Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Poop, Poop, and MORE Poop

Yes... I know there are those of you out there who just logged on, and read the title and thought, "How crude!". You know what? You're right? You know what else? I don't care what you think. You know why??? Because I'm THAT sleep deprived.

I got an e-mail this morning from a friend, encouraging me through the whole "I can't talk about anything but poop because of sleep deprivation" thing by pretty much saying, "Get over yourself, it lasts forever..." just kidding... she was very encouraging, and understood that I can't talk about much else because the lack o' sleep. She understood because she's there right now.

But back to the topic at hand. My son? Is constipated. Now, I know there are some out there laughing at me, because when my exclusively breastfed newborn went more than 12 hours without pooping, I thought he was constipated. Then when my 3 month old son skipped days between poops, I thought he was constipated. All the while, he was not (judging from the viscosity of the poop, it couldn't have been constipation) (and ew! viscosity!!). But now? Yes... he is TRULY constipated. Little turdling balls and all. I have never heard someone grunt so hard to poop... oh wait... okay, there was that one time in the women's bathroom at the mall where the lady next to me sounded as if she was in LABOR with her turd, but whatever... So finally, I broke down and called the doctor (this is after trying apple juice and baby prune juice). I found out my problem was I was giving him diluted baby prune juice, not the real stuff. So y'all? Wish me luck! My son just downed 2 ounces of pure, wonderful prune juice. Talk about immanent danger!

As an aside to the topic of poop, I decided to get out of the house this morning and go back to the new mothers support group I was going to before with Beth. I hadn't gone in a while because they didn't meet in June, and I just forgot about it when they started back up in July. At today's meeting was a pediatrician who spoke of normal child development (mostly about eating solids). And if you wanna know my opinion? She didn't know what the hell she was talking about. I asked if it was okay to give citrus to a child learning to eat solids (trick question where answer should be NO! emphatically NO!). And you know what she said? SUUUUREEEEEE... some babies won't like the taste, but go for it. I was horrified at the horrible information she was dishing out. One mother confessed to putting butter in her babies food ("To add fats to help brain development" her words, not mine) and this doctor went on about how you can add Olive Oil and other oils too... I chirped up about foods that naturally have fats in them, like Avocados, and you can use those.

I think the worst part of the meeting was when this other mother confessed to worrying about her daughters food intake. She measures everything out, because "I want to make sure she burns off all the calories she's taking in!". I just stared... because, Seriously?!?! You worry about that!!?!?! I feed Shepherd until he's full (and trust me, he lets me know by pursing his lips and turning his head. If I try to force it, he cries.... so yeah, I know he's full).

On a more positive note, I saw a few mothers that had been there when I was going and got to talk to them. I felt bad for one mother who's stupid pediatrician was worried about her sons weight gain, and had her supplement (instead of starting solids, which at that point he was 4 months) and her milk supply dried up, and now she has to bottle feed. She was devastated... and I felt so bad for her. But her son was adorable, and Shepherd had so much fun playing with the little boys there.

Anyways... So it was very nice to get out of the house. So now we're back home, and the 2006 Poop Watch has officially begun. Until then, I leave you with some pictures we took on Sunday at the pool. Feel free to ignore the flab and rolls that I have, and lets pretend I'm not in these pictures...






Yes.... that's Shepherd on all fours

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, I wasn't blogging when my boys were babies, or I'm sure there would have been poop posts. Because we certainly had issues! The prune juice did the trick for us--it took about 4 hours after a 3 oz feeding for the stuff to kick in, and boy, did it kick in! Good luck! Don't have his best outfit on him...

Love the pics--esp. the one of you and him in the towel.

Anonymous said...

I found you recently from beth at sothefishsaid. My little boy is 8 days younger than Shepherd.

We just had a constipation watch this weekend. He went from 2:00pm on Friday until 1:00pm on Monday with no poop... lots of grunting and farts but no poop. If something didn't happen yesterday, I was going to call the doctor. I stopped giving my little guy rice cereal until he was regular again because I was afraid the iron in it was contributing to the problem. Other than the cereal, he's exclusively breastfed and has never gone 24 hours without a poop before. And yes, my entire weekend was consumed with the poop watch. Don't feel bad. I'm even getting reasonable sleep right now so I can't blame it on that. :)

Anonymous said...

we've been using pear juice.. and I'm hoping it works again or else we're going the prune juice route too. Make sure we get a poop update!

on another note... citrus to babies? are they crazy? butter? I'll stick to my pureed apples and bananas, sweet potatos and peas for Alex thankyouverymuch WOW!

betsy said...

Pooooooooop. My little E is queen of constipation sometimes....especially when we switched her formula...but apple juice always seems to do the trick!

Erika said...

How did you find out so much about what to feed? I'm impressed (and also wondering if the ped is going to tell us E is ready at his 4-month checkup next week).

Nadine said...

That's some really bad advice! I hope the other women are smarter than that, like you! Giving butter & fat & citrus. That's insane.

Great pictures!

Good luck with the poop :)
(I can't believe I just said that!)

Anonymous said...

Regarding pear, apple, peas, sweet potatoes, bananas...the prevailing medical knowledge is that babies should not be given a cornucopia of different solid foods before ~5 months. Cereal at ~4 months and then progressing slowly to the other foods at 5 months. Feeding such solid foods, particularly sweet fruits, has been definitely linked to type 1 diabetes, other autoimmune disorders, and eating disorders for the next 10 years of their lives. I hate to be harsh, but spare the poor kid.