How do you make babies poop

Symptoms, Treatment and When to Call a Doctor

Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Constipation (con-sta-PA-shun) in infants can worry parents. Most of the time, your baby is not really constipated. They may not have developed a routine for pooping yet. Some babies do not develop a bowel movement (BM) pattern for a while.

An infant’s BM pattern can change if their diet changes, like switching from breastmilk to formula, starting solid foods, or drinking less formula than usual. If your baby’s stool (poop) is not soft or easily passed, then they may be constipated.

In rare cases, constipation may be caused by a lack of nerves going to the intestines or by a problem with the way the intestine formed at birth. Your baby can be tested for these conditions if your health care provider feels it is needed.

Signs of Constipation

less stools than their usual pattern
straining more than normal to have a bowel movement
a change in how the stool looks from soft and mushy to:
- small, hard pebbles, or like a large, round golf ball
- loose and watery
abdomen (belly) bloated or swollen with gas
painful cramps

Treatment

If your baby is not eating baby food yet, you may give 1 to 2 ounces of 100% fruit juice (pear, prune, cherry, or apple) once a day. Stop the juice if their stools become too loose.
If they are old enough to eat baby foods, feed them pureed pears, peaches, or prunes instead of giving them juice.
If your baby eats cereal, it may help to give oatmeal, wheat, or barley cereal. Rice cereal can cause constipation in some children.
Sometimes giving your baby a warm bath to relax them or exercising their legs, like riding a bicycle, will help stimulate the bowels to move (Picture 1).
If it has been a few days since your baby has pooped and the juice or pureed food has not worked, then you can try a glycerin suppository. Place your baby on their back. Gently push the suppository into their anus (bottom). Suppositories are meant for occasional use.
Contact your baby’s health care provider before giving them laxatives, baby mineral oil, or enemas to treat constipation.

Medical Therapy

Your child’s health care provider may order the following treatments:

Give your child medication.
Check your child’s temperature using a digital, rectal thermometer. Put a small amount of petroleum jelly (Vaseline®) on its tip before inserting into the rectum. Taking a rectal temperature may stimulate the baby to pass stool.

When to Call the Health Care Provider

Call the health care provider if any of the following occurs:

Your baby is irritable and seems to be having stomach pain. Infants will pull their legs up to their stomach and cry when they are in pain.
Your baby has constipation and develops vomiting, and their belly looks like it is bloated or filled with gas.
You see blood in their stool.
Their constipation does not get better with treatment.

If you have any questions or concerns, call your baby’s health care provider.

Constipation: Infant (PDF), Spanish (PDF), Somali (PDF), Arabic (PDF), Nepali (PDF)

Baby constipation: Top 7 home remedies

Babies often go a long time between bowel movements. Most of the time, it is normal for a baby to go days or even more than a week without a bowel movement. However, a baby may sometimes be constipated and need a little help.

If a baby is constipated, a pediatrician may recommend using home remedies as a first-line treatment for baby constipation.

Home remedies for constipation in a baby include:

1. Exercise

Moving a baby’s legs can help relieve constipation.

As with adults, exercise and movement tend to stimulate a baby’s bowels.

However, as babies may not be walking or even crawling yet, a parent or caregiver may want to help them exercise to relieve constipation.

The parent or caregiver can gently move the baby’s legs while they are lying on their back to mimic the motion of riding a bicycle. Doing this may help the bowels function and relieve constipation.

2. A warm bath

Giving a baby a warm bath can relax their abdominal muscles and help them stop straining. It can also relieve some of the discomfort relating to constipation.

3. Dietary changes

Certain dietary changes may help constipation, but these will vary depending on the baby’s age and diet.

While breastfeeding a baby, a woman could eliminate certain foods, such as dairy, from her diet. It may take some trial and error to identify the dietary changes that help, and it is quite possible that changes in the diet will have no effect on the baby’s constipation.

For formula-fed babies, a parent or caregiver may want to try a different kind of formula. It is best not to switch to a gentle or dairy-free formula without consulting a pediatrician first. If one change does not make a difference, continuing to try different formulas is unlikely to help.

If an infant is eating solid foods, parents or caregivers should look to introduce foods that are good sources of fiber.

Many fruits and vegetables can help stimulate the bowels because of their higher fiber content. Good food choices for babies with constipation include:

skinless apples
broccoli
whole grains, such as oatmeal or whole-grain bread or pasta
peaches
pears
plums

4.

Hydration

Young infants do not typically need supplemental liquids as they get their hydration from breast milk or formula.

However, babies that are constipated may benefit from a small amount of extra liquid.

Pediatricians sometimes recommend adding a small amount of water or, occasionally, fruit juice, to the baby’s diet when they are over 2–4 months old and are constipated.

5. Massage

There are several ways to massage a baby’s stomach to relieve constipation. These include:

Using the fingertip to make circular motions on the stomach in a clockwise pattern.
Walking the fingers around the naval in a clockwise pattern.
Holding the baby’s knees and feet together and gently pushing the feet toward the belly.
Stroking from the rib cage down past the belly button with the edge of a finger.

6. Fruit juice

A small amount of pure apple juice can help soften stool.

After a baby reaches 2–4 months of age, they can have a small amount of fruit juice, such as 100-percent prune or apple juice. This juice may help treat constipation.

Experts may recommend starting with about 2–4 ounces of fruit juice. The sugar in the juice is hard to digest. As a result, more liquid enters the intestines, which helps soften and break up the stool.

However, a parent or caregiver should not give fruit juice to a baby for the first time without consulting their pediatrician.

7. Taking a rectal temperature

When a baby is constipated, taking the baby’s rectal temperature with a clean, lubricated thermometer may help them pass stool.

It is important not to use this method very often, as it can make constipation worse. The baby may start not wanting to pass a bowel movement without help, or they may begin to associate having a bowel movement with discomfort, leading them to fuss or cry more during the process.

Anyone who feels as though they often need to use this method to help the baby have a bowel movement should talk to the baby’s doctor.

As infants may go for extended periods without a bowel movement, it can be hard to tell if they are constipated. Signs that indicate constipation in a baby include:

infrequent stools that are not soft in consistency
clay-like stool consistency
hard pellets of stool
long periods of straining or crying while trying to have a bowel movement
streaks of red blood in the stool
lack of appetite
a hard belly

Signs of constipation in babies vary depending on their age and diet. A normal bowel movement before a baby begins eating solid food should be very soft, almost like the consistency of peanut butter or even looser.

Hard baby stool prior to solid food is the most obvious indication of constipation in babies.

At first, breastfed babies may pass stool often since breast milk is easy to digest. However, once a baby is between 3 and 6 weeks old, they may only pass a large, soft stool once a week and sometimes even less.

Formula-fed babies tend to pass stool more frequently than breastfed babies. Most formula-fed babies will have a bowel movement at least once a day or every other day. However, some formula-fed babies may go longer between bowel movements without being constipated.

Once a parent introduces solid food to a baby’s diet, a baby may be more likely to experience constipation. A baby may also be more likely to become constipated if a parent or caregiver introduces cow’s milk (other than formula) to their diet.

Share on PinterestA doctor should assess a baby with ongoing constipation.

It is advisable to call a pediatrician if a baby has not passed a stool after a day or two and there are other signs present, such as:

blood in the stool
the baby seems to be irritable
the baby appears to have abdominal pain
there is no improvement in the baby’s constipation after taking steps to treat it

Treatment typically starts with home remedies. If home remedies do not work, a doctor may examine the baby and, in rare cases, prescribe medications, such as:

laxatives
enemas
suppositories

People should never give these medications to a baby unless a doctor prescribes them.

Constipation can lead to discomfort and irritability in a baby. People can try several at-home methods to help alleviate constipation.

If symptoms do not improve, it is best to speak to the infant’s pediatrician for additional strategies.

Read the article in Spanish.

child is afraid to poop (psychological constipation)

Psychological constipation in a child is a much more common problem than you might think.

Most common at an early age. Such a phenomenon as physiological constipation occurs in almost all people at least once in a lifetime.

And as a result of “ordinary” constipation, psychological constipation may appear, i.e. the child is afraid to poop.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when a child does not poop in a pot, but poops calmly in a diaper, these are different things. There is a separate article about this “The child is afraid of the pot”

Why does psychological constipation appear in children?

I talked about the reasons in detail on the video here: WATCH THE VIDEO

As a result of problems with digestion and constipation, it becomes painful for the child to go to the toilet.

As a result, there is a fear of defecation. The kid is afraid that the next time it will also hurt, it pinches, endures to the last, maybe even crap one's pants.

As a result, this provokes constipation in the child again, and again pain. Vicious circle.

In some children, this fear is not expressed and disappears by itself gradually. For other children (and their families) becomes a real problem for a long time.

Children under the age of 4 are especially susceptible to psychological constipation.

After all, it is much more difficult for a child of 2 or 3 years to explain how the process of digestion occurs, and why exactly it hurts with constipation.

A child is afraid to poop just because he does not understand why it hurts - this is the main cause of psychological constipation in children.

What can a parent do if a child is afraid to poop?

Normalize the child's nutrition.
The baby should have enough liquid, for prevention, eat kiwi, beets, prunes, etc.
The main task is to normalize the physiology, this is the first step.
Very often well-intentioned parents exacerbate the problem with their excessive concern.
The "potty" question becomes more relevant for them than anything and everything.
How it looks from the outside: Mom comes home from work: “Hi, how are you? Did you poop?
Fixation on a problem always makes it worse!
In addition to the fear of pooping, the child develops the fear of upsetting the mother...
Conclusion: do not ask the child if he wants to go to the toilet all the time, but better not ask at all. Even if the child wants to poop, he will still say “no”, because he is afraid to do it.
There is a good way to get rid of this fear: play potty theme in a role-playing game .
Let your child's favorite toy be afraid to poop, and you and your baby will help her.
In the game, children learn everything much better. In general, most likely, the child will really like to play “constipated” with toys, because this topic worries him very much.
He can play the same story ten times - this is normal.
After all, we adults do exactly the same thing, only in our heads. We replay situations that worry us over and over again, trying to find a way out of it.
The child simply cannot do the same without visual reinforcement.
Important calmly respond to the child's mistakes .
Do not scold, do not lament, just change the linen, and that's it.
This is necessary so that the child, in addition to the fear of pain, does not have the fear of being punished, of upsetting the parents.
Explain the physiology of digestion to your child in a language he understands.
It can be a book about body structure for children, it can be a fairy tale or a game.
You can think up and tell a fairy tale on this topic. In the future, remind the child: "Do you remember, like in a fairy tale." Those. do not lecture him, do not itch in the ear, but give an example of a successful solution to the problem. You can find an example of a fairy tale here

Remember that there is nothing terrible and shameful in this problem!

As a practicing child psychologist, I can say that people come to me with a similar problem very often. And most of the time it's resolved fairly quickly.

If you do not have the opportunity to quickly turn to a good child psychologist, then you can use my master classes for parents and professionals.
Click on the picture and go to its description

The main thing is not to hang your nose, follow the recommendations described above, and the child's psychological constipation will be defeated!

How can I get my child to go to the toilet? 13 real tips

If your efforts to get your child to use the toilet hit a dead end, these tips from doctor Caroline Hwang, beyond typical parenting, will help you.

Seven months later, trying to potty train my baby, I was crushed. My son Nate was 3 years and 4 months old and was constantly urinating in his underpants. He just didn't understand what was wrong with having dirty laundry.

The countless books I read didn't offer any viable options. Downtrodden and frustrated, I decided to do what only a journalist mom can do: find answers not only to my own questions, but to those of dozens of parents struggling with a potty crisis.

1. "I want to get rid of my night diapers, but I'm worried it's too soon to take this step."

Check your baby's diaper first in the morning for two consecutive weeks. dry every time? This is a good sign that the child is ready. But play it safe by laying a waterproof oilcloth on the bed.

2. “Using the potty is only part of the problem. Now I'm worried that going to the big toilet will cause my son to urinate past again."

Do not rush the child to the toilet. You'll know he's ready for the porcelain throne when he can stand up on his own and sit confidently even if you remove the baby seat. This usually happens around 3 years of age.

3. "My daughter eats so little that she doesn't even want to go to the toilet."

At this stage, the child's comfort is more important than going to the potty. Check with your pediatrician to determine if dietary changes need to be made. For example, avoid foods that cause constipation (cheese, bananas).

4. "Girls are supposed to be easier to train than boys, but my daughter doesn't."

She is normal. What they say about girls is a myth. Actually gender doesn't matter.

5. "Once I stopped rewarding my toddler with treats for using the potty, he stopped using it."

Consider switching from sweets to stickers by giving your child a sticker every time he successfully sits on the potty. As he learns, you can gradually decrease the rewards so that he only earns a sticker after he goes potty twice, then three times, and so on.

6. “Every morning my daughter pees in her diapers before I have a chance to potty train her.”

Talk about her urine like a vile villain. When you take off your diapers and find that they are wet, say, “Oh no! Urine-piss deceived you! She got into your diapers. You have to outwit the villain and put him in a pot."

7. "My baby wants to wipe his butt but I'm not sure he can."

This is a skill that takes years to learn, but it's never too early to start learning the basics. If he is 18 months old, just let him hold the toilet paper the way you would let a baby hold a spoon while you feed him. When your child learns to take off and put on his pants and wash his hands, ask him to reach out to dry. Then you can help finish the job. He should be able to use the toilet by the time he reaches kindergarten.

8. "Two minutes after she peed, my daughter says she needs to go to the bathroom again."

Ask her to spread her legs wide as she sits on the potty so she can see how the urine comes out and encourage her to urinate until there is nothing left.

9. "My son endures for hours not to go to the potty and put on his diapers."

Help him slowly get used to the potty. He should sit down on the potty about 10 minutes after bedtime or dinner, or whenever he usually leaves the house. At some point, he will feel the urge to go to the toilet, and since he is already sitting there, he will go for it.

10. “My child does not tell me when he wants to go to the toilet!”

It's because you keep asking him if he wants to go to the toilet. Instead of asking all the time, remind him to urinate and poop in the potty.

11. “I've been telling my son for weeks that big kids don't poop in their pants. Now he insists that he is a child."

Reassure him by telling him that even when he grows up, you will be by his side. Then repeat to him that only big boys are allowed to do many of the things he loves to do, like riding a scooter and playing football.