Constipation

[Anonymous]

I think all of the rice milk plus the bottles with rice cereal Seth still gets is making him constipated and thus making his reflux worse. He was really straining to go this morning and only had one small hard BM yesterday. Does anyone know of any foods that I could add to his diet that may keep him a little more regular?

[Anonymous]

You may have seen my postings about our ongoing battle with
constipation. And yea, we’ve noticed too that M’s reflux is worse when
she’s constipated and struggles to get out pebbles.

We’ve found that pears and blueberries work really well for us. Also,
at Seth’s age can he have orange juice – even just a tiny amount?
Supposed to be great for constipation.

A super ripe banana can also help with constipation. I know bananas can be binding – but apparently they work both ways.

Will he drink juice? Pear juice or white grape juice can help.

Can you cut back on the rice? Use oatmeal instead or some of the time?

knb182006-5-8 10:33:45

[Anonymous]

Hi Tiffany –

I noticed that Owen was a little constipated just this weekend (on Saturday night) so I gave him about 10 blueberries and some apple juice. Just that made him have a HUGE normal poop that came out of the top of his diaper. It wasn’t diarreah but was just huge. I think that the blueberries really work well for that and he loves them – he would eat a whole container in one sitting if I let him, I’m sure!

Does Seth eat blueberries? It might be worth trying. We just gave a little bit of apple juice, probably 3 or 4 ozs, but he doesn’t usually have that and the two of them really seemed to work. We did find when he’s having a lot of rice milk that it can get him pretty backed up.

How’s everything else going? Is his sleeping improving at all?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karen, I do remember all of your constipation posts- I hope Marissa is doing better these days. Seth does love juice and we do usually give him some pear juice every day. He did not get any yesterday though so that may be part of it (he and Dh went to visit Grandma). I did not know that about OJ, I have tried to stay away from it though for fear it may aggravate his reflux but may give blueberries and white grape juice a try. We did try oatmeal in his bottles a long time ago but he broke out in a rash. That may be an option too although I really should just work on getting him off the bottle.

Laura, Seth has never had blueberries. As mentioned above, I will have to give them a try. I am sure he would like them. Seth had been doing really well last week. He even went several nights without any reflux episodes (sleeping in his own bed!) but then last night was awful. He had some loose stools last week and went more often (teething?) hence my new theory about constipation/reflux since he usually seems to really strain to go….. How is Owen doing with the soy milk?

[Anonymous]

I bet that he will love the blueberries then. They’re not cheap so we try to buy them when they’re on sale and Owen will go through a container in a day or two – it’s nuts! I don’t know if it’s the size or the flavor or what but he pigs out with them.

That’s great to hear that he did so much better last week. Did you try the reglan or decide to hold off?

Owen’s actually been doing well with the soy milk so far – knock on wood. He started about 10 days ago with one cup a day being soy milk, so this morning we added a second cup first thing in the morning. He never really drinks much before daycare so we figured we may as well switch that one since we were wasting so much formula and it’s not going to be that much more than he’s been having. So we’ll see how that goes. If he does well with that for a week or so I think we’ll switch his second daytime cup to that too (right now we send one soymilk one formula to school). That would just leave his bottle before bed and I’m not sure when we’re going to switch that. I think we would probably just get rid of it all together and give him soymilk with dinner but that might be tough.

My husband was saying he wants to wean him from his medicine now too, but I don’t know about that. I don’t want to do too much at once, you know? I know we made the mistake of moving too quickly with the dairy and I think he’s doing well with the soymilk because we’re moving slowly. We’ll see – so far so good anyway!

[Anonymous]

We have not tried the Reglan yet. Trying to hold off on it if we can. I did ask the GI if that would help ease his BMs and he said it would move it out of the stomach into the lower tract but not neccesarily make it easier for him to go. Makes me wonder though if maybe he does need it.

That’s great Owen is still doing well with the soy milk. I’d be comfortable dropping all bottles too at this point if he continues to tolerate it well. We actually did drop the night bottle for a while but then added it back because Seth needed it to fall asleep. Probably a mistake I know. We are kind of stuck with the morning bottle since he will not take his formula out of a cup and I want him to still have it to make sure he is getting all the nutrients he needs. I was getting up the nerve to do a milk trial but then last night has made me reluctant again. I am also thinking of trying GoodStart 2 instead of Alimentum when we run out of formula. If he does well with it, I would feel more comfortable trying milk.

I’d be reluctant to drop the meds now too. If Owen were to start acting up, you would not know if it was the soy or the lack of the PPI. You are right, slow and easy seems to be the way to go with these kiddos!

[Anonymous]

I would try lactulose before reglan. It’s working well for us. Also, pears and ripe banana’s usually do the trick. Gerber has an apple/banana juice that doesn’t seem too acidic.

[hellbennt]

how about flax seed oil added to food?

frozen blueberries are good, too- we eat a lot of them around here…

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