Easing Your Child’s Constipation
Everyone has dealt with it and every one of us will deal with our children being constipated at some point in their young lives. We all know how miserable it is to not be able to go and when our children are hurting, we can feel helpless. As I type this, my 4 year old is miserably walking around squatting, grunting, and looking simply pathetic. (We have struggled with potty training, especially with going poo-poo in the potty, but when he’s constipated, all bets are off and the potty isn’t an option.)
WebMD suggests that if your child has less than 3 bowel movements a week and they are hard and difficult to pass, your child may be suffering from constipation. Some kids are more prone to dealing with bouts of constipation and those of us parents with these “lucky” kids have learned a few tricks of the trade that often help. Here are some tips to helping keep your child from getting to the point they just can’t go.
FIBER! Try to incorporate lots of fresh fruits and veggies into their diet. If they are picky eaters, try raisins or fruit juice. Also, try to decrease the amount of refined sugars they digest. Refined sugars have a tendency to constipate.
WATER. WATER. WATER! Keep them hydrated. Fluids will help soften and keep things moving. If you can, try warm liquids.
BATH TIME! A warm sitz bath can sometimes help relax the tummy and help things along.
SYMPATHIZE! Encouarge your child to keep trying to go to the potty and don’t make them embarassed if they have an accident. Remember, they are still learning control of all of their bodily functions and sometimes pain overtakes reason!
If your child is experiencing constipation often, it may be wise to consult your pediatrician. Constipation can sometimes be a sign of other health conditions that need to be checked out… and sometimes it can be caused from just eating too much cheese!!!
Does your child deal with frequent constipation? What tips do you have for parents experiencing this for the first time?
Photo Courtesy of Cynergist
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Christy,
I love all the practical, non-medicinal suggestions you have! My daughter has struggled with regularity from the beginning–her bowel perforated when she was 11 days old and we’ve been fighting poop ever since.
She is currently on a high-iron formula that slows everything WAY down and the only way we’ve found to combat it is to sprinkle a little Miralax (5 ccs) in her morning bottle (upon the recommendation of her doctors–I would not suggest anyone try this without speaking to their child’s medical professional!). Now that she’s eating table foods, some days are MUCH easier…
For young children who are struggling, I would suggest warmth as a tip. Even in the hospital, we would grab warm blankets and wrap them around her tummy–it really seemed to soothe her discomfort.
Looking forward to reading more tips!
Funny, I now know why you needed to find the right picture for your post. Love these tips Christy.
I just went through this with Annabelle. She was just being grumpy and I could kind of tell it was constipation. I got her some prune juice. She liked it at first, but then she didn’t like it after a while. Someone told me that Pear juice helped too. Sure enough, after she went – she was a happier kid!
Yes!!! Pears and pear juice are awesome. When Catherine was still on baby foods, she really struggled with constipation and I’d load her up on pears. Now I use the 100% Juice canned pears (she doesn’t like fresh ones for some reason). With Andrew, raisins are our big winner!
Good tip on the pears. We’ve been using prune juice – but our son doesn’t like the juice by itself. So we mix it up in his milk (2/3 milk, 1/3 prune juice) and he seems to like that just fine. Has worked like a charm so far.
By the way, I can’t help wondering what that little boy would think if he knew what his picture was being used for…:)
Haha… well, my poor boy wouldn’t do it!
[...] this week, Christy shared ideas for helping our little ones and their constipation. I thought I’d follow that up with my child’s polar-opposite issue: plentiful poop [...]