5 month old started cereal and now hasn't pooped

Mani - posted on 12/10/2010

DARK KARO syrup!!! ( corn syrup for cooking). Add a spoon for 3oz of boiled water, watered down juice, milk, whatever your baby will drink. Don't do it more than 2x a day and no longer than 2-3 days in the row. That what my doctor said. Also avoid apple sauce it's not helpful.
Also run to the store and buy all the "P" fruits.
Organic PRUNCE PEARS PEACH etc. Mix it with milk or water so it will deliver extra fluid as baby eats.
I've learn it the hard way but now my son get's no food until he drinks before each meal.

Heather - posted on 12/09/2010

My daughter had a little trouble whenever I introduced something new - formula, cereal, etc. if it was alot of something she would always get backed up. I found that eating straight prunes , of course, really helped if she was backed up, but we usually give her fruit as a part of one of her meals. Try cooked pears or adding prunes to her cereal. As long as my daughter gets a little fruit most days she is fine. We didn't really want to do a lot of juice. Also, some babies have specific things you will find make them poop. My daughter can't eat sweet potatoes (which are great as an early food btw) without having a nice full diaper the next day. My step sister's daughter, on the other hand, is three and still will react to pears or pear juice like nothing else.

My MIL also told me that iron can make you constipated, which is one of the things we found with my daughter's formula when she started it. A lot of cereals also have iron added. I make my own cereal (way easier than you would think) by putting brown rice or oatmeal into the blender for about 2 minutes, sprinkling 1/4 cup into a cup of boiling water and cooking it on low for about 10 min. It took a few tries to get the exact water amount and the texture right, but it so easy now and I feel better about what I am giving her knowing that it is "real" food.

note - I did NOT start giving her cereal until she was 6 months old - before that she wouldn't have been able to digest whole grains and i gave her the baby cereal from a box.

Stifler's - posted on 12/09/2010

Once they start solids they also need water! A few sips here and there is enough when they're younger.

Monica - posted on 12/08/2010

My son took awhile for poos to become regular once we started giving him solids. If I remember correctly, our doc said 5 days is when we should worry. For us, rice cereal and also banana baby food made him constipated. If we used whole wheat cereal it was not as bad. Also, a serving of baby food prunes did wonders to get him pooping again.

Elfrieda - posted on 12/07/2010

I'm glad she's fine. Oatmeal was better for my son than rice cereal for easy pooping. But I think the only reason they say "start with cereal" is to give babies a chance to feel a new texture without adding a flavour. :) If she already likes eating, why not go to pureed pears or applesauce? (real food, like Toni says) Mix in a bit of cereal just to get the iron they put in it. Good luck! It's a bit scary to put food into our babies instead of only milk, but after you get used to the idea, it's so much fun!

Amanda - posted on 12/07/2010

Samantha was being fussy tonight so we to her to emergency and she is perfectly fine just need to lay off the cereal for a few days and change it as well and give her some apple juice.

Toni - posted on 12/06/2010

Sometimes when we introduce a new food into our childs diet it can take them a few days to get used to it, however 4 days is quite a long time if she was regular before, I would try the tummy massage, it really helps make sure you do it in a clockwise direction because otherwise you'll block her up more.

When our son was constipated our midwife told us to give him cooled boiled water, it really works, by the end of the day he was pooing. But If you are starting solids, I found giving a little fruit such as apple puree really helped keep the poos regular (just a spoon at first), I found cereal just caused my son to become constipated because it is quite dry compared to the fruit and veg purees I made and he prefered the real food :-).