Hi,
I am a mother of 6 month old baby girl and want your advice as to how do I help my constipated daughter. Its been a month we started feeding her solids. I started feeding her with Ragi (Finger Millet) malt cooked in water which she loves. I slowly increased its quantity to 8 teaspoons of Ragi malt, however , she always felt hungry again within an hour to hour and half. I have been feeding her Ragi once a day. Initially her bowel movements were regular, but after 15 days of starting Ragi, she has been having severe constipation since 2 weeks. Visited the hospital during the first week of trouble and the pediatrician felt her lower abdomen and said that we should wait for some time and her stools will get back to normal.
She has terrible constipation where she is crying to pass her stools and the stool is very hard. Sometimes she gets tired of forcing her stools out in the middle. I then started giving her 2.5ml of livoluk twice a day since last week and see that she is still having trouble passing her stools. She has been passing hard stools with same amount of difficulty almost every day.
I have changed the following to help my daughter get over this constipation, but nothing seems to help:
1. Tried Cerelac Rice instead of Ragi, but she disliked it! so, have reduced the amount of Ragi malt from 8 tsp to 2 tsp and am mixing 1/2 spoon of cerelac(Rice) to it, as I think Ragi might be more complex food than Rice and rice might be easier to digest.
2. Changed the consistency of the above said solid food to more watery.
3. I am feeding her 20-30 ml of water after her solid feed and twice again the same amount during the rest of the day. I'm little concerned as the pediatrician said I could give her 50-100ml of water, but I am not sure if I should give her this water only after the solid feed or distribute it across the day.
4. Tried giving her apple puree, but again she disliked it.
Nothing seems to help. How long should I continue to give livoluk? Is it safe?
She has been on formula (Nan1) since birth and has been having lot of gas trouble. In the last 15 days we also changed to Stage 2 of Nan. I tried keeping her on just the formula (Nan2) one day and then her poop was normal 2 days later, so I am not sure if I should keep her only on formula and discontinue the solids.
Note: Her poop has been dark coloured ever since I started feeding her Ragi.
Thanks & Regards,
Vinitha