Well, she didn't poop for 2 days and every half and hour or so, she'll give the "I'm trying to poo" expression for like 5min and we'll try to encourage her by making the "unnnngggg" sound. She'll follow along but still no poop.
I felt really sorry for her coz she'll try and try until she's perspiring all over and still nothing. On a few occasions, she tried until she was so tired, she fell asleep!
Sarah straining her face....
Taking a much needed rest....
You can see from her facial expression that she's really not a happy camper here...
And again....
To help relieve her of her constipation, I tried these:
1) I bought her a small papaya. I saw NTUC selling Dole papaya imported from Philippines. It's very sweet and fragrant but more expensive than the usual ones that we can get from the market. Desperate times calls for desperate measures so I decided I needed to invest a little more. Anyway, she ate up the entire papaya over 3 days but still no poop!
2) I tried to get her to drink more water but couldn't get past more than 20ml of water per day. So I diluted her papaya puree with quite a bit of water to try to get more water into her system. But still no poop!
3) I tried to dilute her porridge a little more and add pureed spinach but she decided she didn't like the taste so she didn't eat a lot of the porridge.
4) I saw Carrefour selling organic prune and oats puree and plum, pear and oats puree. And I bought a bottle of each to try too. (As you can tell, I AM getting desperate!)
5) I bought chinese pear and fed her some too. She ate some but not a lot.
6) I went to the pharmacy to see if there's anything I can give her to help clear her system but the pharmacist said there was none. They used to sell some suppository but it has been discontinued. At such a young age, her advice was to give her lots of water, fruits and veg.
So, after all these attempts, I still didn't see any results. Instead, last night I saw her straining again. I took off her diaper, lifted up her legs and tried to help her. The poor girl tried really hard. I think she was in quite a bit of pain coz she started crying and her anus area was quite red. I could see her poop moving out a little but it was definitely stuck. In the end, Sarah was so tired out and in so much pain, she gave up. Really broke my heart to see my little girl in such discomfort.
Well, then I did what I should have done from the start. I prayed for her that God will help her to move her bowels and ease her discomfort. Thankfully, she was able to sleep well last night. Then I went on the internet to try to look for other remedies and food that I can possibly feed her. Apparently constipation is very common for babies who switch to semi solids and we need to give them lots of water. When babies are constipated, we should avoid BRAT (Banana, Rice, Applesauce and Toast). Apparently these foods will aggravate the situation.
For babies between 4-12 months of age, giving them pear, prunes, plum, apricot, peaches, peas and spinach will help to relieve them of their constipation.
So, this morning, I went to buy a bag of plums. (By now, I got a huge variety of fruits in my fridge!) And I decided we shall skip porridge for today. Instead, I gave her a pear puree for breakfast and dinner and put her back on breastmilk for the rest of the day. And, lots of attempts at giving water of course.
And I'm happy to say that she has finally gotten some poop out of her system today! Not a lot but I think probably all the fruit purees and breastmilk that I'm giving her is finally working at last, so at least there's some relief for her.
Now I've got to go plan carefully what to feed her for the next few days. Probably got to take it slow and find food that she's willing to eat and yet high in fiber.
Btw, this is really quite new and challenging for me coz Caleb was an absolute breeze to feed and he's never had constipation problems. Compared to Sarah, Caleb was like an eating machine then, chomping up everything that I fed him. (Unfortunately, those "good" times have passed and now Caleb takes like 1hr to finish his food... anyway,that's another story).Well, I guess I shouldn't make any comparisons since every child is different. I just got to persevere on and find food that Sarah likes to eat and won't constipate her!
