Hard Stool From My Seven Month Old

by Holly
(Kansas City MO)

My seven month old daughter is having very hard stools. It is also taking her all day to have a bowel movement. She will try several times through the day but without success. She does always have one bowel movement a day, but it takes great effort and seems bothersome to her.

What can I give her daily to help soften her stools?

Baby Help Line Response:

Foods To Soften Baby's Stools

Hard stools are very common among 7 months old babies, since many of them have just started with solid baby food, or the share of solids is increasing.

Most often, the hard stools are due to the baby's digestive system not really coping with solids, and this will improve over the months to come.

What to do then?

Since your baby is so "old", she can really benefit from all the different fruits that tend to soften the stools. Offer her prune, apple or pear juice or purées of the same fruits. (Don not give her apple sauce though, with actually hardens the stools.) Kiwis and apricots are also good. Two vegetables that are healthy and easy on her tummy are avocado and sweet potato.

Also make sure to avoid bananas, carrots, blue berries, rice cereal and dairy products until the constipation is gone. And make sure she drinks a lot of breast milk or water.

If she has never tried these fruits before, start slowly, may be with one tea spoon to spot any allergic reaction.

Some babies need to have any of the above fruit purees or juices added with every meal to be able to digest solid foods without constipation.

For more constipation remedies, read here.

And you can find baby food recipes here, if you want to make your own baby food.

Good luck!

Paula

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Hard Stool From My Seven Month Old

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Jan 09, 2009

Hard Stool from my 1yr old - HELP!
by: Carolina

My son is 1 yr old and has been having very hard stools for the past few months. Even when they are not so hard, they are very big around. He stiffens his legs and if my husband and I are around we immediately take his diaper off and bend his legs up towards his chest while holding down his stomach. More times than not I have to "help" my son by putting vaseline around his anus or moving it around to make it stretch. It's horrible, he bleeds a little every time and his anus even comes out some. It seems that it's only the first part of it, after that comes out, the rest is just pushing. Since all of this makes him irregular, his feces are dry, look "old" and is always one very long piece.

I'm sorry if this is too much info, our doctor did not change his milk and just recommended stool softener or supositories.

Thanks for any help.

Jan 09, 2009

Milk?
by: Paula (Baby Help Line)

Hi Carolina!

Have you tried to change his diet at all? I would take away all dairy product immediately if I were you and see if it makes a difference.

Also try add a bit of whole grain bread or porridge to his diet. And dried apricots.

And lots of liquid, of course.

Then if this doesn't help go see another doctor!

Wish you good luck! Please let me know about your son's progress!

/Paula

May 18, 2009

My 3 Year Old
by: Jessica Deschenes

Hi,
My three year old has been struggling since she was 2 months old to have a bowel movement. She starts and then 4-5 hours later finally goes, after pushing really hard and 9 out of 10 times she bleeds.
She has had a sigmodocskay(sp?)and an endoscopy. They told me she looked normal except for some abrasians but since then they haven't said anything. I can't stand to watch her suffer.
Thanks
Jessica

Jul 02, 2010

Tried pawpaw?
by: Anne

My 7 month old baby also had the same problem and I was advised to add pawpaw to her diet and it worked wonders.

I feed her on pawpaw three to four times a day between meals and give her a lot of water. Try this.

Anne
Kenya

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