Bowel Movements

What a subject!!!!!!!!! I am 34yo with an 8yo daughter, an 8 yo stepdaughter and a 6 month old baby boy (Toby) who has terrible trouble with his bowel since going onto formula at five months. I was expecting a change but not like this. He is not constipated as he goes everyday but each time he screams with pain and my husband has to help him squeeze it out because it is just to hard. He won't drink anything besides the bottle and he has started on solids, 2 tbls veg, 2 tbls fruit and 2 tbls cereal but this hasn't helped at all. He has four teeth which bothered him for a while and has just gotten over colic, so I'm sure if I could fix this problem I would have the happiest baby. Any suggestions..........

hey there, my name is celeste and i am mum to 5 month old baby Ella. I have heard (cant remember where) That the stem off a piece of parsley put in bubs bottom can really help. Doesnt sound too lovely but we all know how it feels to be constipated!!!! poor bub!
Hope it works!!

Hi,
I don't think I could ever eat parsley again. If you try that let us know how it goes. He could still be constipated if it hurts to pass it. Maybe he needs more fluid. I use Coloxyl drops in the bottle 3 times a day and I mix about 5ml of apple and prune juice in with my son's water bottle and he drinks just about the whole bottle (120ml) every day and it's just great. It adds just a little bit of taste to the water.

Apparently the Coloxyl drops are supposed to work pretty fast, faster than the juices etc. for constipation. That's what the doctor said anyway. We've never realy had any problems though. I use the drops as a preventative rather than a cure. It doesn't hurt. There are also other drops you can buy from chemists that are supposed to do the same job, but I haven't tried them or heard what they are like.

Good luck.

Ange.

Thank you for the replies. I think I might give the parsley a miss (I don't think I could bring myself to insert it). I have tried Coloxyl with no relief. The GP tells me he isn't constipated because they class constipation as not going for several days and Toby goes everyday. I think I'll just have to persevere with trying to get other fluids into him which is another story in itself.

Thanks again,
Jo

Another good idea that I have found works quite well is to mix cereal and vegies etc. with prune juice. See how that goes...

Hi Jo,
My daughter Ella use to be on S26 Gold and we found that if she wasn't constipated she was straining really hard to go. We then found out that this is a common occurrence with S26 Formula We then changed Ella to Karicare Gold and haven't had much of a problem since.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice Sarah-Jane. A lot of people have mentioned prune juice but they don't stock it in the baby food section at my supermarket. Do you buy normal prune juice and dilute it? If so, what are the percentages of water and juice?

Thanks again,
Jo

Hi Lou,
Toby is on SMA, which is a thicker formula, and it also constipated my daughter when she was on it 8 years ago but not to the same extent. Other formulas weren't satisfying him and I'm a bit reluctant to change him now but of course I will if nothing else seems to help. I'm going to try the pruce juice and if that fails I'll give the Karicare a go. Thanks for your help.
Jo

Just Natural Sunraysia Prune Juice from the juice section of the supermarket. You only need a couple of teaspoons. If giving it to drink just place a few teaspoons into a cup of water or a few teaspoons into food - works a treat!!!!

Hi Jo,
It's apple and prune juice(Heinz) that I give my 6mth old son and you can buy it either diluted(ready to drink) or concentrated and you mix it 50/50 with boiled water(I actually mix it a bit weaker than this but it's up to you,or how you find your baby will drink it!). My son also doesn't drink much of anything else but milk. I try him with different things like sometimes a bottle,other times a sipper cup and he manages to either drink a little water or juice this way (it's the novelty of using the cup etc) and is gradually drinking more and more.Hope all goes well-it breaks your heart to see them in pain or discomfort!!

I went shopping yesterday and browsed the juice section, health section and baby section of my local supermarket and would you believe there was no prune juice. I'm going to have to go hunting I think. Thanks again.....

Hi Carina,
As I just explained to Sarah-Jane, I can't get any type of prune juice from my local supermarket so I'm going to have to try neighbouring suburbs. It sounds like it might do the trick so keep your fingers crossed for me so I can find some and try it out. I'll let you know if I have any success.......