Baby Constipation

This question seems to come up in Q&A frequently and I am always writing pretty much the same stuff, so I thought I'd write it down as advice, this may not only be helpful to Mum's with pooped up bub's but it'll save me having to repeat myself LOL.

My bub started out being breast fed and I was told that breast fed babies don't get constipated.  Well it was the hight of a kalgoorlie W.A. summer and I may not have been producing a great deal of milk, but for what ever the reason, our baby went 10 days without doing any poo's and I was getting extremely worried.  I asked the Child health nurse and she advised that I give bub "Baby Prune Juice"it's already diluted but she wanted me to dilute it more 50-50 and give her 45mls per day in a bottle, I did this and it still took 3 days before we got the action we were looking for.

Since then I have made a discovery accidently that has almost instant (with in 2 hours) results.  It's Fish Oil Tablets

I snip off the top of the capsual and squeeze the oil into the bottle (we switched to Formula at 3 months, but this can be done to expressed milk, or the Mum can take them (though that will obviously take longer).  For an infant under 6 months try half a capsual full.  It is put into expensive formula and other baby cereals etc. and toted as brain food, supposed to make them smarter etc. so it wont do them any harm, I wouldn't use it daily though, you don't want them getting a lazy bowel or anything like that. Use only when they're constipated.

Our daughter didn't bawlk at it at all and we got results in half an hour, she now gets a whole capsual (since about 7 months old) when neccessary and the longest it has taken has been 2 hours.  It actually penetraits their poo's and softenens it up.  I found with the juice etc. She still had to push out a hard bit first before the softer stuff came through.  The fish oil seems to work on the whole backed up lot elliminating the hard poo altogether.

If you are still struggling there's always the moving their little legs like riding a bike.  The movement is supposed to help move things along.  Rubbing their tummy/abdoman's, may help elleviate cramps etc and carrying them around face down so their body is traddeling your for arm (legs either side of your elbow, head in your hand), this is also an excellent way to get rid of hard to budge wind and you get to potter around and use one arm still at the same time.

A warm bath might help relieve pains for a short while, but I am personally dubious about it's poo removal powers.

Well I hope there's something here thats useful to someone.

happy Nappy Changes Everyone, may they be regular and not too smelly LOL