Constipation

Wee bubba is horribly constipated :( What can I do to help him along? Poor little bugger is trying to go and he cant!

He's on formula unfortunatly. We've tried water and it hasnt worked! I'm not sure if I wanna try the sugar thing cuz he's only 3 weeks old.. Im sure theres a product out there for this sort of problem lol.

ah okay, i'll give that a go then.

Yea I was told not to use the gold ones cuz they either make them real spewy or real constipated, so we went for the normal one. I'll see how we go with the sugar water - mum said she's already used it on him without telling me when he had problems going last week! Cheeky monkey lol. Ah well if it works it works, if it doesnt i'll take him to the doctors.

I thought that the Gold formulas were especially for babies that usually get a bit bunged up on regular formula?

Chloe is on nurture, not the gold one but just the regular one, because she hasn't had any probs... I had just heard that you should stick to normal formula unless they have probs keeping regular. But I could be wrong.

I've heard that watered down prune juice can be good, I would probably prefer that to sugar-water if giving it regularly. I don't think sugar water would do any harm if it wasn't all the time though. But I don't have any experience with constipated bubba, really (Chloe didn't go for 2 days and it seemed to really bother her but her stools weren't really "hard" when she finally went after I tried to get her to drink some sugar water... not really sure how much went into her though).

ETA: If it really is a huge prob then like someone said already, you might have to get some lactulose from the Dr.

Edited by LittleBug

Warm watr or prune juice help, if it's a big problem your GP will help with lactulose. As for formulas, never heard of not using the Gold ones for the reasons you were told, we used Karicare gold + (stockpiled it when it was withdrawn) and had no problems with constipation, but she was bunged up completely on anything else. Each baby is individual in that respect, might pay to try another formula but often it can make the problem worse with chopping and changing tho. I was told if you are changing within brands ie to Gold, to go straight onto it, if changing brands to mix the two ie 1:4 for a few days then 1:2 etc
Sorry that went off topic a bit but hope he gets some movement soon

And you can get Coloxyl (a stool softener) at the chemist or on prescription if you need it.

We found the coloxyl good, though we haven't had to use it much since being on her reflux meds. A warm compress on the tummy can help also. As far as the water goes, Rohann would never take water (and I've heard a lot of contradicting info on wether you should or not), neither before or after a feed. Have also heard you just add brown sugar to their bottle??

People (and babies) can become reliant on things like lactulose and coloxyl, so it's best to try a non-laxative remedy first and see if it helps. Those things are sort of like last resorts, if you get desperate. Just thought I should mention that!

you could also try putting his bottom in a bath (i found our sink was perfect!) of warm water with a couple of teaspoons of baking SODA dissolved in it, it helps relax the sphincter muscles, so could be perfect if you can see him trying to "push one out" maybe stick his bottom in the sink of water and try that?

good luck, i tried everything for a while with both the girls, resorting to coloxyl and lactoluse after the sugary water and found prune juice and water really helped!