First Time Mom Unsure About .........

Hi S.!

It sounds like you're doing GREAT, so I would just relax a little bit :O) EVERYTHING can be constant change with a baby....as soon as "we moms" get it down....they change their needs! So, here's my "2 cents":

I think it's the perfect time to begin your baby on cereal. Yes, their little tongues get in the way until they figure out how to swallow, but it's part of the joy of motherhood :O) You might be able to add another bowl at lunchtime now. Your son is 6 months old, so he is probably ready. If you mix in a little bit of fruit (baby food) it will help with his digestive system until his body adjusts to his new intake. Yes, my boys went constipated occassionally, and it was always GREEN :o) It still is.... TMI, sorry! Anyway, if it gets too bad ther are OTC enima's for infants.

When it comes to teething, it could change everything, even his most comfy routine. For me, teething has changed the appetite, the diapers to diarreah, occassional vomiting, sudden sad outbursts :O( and occassional fevers, too. I always had Hylond Teething Tablets on hand everywhere, with Motrin/Tylenol. These in combination worked well for those really bad teething days which are ahead for you.

"Balancing it all" can be tricky and ittle overwhelming for a first-time mom only trying to do everything their best, but it sounds like you have "got it down". Now, you are probably at the stage where you will need to be ready for an "emotional adjustment". There are more times ahead for you KNOWING that you are doing everything he needs, he just might not be happy about it. It is so hard, and I wish I had the mental maturity to "relax" knowing I was doing everything right.....otherwise..."Mother's Guilt" can really cause some pain.

~N. :O)

Hi S.;

You are a wonderful, caring mom, and I hope I can help you make things a little easier for you and your little boy. I have 3 girls, and EVERY ONE OF THEM was prone to constipation. By the third one, I really "got it down!" First of all, I don't know why anyone would recommend feeding a baby solid food before they go to bed. When we are sleeping, our digestive system is supposed to shut down until we awaken and are active again. Your baby's new little system is probably slowly and less-effectively processing that cereal at night, which is probably causing, or at least adding to the constipation problem. I would definitely introduce the solid foods earlier in the day, at least until his new little digestive system gets used to digesting. His appetite just may improve! The juice is helpful, as long as it is watered down (I would say 50/50 is good). A combination of prune juice, apple juice and purified water did wonders for my babies! As far as feeding him goes, I would feed twice a day (morning and mid-day to start), and introduce new foods one at a time, three days before starting another food, so you can see if he has any allergic (or digestive) reactions. As for the constipation, if you see him really straining and struggling here's what you can do. Note; my wonderful pediatrician showed me how to do this, and it really was a life-saver. Get a Q-tip, and put vaseline or diaper cream on the end of it. GENTLY place it in his rectum, and twist it and move it around, pressing lightly on the sides of the rectum. This probably sounds weird (and maybe TMI)! But, babies' little insides sometimes just don't know when to work, and this will stimulate his system into working. It is AMAZING how well it works. I was so happy to be able to help my poor babies get all that out, and see the relief and calmness afterward! Good luck, and I hope this helps!

Your son's poop is green if you have been giving him grape juice. Also, have you tried some vegetables & fruit for his constipation? Try it it might help. I also think you answered your own question by asking if his appetite has decreased because of teething, most likely that is the reason I think.

Teething can affect food intake. That said at 6 mo. old he should be eating more baby food than just starting oatmeal. As they grow they still need formula but their needs also include more food. If he's done fine with oatmeal move on to and get through the other cereals asap. Shouldn't take more than two weeks to test them all out. Then on to veggies! The cereals are iron fortified and there is iron in the formula so often the two together are too much and cause constipation -it was true for both my children. Get through the cereals to be sure there are no allergies and then limit them or drop them. If constipation is still and issue 1/2 to 1 jar of prunes each morning ususally does the trick -worked well for both my children. Also constipation can cause a drop in eating - there is simply no room and you feel less hungry. I usually start with a little baby food at each mealtime (to practice eating) and finish with a bottle until they learn how to eat better and then you can do the reverse - more food and less formula at mealtimes. Good luck!
PS-THe WHat to Expect When You Are Expecting book is great for answers to questions like these, as well as many others.

Things have probably changed a bunch since my guys were little, but it may be that your son is allergic or sensitive to oatmeal - my guys were. Try rice cereal if you feel you must do cereal. Maybe some mild vegetables would be a better idea. Good luck to you all.

I am not a doctor, but the dark stool and constipation sound like he is getting a lot of iron. Iron is known to cause constipation and dark stools. Is there a high dose of iron in similac? If so maybe consult your doctor on what you can give him, to balance out the iron, propolyne glycol works well for constipation, but I'm not sure of the age requirements, or if it is the similac, maybe you could get a formula that has a lower concentration of iron. As for not being hungry, if he is not moving bowl movements he could be backed up and becoming toxic which is enough to make him lose his appetite. Again, I'm not a pediatrician, but I have had some experience with constipation and dark stool. Hope this helps!

It sounds to me like you're doing great. Here is what I think is happening and honestly no baby is the same so here are some things to try to.
His appetite is going to change ALL the time, he might be getting ready for a big growth spurt, I think about 6 mths is when there is a big one, so he might be a little achy.
I would try giving him a warm bath at night to help with that and maybe help him sleep, I use a nice lavendar smelling soap (yes on my boys) that helps calm them down and get them ready for sleepytime. If he's constipated, it might be that the oatmeal is a little hard for him to adjust. Oatmeal is fairly "hearty" and he might not be ready for it, try a rice cereal and see if that helps. Their little body's are trying to figure out how to digest solids, it's a little bit of a rough time, but he'll get the hang of it.
When he's constipated, try massaging his tummy and than taking his knees and sort of folding him in half by pushing them sort of into his chest (not too hard) which help apply pressure to his bowels to help 'move things along'.
Once your son has figured out the whole cereal thing, and is eating a infant bowl full, or 5-7 days, try to introduce something new.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask any questions if you have some.

there is also a book I LIVED BY when my first son was born and I reference often with my second it's by Dr. Sears....something to the effect of What to expect in the first 2 years. It has cute nakey baby butts across the front and is purple. I definatly say go out and get it. It's priceless in it's worth :)

good luck
K.

There will always be moments in your future of insecurities just smile through them! To me it sounds like at only 4 months you could stop feeding him any cereal at all.. it could be too much too soon and causing constipation. Most often babies can wait until 6 months before even being introduced to any solids even if they are showing teeth it does not always mean they are ready. New foods always pose a risk of allergy or intolerance and the cereal/oatmeal could be one of them...you might even want to try changing his formula. Once the constipation passes his appetite will come back. I am surprised that your Dr. recommended juice at 4 months old which again is too much too soon. Juice is very high is sugars and at 4 mo that is not what he needs, especially with the widespread epidemic of diabetes and obesity. Take one week off from the cereal and take lot's of late night warm baths and belly rubs along with a bottle with a bit extra water. If that doesn't work the Dr. can prescribe a mild laxative to clear blockage and then your little guy can have some relief from the pressure of being so backed up which will bring back his appetitie and you can try solids again when he is 6 months. Good luck!!

Constipation is very common with formula fed babies. Try giving a bottle of water. That might help.

Many people will tell you that food before bed will help them sleep but no studies back that up. Most babies will continue to wake several times a night until 10-12 months and many will continue to wake at night once or twice a week until they are 3 or so. For help with sleep read Dr M Weissbluth. You will have to teach your baby to sleep through the night.

You will know if is time to start feeding your baby solids when he shows an interest in your food. For some babies this is 4 months, others at 8 months. Common first foods are cereals (rice cereal mixed with formula), mashed banana, mashed avocado, apple sauce, whole milk yogurt. When you look at prepared baby foods, pay attention to the recommended age. Some mothers introduce new food on a schedule to avoid food allergies.

I also recommend getting a good general reference book like the Dr. Sears Baby Book.
Take what is useful & works for you.

give him rice cereal instead of oatmeal. oatmeal is a little rough so young. and try him on baby food fruits. that will get his little colon moving. he may not be as hungry because he is teething. you are doing a great job!!! keep it up!!! its all trial and error!!!!

Hi S.-
I am what you call an experienced auntie. For the constipation, ask your doctor/pediatrician about miralax. One of my nephews cannot eat much in the way of bananas and gets constipated and has a hard time pooping. So when he gets that way and the juice is not clearing him out, my sis adds a teaspoon of miralax to a half juice, half water bottle.
How old is your baby? Maybe introduce a fruit or sweet potatoes into the oatmeal. One of my other sisters started her little one on solids at 5-6 months, lots of fruits and steamed veggies. The other sister went into yo baby yogurts, yogurt melts, and steamed veggies at 7-8 months along with the formula.
I would not worry about percentiles. Every baby is different, and as long as they are eating....plus, teething makes babies VERY cranky and hard to feed. If you have any of those freezer things they can chew on, you might try that- or those fruit pop things- it's a mess that you can put a piece of cold fruit inside and they just gnaw on it.
I hope this helps, and good luck!
-E. M

I highly reccomend what to Expect the First Year book. It tells you everything by the week of your babies age. It tells you what foods to start with, how...well everything. You only need to read the sections that relate tpo your babies age and there are a lot of question and answers like the ones you ask. I am the mother of 3 and used this book each time.

Kids go through growth spurts and their appetite will vary. Sometimes a litte apple juice or apple sauce which many babies love because of the sweet will help with constipation. As you experiment with food you are only supposed to give the one food for 4 days at a time to determine food allergies.

Good luck, everything will be fine.

Hi S.,

It is hard to figure out so just keep trying and it will all work out. Try a rice based cereal vs oatmeal and really water it down. How was the transition from breast to formula? That could help alot because rice does not have gluten in it. I also wouldn't be in a hurry to start solids. I waited until my girls were six months old, however some of the other moms I know added the rice cereal to the bottle at night. Start small. At six months try sweet potatoes, carrots, both pureed. No milk, dairy, peanuts, or wheat for at least the first year since these are the allergen foods. It is better to go slow and not overwhelm his system and that proactively avoids future problems. Teething could definitely have an effect on his appetite, sleep, elimination. For both of my children it caused very acidic urine, runny noses, biting while nursing, trouble sleeping.

Hi S.,
I am a SAHM of a 2 wk old girl and 4.5 yr old girl. When my first daughter was around 6 mos. old, we started with the rice cereal instead of the oatmeal (maybe this will help a little), but starting with cereal is the choice of most (I'm not sure it matters which one you do start with). We fed Mikayla (our 4.5 yr old) about three times per day with the cereal and yes... she had trouble with the whole process of eating from a spoon also, but loved the cereal when she did get it in her mouth and tummy. As for how much she ate, it depended on the growth cycle she was going through. I have found with my children and my friends' children that they go through cycles of eating so much you feel like they never get full, to eating so little that you think they are starving. What the doc said to us was that they are growth spurts (they eat a ton and you watch there belly grow - so they are growing outward, then they stop for awhile and shoot upward - grow tall and there belly gets small) My 4.5 yr old still does this where she'll eat me out of house and home and nothing seems to fit her waistline but she swims in the pants in the length, until a couple of weeks or even a month goes by then she won't eat much at all if anything and her pants fit great in the waist (practically falling off), but are now water waders.
I see it as a phase that your son will grow out of in a couple weeks or months, then you won't be able to feed him often enough, then once you get used to that, he'll go back to not eating for the next couple of months. I know it's frustrating esp. when sleepless nights are apart of it, but you do eventually get used to it.

I hope this helps.
S. CP

Okay just relax and know you are okay. I was a first time mom, my baby came a month early due to complications, was and is at 51 percentile for weight and he is FINE. Do not worry. Okay I would give him Hyland's teething tablets for teething when the teeth are not quite ready to break through and baby Orajel (the liquid kind) on his gums then Infant Tylenol or Infant Motrin when it's obvious it's extremely painful. Watch and listen to your baby and you will know. I tried giving my son cereal but he wouldn't take it for a few months. You can always wait and try again later giving it to him when he's a little older. You sometimes have to try later with things. They go through cycles of sleeping well. He'll eat well (solids when he's older),get his naps, have stimulation during the day and you'll think he'll sleep like a dream....and he won't. There's no real rhyme or reason. Do what you feel is right, feed him solids when he's ready (sitting upright and accepting a spoon, opening his mouth, you give to him), try to keep him on schedule, go places, stimulate him etc and he'll be on scheulde/sleeping through the night for a month staight. Then be forewarned, he will change. It's a cycle. They all go through it. Just go through it and it will go back. My son slept through the night at 4 mos until he got his 4 mos shots then was off for a month, then same thing for his 6 month shots and I spread them out to give him a break...so a month of disturbed sleeping. Then he was done w/shots for awhile and bam....it was due to teething and growth spurts. Just know what your baby is doing is normal and IT WILL CHANGE. this too shall pass. Hope this will help! good luck!

Rember, 50th percentile means your baby is exactly average. That is ok. not too big or too small. 6 oz. of formula sounds about right too. He may be cutting back for several reasons; consuming more spoon fed food, his teething or he may be at the end of a growth spurt. In another month or two he could be eating you out of house and home as he prepares for his 9 month growth spurt.
When you get ready to expand his food choices the recommended feeding schedule to check for allergies is to introduce only one new food every 4 days. He can eat a little bit of baby food at all 3 meals if you want. So for example day 1 start feeding him carrot baby food. Day 5 try peas, day 9 try pears, etc. Once he has been on a new food for 4 days with no alergies you can start mixing and matching with other foods that have checked out. It is also recommended to start with the veggie foods so your son gets used to the taste of the veggies before trying the yummy sweet fruits. Remeber also it takes many times of trying something before they learn to like it.

I would recommend one book; if you don't already have it.
Baby 411 by Denise Fields and Ari Brown M.D. It is available at most bookstores, some libraries and Amazon.com.

It is a wealth of information about everything baby. Written by two moms who know you are sleep deprived and overwhelmed so it's super easy to find answers, easy to read and doesn't scare the bejesus out of you. Good luck!

Dont worry - we wereall first time moms once! babies do tend to drink less when they begin solids. I would give the oatmeal as an early "dinner" then give the bottle later - he may drink more. Regarding the constipation, what really worked for my son was giving prunes and oatmeal - or mixing prune juice with the oatmeal.how much oatmeal are you feeding him? I would call your pediatrician if you are concerned about weight loss. He may just be having a growth spurt and stretching out, but its worth checking into!

Hi S.,

You are doing the right things and I'm sure he's fine. Actually my Pediatrician said anytime the poo is green its a good sign that its moving along quick enough in the system. I have noticed when my daughter is teething, constipation is at its worse and she won't drink her bottle. I would try giving him some prunes mixed with his oatmeal, my daughter loved that and I gave it to her in the morning so she'd poop that day and not interupted to poo in her sleep waking her up which makes them more moody. I would suggest teething tablets and Baby Orajel or even Tylenol if you know its teething about 30 mins before eating. Well Orajel right before he takes his bottles. Apparently it hurts when they suck on the bottle if they are teething. Uggh!! The poor little ones when they are teething...they are really not happy sometimes.

That's my experience and my advise based on my baby girl. I hope it works for you too.

Wow! 6 ozs every three hours. I can barely get my 4 year old to drink that much in one day =D Green poop could be from the iron that's in the formula and constipated could be from not being able to process the formula as well as your breast milk. (Did he have those problems when you were breastfeeding?).

My Dr suggested to me that I look at the size of my baby's fist and then remember that is the size of his stomach. Don't force the kid to eat, especially when they are saying no. Are you still seeing the Dr every month? I would bring it up to your Dr to see what they have to say if the weight loss is normal or not.

As for getting a kid to eat solids and whether or not it makes the kid sleep better at night. I was told that formula babies "sleep better" because they are over full most of the time and their bodies have a harder time processing the formula as opposed to the milder breast milk. My baby (now 4 yo) never really enjoyed any of the baby foods and most of the time refused outright to eat ANYTHING that didn't come from my breast. Frustrating, but fortunately I am a stay at home mom. Even today he eats so little it's amazing that he has so much energy.

And I'm a 34 year old who still doesn't sleep through the night and never has (let alone my 4 year old son). I wouldn't worry about a waking child, it's more "normal" for the kid to be waking a few times than to not be. Sometimes you'll get a free night, but then they start teething, or crawling, or walking or whatever it is they are going through at the moment and they'll be up every 2 hours again =)

I would try to get my hands on a few different parenting magazines...not just one cause each one has their own style of handling things that might not work for you. Or go to a website like www.babycenter.com to get their weekly email about the different milestones your child could be going through and what to expect.

Like I was told a million times, each kid is SO different, you need to find what works for him =)

my son took a while before liking his rice cereal, unlike my daughter who gobbled it up. i would try one meal a day until he is 6 months then go up to 2 meals and in a month or 2 go up to 3. start with rice cereal instead of oatmeal. easier on the tummy. make it really runny with formula until he gets use to it and then adjust the consistency. you could also add a spoonful of prunes, baby food. they have organic stuff on sale at safeway all the time. your son will take less formula when he starts solids. good luck, it's tricky at first but the next thing you know you're cooking 3x a day for the kids! yikes!

Hi,
Not to worry Mom,
It may be the teething?
Our grandson started to have some of those issues when he was teething...try giving him a frozen banana.
Just peel, cut in half & freeze....He LOVED this. It helped his teething issues....but it is a little messy...
Also the banana may help lossen him up too..?
I'm sure it's just the changes of eating some real food, and teething. IF the problems with his BM continue then you might check again with the doctor.....
Good Luck....

Don't stress. It most definitely could be the teething causing a loss of appetite. Also the more you increase his food intake the less formula he will need. Although not always with a growing boy. You need to take your cues from him. If he is showing disinterest in bottles then he is probably not hungry. It took me a month to figure out why my daughter was fussing at certain bottle feedings. All of a sudden, within one day, she went from taking 6 six oz bottles down to four. She refused and I was pushing her to eat as previous. She began taking fewer bottles with more formula. If he is refusing certain bottles at a certain time try cutting out that bottle. If you are worried add a few more oz to the next.
Also you need to look at his food/formula intake over a period of a few days (2-3) not from meal to meal. As long as he continues to gain weight don't worry.
We also started our daughter on cereal/rice at 6 mon. We began at dinner. Always offer the food before the bottle. Eventually the food will replace the formula... don't be surprised if they fill up on food and take less of the bottle. This is the goal. We started making smaller bottles as to not waste. He will quickly go from eating a few tablespoons at dinner to eating a bowl full of cereal mixed with fruit or veggies three times a day. I would say within about 6 weeks. Get him on a feeding schedule, breakfast, lunch and dinner, just like normal. With two snacks in between. We do breakfast, dry snack (cheerios, crackers, et.) lunch, nap, snack (fruit, cheese, yogurt, ect.) dinner. This will become easier with the more foods you begin to introduce. www.wholesomebabyfood.com is a good reference site. Also if you read get BabyFacts it dispels a lot of the myths and worries that mothers have. The food before bed is most definitely a myth. Feed him dinner when you eat.