What to give for constipation?

[EmmaGM]

DS is 4.5mos, can I give him diluted prune juice? I thought I read that here at some point. I'm going to talk to his pedi about it on Wednesday but I'm sure she'll suggest a drug.

[foggierbard9]

You can do that. Are you sure it is constipation and not just normal changes in bowel movements? Is he EBF or formula fed? Most EBF children aren't constipated they can just change how often they go. If he is formula fed do you feed a ready-to-feed or is it a powder that you are mixing...if it is a powder, you may want to add just a bit more water/less powder when you mix because the scoop isn't very accurate and you could be unknowingly mixing too much powder/not enough water.

[EmmaGM]

Well he's mostly bf but he gets somewhere between 0-8oz of formula a day depending on him. I didn't think that was enough to cause issues but he'll go 4 or 5 days without pooping and he's cranky. Then when he does go its a hard clay-like consistency, he'll poo again a time or two after that and its regular ebf looking poo. So I guess that's why I think its constipation.

[luvsviola]

My ped had us do 1 ounce prune juice and one ounce water for DD. But with DS and DD2 she prefers Miralax now because it doesn't have sugar. It works different than other laxatives and doesn't have the side effects that traditional laxatives do. However, that being said, DD only pooped every 8-9 days. Ped said to leave her alone unless it had been more than a week or if it was extremely hard and a glycerin suppository cut in half didn't work first.

[abunchoflemons]

Prune/ grape juice would help or if in baby food try prunes

[dragonfish227]

Yes, I have been giving my DS diluted prune juice lately, and I feel like it's been working. He just started solids and I felt like that was making him strain and cry a lot with a bowel movement. I tend to put in a little bit of his gripe water with it, he drinks it readily like that since the gripe water is sweet.

[L J]

My pedi was adamant that I couldn't give prune juice. I did the infant glycerine suppositories for my youngest. I would put it in, it would pop right back out and she would instantly poop.

[EmmaGM]

Originally Posted by L J My pedi was adamant that I couldn't give prune juice. I did the infant glycerine suppositories for my youngest. I would put it in, it would pop right back out and she would instantly poop.

Did your pedi say why?

[oEuge]

Have you tried apple juice?

[jbug_4]

That's when we started. Its a very delicate balance though. Our doc said start with a 1:4 ratio and work up from there if needed. 1:4 was plenty for us and sometimes too much. It was much better (much easier) to find a good balance at 6 months when they told us to go ahead and give pureed prunes. Ours was intolerance issues not regular run of the mill constipation though so her stomach was pretty sensitive to begin with.