bit of a hassle but now? mealtimes with poppy are cherished! once he's over the hump & moves on to table foods, you'll both have a great time. also? i HIGHLY recommend giving him a probiotic supplement (sold at supplement/natural foods stores.) i give poppy a small daily dose and it has done wonders for her sensitive tummy. poops every day like clockwork! ha!
hugs, beautiful mama! xoxo.
emily! it's so hard to see your babies struggle and not be able to help them! i've had quite a few people suggest probiotics now and i think we're going to give that a go. he's getting better at breaking down foods but it's still not an easy thing for him :( i can't wait until he's eating food like a champ! sounds so fun:)
Post a Comment