Constipation home remedies for infants

Almost every baby in the period of introduction of solid foods show a majority of discomfort caused by constipation. Reasons for the constipation are multilateral. Primarily infant's intestinal system is not yet mature and developed enough to be able to absorb new food. Lack of enzymes for digestion and the daily progress in the development of gastro-intestinal system, is a reason more for the pain and constipation.

In one of the previous articles, I mentioned that some home recipes for constipation proved to be the best, and I will list all the things again that really helped us.

• Add some extra fluids into daily nutrition (in addition to breast milk)
• plum juice, which contains natural laxative and enables easier bowel movements
• Peach puree, which contains plenty of pulp and provides faster bowel movements
• Apple and banana puree, which regulates bowel movements in the both cases of diarrhea and/or constipation.
• chamomile tea (sweetened a bit – approx. one tea spoon per 100 ml)

This is what definitely helped after 4 days of constipation and a painful nights without a sleep. It helped our baby to sleep comfortably at night and remove the existing nervousness during the day.

Symptoms to recognize constipation with your infant are following:
• bowel movements are painful and very rare (maximum of one in 4 days)
• stool is a hard and consistent in shape and even with traces of red-light blood (which is nothing to concern you except it’s excessive and recurring), and painful bowel movement
• petulance babies and nervousness during the day
• periodically waking during the night and crying
• excessive crying during the day on many occasions
• violently strain during bowel movement with straining sounds

If your baby has these constipation symptoms, which is the cause of solid food introduction, and if everything lasts longer than 4 days, you need to contact your pediatrician who will likely prescribe glycerin spill that has to be applied anally, which would relax the colon and 15 minutes after application release the bowel movement automatically. These meds can be misused in this way that some parents apply it quite often, and the baby does not develop the effect of bowel movement and can lead to big problems later.

How much breast milk does a baby take every time while breastfeeding?

This is the question we couldn’t find the answer for. Actually, a mother cannot count exactly how much milk does a baby takes every single breast feeding interval.

Basically, it depends mainly on baby’s age and mother’s breast milk potential which can vary. Some people and even pediatrician connect mother’s fluid intake with breast milk production. Of course, it’s essential for a mother to drink enough water in order to keep the fluid balance in body on regular level. There’s no scientific evidence that more fluids help mother to “produce” more breast milk.

Personally, I think that the volume of breast milk nursed for each feeding interval differs for every baby individually and also depends from the part of the day (day or night, before or after a sleep, etc.).

The best way to know if your baby is eating normally is to observe baby’s behavior. Does she cry too often? Are diapers wet every couple of hours? Does your baby sleep well? etc.

Additionally, there’s possibility to measure how much milk is produced for each nurse interval by alternating breasts once a day with a breast pump and feed your baby with breast milk using a bottle. It’s very stressful way to find out the answer to your question, and it wouldn’t help you to find out the exact average interval milk volume.

We tested it this way and both breasts made about 100 ml (3.5 oz) during first month for each breastfeeding interval and three months later it increased to 150 ml (5 oz). Now we do not measure it any more since our little boy has started with solid foods which decrease number of breastfeeding intervals and increase the volume for each one.

It’s up to you to find the best possible solution to test the breast capacity or just to observe baby’s behavior.

Three month old infant with purple dots bruise like under-skin rash

A couple months ago we noticed strange bruise-like rash at outter part of left baby’s knee. We researched a bit on the net and the information we found was very concerning. We decided to visit our pediatrician since we considered this rash could be a symptom of some very serious conditions.

We did a blood work and everything turned out to be normal. Pediatrician suspected low thrombocytes which is a common symptom for diverse blood diseases such as thrombocytopenia purpura. We were very concerned but thanks god it turned just as a simple virosis. The rash dots bleached and disappeared after a week.

A few days ago a few dots appeared again on another leg but lesser then the first time. It seems he caught another virosis again, but it seems to bleach day after day, so it would obviously go away soon. I took a pic so you could use for comparison.

Bottom line, if you notice similar rash with your infant, you shouldn’t hesitate to visit your pediatrician and find out the main reason.

Which music does an infant prefer during a sleep?

I wrote a post about Does a baby sleep better with music or without so I just decided to add some more info about this topic.

Whether the baby really likes to listen to music while sleeping, or it really annoys them? What we have been able to notice is that most toys manufacturers embed the classical music samples using sequences of well known classical composers such as Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven. Beethoven is quite heavy for a small baby, and apparently does not help them to get a sleep.

Just to get back to the topic of this post and actual title. According to previous experience, we concluded that light music or soft pop rock genre extended baby’s sleep. The reason for this is apparently to eliminate the external noises coming from some external sources, such as the babble of the river near the house, people talk, dogs barking, roar, screaming children in front of the building, etc.

Therefore, we decided that instead of toys turntable that plays Mozart and Brahms we release the pop-rock music using a laptop or mp3 player which actually prolongs baby’s sleep.

The music that baby prefers to listen is logically not the music rich in tones with extreme fluctuations, and not too noisy and has lighter rhythm.

This way parents will prolong their lives at least for 10 years since the music from children's toys is so uniform and their repetition starts to makes you crazy, except you are on ecstasy all the time (just kidding) :)

Constipation after introducing baby to solid foods

Constipation is pretty common, but not for each infant. We started introducing solid foods very slowly and very carefully, just to avoid possible allergic reaction. First of all, we introduced cereals, mashed carrots, apples and bananas. It took 2 weeks until we introduced other foods low in allergens such as semi-mashed potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, pumpkin, etc.

The first reaction was 4 day long constipation which occurred 2 weeks after the initial solid food introduction. It was very painful for our 5 month old son. He woke up crying every couple of hours through the night. We read a lot about home made constipation remedies, and found a lot of useful information online. Also our pediatrician suggested us to try with more liquids. The help came from Prune baby juice just 2 feeds after. Plum or prune juice really helped us with constipation, so everything you read on the net about it is came to be true.

The main reason is that prunes contain natural laxative which helps babies to have smooth bowel movements.

Two weeks later bowel movements improved and continued to be more frequent (one or two per day), but still more consistent then just on breastfeeding. Of course, he still breastfeeds regularly even a month after first solid foods.

Anyways, we continued with prune juice on daily basis (once or twice a day between breastfeeds cca. 30-50 ml).

Along with breast milk and prune juice, we give him water. Basically, breast milk should be good enough but when you introduce solids additional fluids would help your baby with bowel movements, therefore it’s recommended to add water if needed and if your baby wants to accept it. It’s recommended to avoid diverse juice intake because they are high in sugar which is not that good for your baby in that early age.

I hope this will help other to make the right choice. I will keep you informed about introducing other foods.

4 months old infant and constipation

A few days after we started with solid foods, our little boy got constipated. We couldn’t find out which food caused the constipation, neither our pediatrician.

We started with once-a-day feeding. Of course, breast milk is still the main food. We decided to let him eat variety of foods to learn new tastes and textures, but only food recommended for 4 month old infant. We started with semi-liquid cereals and mashed apple but without any protein rich foods.

Anyways, at first week everything went smooth. Later he got constipated and we believe the reason was mashed apple/carrot mixture as well as rice cereal. All these foods could cause constipation.

The constipation itself is obviously very painful for small babies, and it’s very common that their intestines are such sensible to solid foods. The first constipation took 4 days, and we used prune juice which helped him in couple of hours. However, the night before was very rough. He woke up crying by every 2 hours and we didn’t know the right reason.

Constipation in infants could even cause anal fissure and light blood in stool. Plum juice and meshed peaches helped him to get normal bowel movement and end this agony with constipation.

Now, we added additionally more fluids along with his daily food intake to avoid future constipation sessions. Now he has regular bowel movement and sometimes even more then one daily.

Exercises for babies to start rolling over

Our son just learned to roll over but not on his own. I’ve done a couple of exercises every day and after a couple of days he just started to roll over by himself and without my help.

Actually, when your baby begins to move head forward when you wearing him or laying on back, it’s a good sign to start with such exercises. Our son is 5 months old and he seems to be ready for rolling over by himself. Here is a rolling over tutor which helped us a lot:

Lay your baby on his back on a blanket and sit behind his head, holding a noisy or squeaky toy. Hold the toy where your baby can see it. Slowly move it so he has to turn his head to follow it.

Praise your baby if he arches his back and starts to turn. If your baby turns with his shoulders, but his legs don't follow, gently push on his bottom to help him over. Save this game for later if your baby doesn’t try.

To help your baby feel what it’s like to roll over, lay him on one side of a small blanket. Gently raise the blanket to help him roll over. Reward him with big smiles and hugs.

We didn’t use a blanket, we just helped him by moving and pushing his leg and bottom a bit to the side. Now he can roll over but still can’t roll back. I hope this helps.

Does a baby sleep better with music around or without?

We tried to create best possible sleep pattern for our 3 month old son. It is very hard to define actual sleeping times, but it’s mostly an hour after breastfeeding and it last not longer then an hour. In the morning the sleep last longer then in the evening.

We noticed that the music coming from baby gadgets is not even a pleasure for ears, at least not for us, since it has some very short and annoying repeating patterns. Therefore we decided to try with other music genres starting from pop over to hard rock and hip hop.

The result was very positive, but not a surprise. Our baby sleeps much better and even longer with high quality sound then with sound coming from diverse baby toys. The genre obviously doesn’t play a role in so early age.

The conclusion: It is higher chance that your baby accepts high quality produced music played from a CD/MP3 player or laptop then cheap sound coming from baby toys. Give it a try and let us know about your results.

Baby’s first REAL smile

It’s wonderful to see a baby smiling. We noticed his first smile already 3 weeks after his birth. However, it was just a reflex smile which has gone away after first month.

Anyway, his first smile came unexpected together with his mood changes. Now he recognizes when people smile at him and he smiles back.

After he turned 3 months he started smiling frequently. Now he’s 4 months old and a smile is a necessary part of his daily life.

There’s a lot of games around you can play with your child trying to train the baby to smile, but it’s just a natural process which will come at the right time.