Frontier Pediatric Partners is on a mission to reimagine Pediatrics! Through our online video series, we provide practical and useful childcare tips for new parents, grandparents, families, and guardians.
In this episode, we will be discussing what is normal and what is not with your child’s poop! Our expert, Ryan Turner, will provide helpful insights, practical tips, and advice based on his years of experience in the field of childcare.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I’m Dr. Ryan Turner from Frontier Pediatrics. Let’s talk about poop. That is the number one thing that I hear about in the clinic that moms are concerned with. Poop as a newborn also changes within the first few days. Most newborns come out and they poop out that black tarry stuff called meconium. And that’s normal in the process.
As they change and as they get more volume in their diet, that poop changes from that dark, tarry stuff to a dark green, a light green, and then more of a yellow seedy look. The question about poop comes up all the time, especially in the newborn period between zero and two months old. It can change dramatically in that time period, and that’s why moms are always concerned.
Your average child, when they’re born, can poop 8 to 12 times a day, and as they go between zero and two months, that can change to once a day or once every few days, and all of it is still normal. A lot of moms come in saying that their child has constipation, but what we’re really seeing with constipation is what does the consistency look like and not necessarily the frequency. Consistency is much more important. Is your child having hard stools that it’s painful to pass? If they are, that’s constipation. If a child can go a couple of days and still have a nice soft poop and it doesn’t seem to bother them, that’s actually okay for newborns.
When we get concerned about poop, not necessarily how often it’s happening, but the consistency and also color. If you are seeing white, black or red stools, you should come in. Also, if you see mucus or flecks of blood showing up in an infant’s diaper, we want to see them as it could be something that they’re eating.
6 to 12 month old poop changes dramatically for most of our kids. As we introduce solid foods into their diet, you should see changes on the back end. As we get into this age group, the same rules still apply. If a child can have soft bowel movements and it’s not bothering them, they are okay. If the consistency of the bowel movement changes where you’re getting hard nuggets that are painful to push out, they should come in and see us.
Lots of moms are concerned about the consistency, and the ones that we’re looking for is between mustard consistency on the softer end and Play-Doh consistency at the more firm end. We also get a lot of questions about eating. That’s a big topic, especially for our kids zero to two months old. What do I eat? What can I choose? How do I know if my infant’s getting enough food? And when are they ready to eat again?
There’s always a concern between, do I give my kid breast milk or do I give my kid formula? Our goal is to make sure that your baby is happy, healthy, and fed. That is the biggest thing that we are looking for. Some moms don’t have an opportunity to breastfeed and that’s okay. We are looking to help guide you through the steps of formula and advancing the diet as the kid is ready.
How much a kid eats is a difficult question to answer. For our breastfed moms, it’s really hard to determine the volume that is coming out and for our formula fed families, how do I know when to advance it? They’re eating a certain amount, is that enough? This is where the well-child checks come into play a lot more. We can take what you’re currently doing and match it up against the growth chart to see if your baby is receiving enough to grow as they should.
Eating at six months old changes the world completely. You’ve been going from formula or breast milk, now to introducing solid foods. And “how do I go about doing that?” is the biggest question that we have from moms. Eating can be an enjoyable experience or a very anxious time for parents. This video is set up to help guide you as you advance your child’s diet. Most questions circle around, how much do I give them when we first start out, what foods do we start with and then how do I move forward?
You have to think of introducing solid foods as a training period. Your child has never done this before and we have to give them the opportunity to advance their skills. It’s really just training. You give them a spoon, you have them take it from a spoon, move the food from the front to the back and then swallow, is a new concept for them. There are a lot of different options out there on how to feed your baby. What I really look for is starting on a slope. The idea is let’s make it a little bit thicker than breast milk so it goes down easy and they’re not at risk for choking. My goal is to make sure that we’re moving in a direction that parents feel comfortable.
As we’re introducing food there are a lot of different options on where to go. Some people like the cereals. Some people like going into baby food and some people like doing baby-led weaning. Where I usually start is I like going with the vegetables first. They aren’t as sweet. Kids tend to do just a little bit better with them and they don’t tend to refuse foods later on down the road like a lot of families who start with fruits. Fruits are a little bit sweeter and I find that a lot of kids like that and then they won’t go to the vegetables because of that.
As we’re going through this, parents are always wondering, well, how often am I going to feed my baby? Remember that it is a training experience right at the beginning. So we’re talking 1 to 2 times a day and 1 to 2 new foods a week. That gives ample time in between each new food to see if there’s an allergy. I usually give about 3 to 4 days between introductions of food to see if the kid has a reaction.
As we start feeding them, there is a point where we advance it, and that’s all based on child comfort level and your comfort level. We talk about making sure that we’re going through our consistencies. So if it’s just thicker than formula in breast milk, you can use things like the cereals to thicken the baby puree. You get it to a consistency that’s a little bit closer to table foods than the purees.
Between six and nine months, there’s also been questions about “What can my baby eat, and what can’t they (eat)?” as we’re moving past fruits and vegetables. New research has shown that as we move forward with our food, that allergies tend not to be as big a deal. And we introduce some of those high allergen foods a little bit earlier than we used to in the past. Here’s the one thing. If your family has food allergies, make sure you talk with us before introducing some of those high-allergen foods like peanuts, eggs, and other milk products.
Two foods to avoid between 9 and 12 months, as we’re advancing the diet, are straight milk from a cow and honey. Those two we reserve until after a year old.
Lots of parents ask, well, when do I offer water? And water usually doesn’t come until we’re advancing into solid foods. So kids 0 to 6 months old don’t necessarily need any free water. They get all of their volume through breast milk or formula. As we introduce solid foods, we are taking some of that volume out and we need to replace it. As we replace it, it’s not a lot. We’re talking somewhere between 1 to 2 ounces when we first start and 4 to 6 ounces as we’re getting further down the road, 9 to 12 months old.
