3 Month Old, Pooping Problems

Is there a medical reason you are feeding a 3 month old cereal in the bottle?
My suggestion is to stop feeding the cereal and she'll be better. Cereal constipated and caused a world of pain in my son and he was 6 months old. It isn't the easiest thing for a little one to digest. It's a binding agent. When I ditched the cereal completely was when my son finally felt better. I skipped it completely with my second and thrid children.

STOP the cereal.
She is too young.
An infants digestive system is not even fully developed yet.

Did the Pediatrician tell you to do this???

I notice you said the Dr advised you to add rice cereal because of your daughter's reflux -- I didn't know this was something you could do until I chatted with a grandma this past weekend who told me about her 4-month-old granddaughter's bad reflux. They went through many different kinds of formula, all of which didn't help her, until they tried one that had "rice added" (sorry, I can't tell you what it was called). They said this one finally did the trick, because it weighed the formula down enough so that she wouldn't get reflux. So in some cases it may be necessary to have the cereal.

As for the pooping, I have heard of giving pear juice to young babies who are constipated, but I would check with your pediatrician first. I wonder if the formula with the cereal already added would work better? I don't know if the baby I met over the weekend had any constipation as a result of drinking this formula, so I can't help you there. Good luck!

I agree with PP's...no cereal unless theres some medical reason for it (which i'm not sure what that would be). their stomachs are not developed enough to digest it yet...only breastmilk or formula. that's why she can't poop...i would stop the cereal and let her system get back to normal and don't start it again until at least 6 months. there has to be another way to treat her reflux.

dont put cereal in a bottle! if she can eat it from a spoon, ok, but otherwise forget it. and if shes constipated, shes probably too young. Rice is known to constipate. if you do give it to her, make it liquidy, and use a different grain.

Hi there,

It's pretty typical for formula babies to get constipated. Add cereal on top of that and oh, golly! A 3-month-old's digestive system is pretty naive. Please talk to her pediatrician for guidance. They generally don't recommend adding cereal in the bottle of milk/formula.

When she is ready to eat cereal with a spoon, make sure that it's really loose, like applesauce, not pasty at all. The extra hydration will really help her digestion.

Best regards!

It could be the cereal, if you want her to have it don't mix it with all her bottles, maybe just with one of her bottles a day or just every other day. When my daughter was that little she also had problems pooping so I just took some prunes (2) and boiled them for 10 minutes, then with that water I made her 1 of her bottles a day and it worked great, at least for her. But you can't over do this either, I just did it for a few days and only with one of her feedings. Maybe you can give this a try. Hope it helps!

I would stop the cereal for a while and see if that helps. Usually babies do not need cereal until 4 or 5 months old.

try putting a little lesser cereal. You can also try to make her cereal seperately in a bowl with lesser formula and see how that works.

Unless there's a medical reason she SHOULD be eating cereal, wait until she's at least 6 months old before introducing anything besides breastmilk or formula. Younger babies' digestive systems are not ready to handle solids, and doctors recommend waiting until 6 months except in some cases of reflux.

Hi, A.
Get some Hyland Vit. C 5mg tabs and give her
one a day.
Good luck.
D.

I concur with others who say to stop the cereal. Also, in a few months when you do start the cereal again, I'd keep an eye on how she does with rice cereal in particular. I've had 3 babies in my care who have had lots of trouble with rice cereal. Poor baby... pooping problems will likely cause sleeping problems as well :(

My DD was 4 months old when I introduced rice cereal, plugged her right up. At 6 months I tried again, same problem. So now she gets oatmeal. :) I agree though, that unless your pediatrician told you to use the cereal, you really shouldn't. It's empty calories, and she needs the nutrition from the formula... If the pedi. DID tell you, maybe try giving her a bit less or spoon feeding it to her. I usually give my DD diluted apple/prune juice when she's constipated, but I didn't start that until she was 5 months old. I'm not sure if it would be wise to give it to a baby as young as yours. If she's having gas issues, I would also recommend trying gripe water. My DD had horrible gas pains when she was younger, and the gripe water did wonders for that. I still give it to her once in a while when I notice she's having issues.

I've been there-- my son had TERRIBLE reflux and we were told by his pediatricians (who are all also lactation consultants) to add the cereal to his breastmilk/formula at about 3.5 months-- and we started him on solids shortly after that as well, which is way earlier than the conventional wisdom is now, but you have to make decisions based on the child's needs. And, of course, we had the constipation problems then too. I would go back to adding 1/4 teaspoon for every 4 ounces for 3 or 4 days, then 1/4 teaspoon for every 2 ounces for 4-5 days, and then up to the 1/4 teaspoon for every ounce. Some other things to try to help with the constipation:

Warm baths (this can get messy, fast)
Infant massage-- google "infant massage constipation" to get some ideas
Putting him in his bumbo chair (that usually worked for us)
Highly diluted (like, start with 1/2 ounce in a whole bottle of water) pear juice
glycerine suppositories (Last resort, and check with your ped first)

Good luck-- this WILL pass, but my son was still spitting up at 12 months, so it can take a long time!

It is a tradeoff, but if the reflux is that bad, you do what you got to do. :-)