This is at the top of my mind because last night we had pasta with chorizo, tomato sauce and borlotti beans (well, Babybear didn't have the chorizo, to be fair) and those beans turned up in her nappy pretty much untouched this morning.
Obviously her poo has changed a good bit since the first carrot-y nappies, but the differences are not consistent. Sometimes it's yellow, sometimes darker towards brown, sometimes green…(look I know I'm coming off a bit Gillian McKeith here but you clicked on the link, you knew for sure I'd be talking about jobbies).
Anyway, I suppose I'm saying that after about three weeks of BLW, Babybear appeared to be digesting more of her food, as her poo became less milk-fed and runny so I assumed that in time her poo would, erm, toughen up.
However, she's 9-and-a-half months old now and we can still identify most of the food she's eatenafter it's passed through her digestive system. Things like breads, soft fruits and potatoes disappear for the most part, but grapes seem to pass through untouched, as do mushrooms, beans, lentils and I still see tell-tale orangey flecks of carrot and little bits of broccoli. Thing is, we'll never know what she would have been like if we had been feeding her puree…
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I think new mums do need reassurance on this, I know I did! We discuss poo a lot in our house as well… 2 scatalogically obsessed boys and a labrador who will eat absolutely anything animal, vegetable or mineral (I had to pull out a large fleece nappy liner on a main road yesterday… [shudder] ) Anyway, ds1 (12) suffered with 'toddler diarrheoa' for a couple of years, all his nappies were green and mushy with obvious lumps of food. it passed eventually and he's a robust pre-teen now who will eat pretty much anything (animal or vegetable only). He is however a bit more prone to sickness and diarrheoa generally unlike my other 2 who have cast iron stomachs. DS3 (now 8 1/2 months) has really firm (but not hard) poo (also now formula fed) which happily shakes off his nappy liners (like playdough?!). I do still see banana flecks, pea skins, sweetcorn etc and the odd bit of fruit skin that he swallows but again, I think this lingers for quite a while into childhood (until you stop looking!). Thankfully it does at least float in the bath…
Oh my god… the bath! so true. we had to have a pre-bath shower to rinse off some broccoli last night.
Ah, the delights of poo…actually the first “solids” poo really upset me as I suddenly thought “Oh, my little baby's not just having mummy milk now, she's really growing up!”. But after a few more I kind of got obsessed with wondering what she'd actually eaten and it became kind of fun ;) I really think it looked like sage & onion stuffing for a while at the beginning!
I think it's pretty normal to see lumps of food for a while yet – K is 11 months now and doesn't have any back teeth yet, so of course she will find it hard to chew things and break them up. You'll even get that in adult poo if you don't chew properly (eg nuts and seeds). Right at the beginning I saw lots of big lumps of everything or scatterings of broccoli, but now I don't tend to see much vegetable or fruit in there, and the poo is quite firm (enough to roll off the nappy and into the loo with a little persuasion, as Rachel says). It's also a bit paler than adult poo; I'm not sure if that's diet, immature metabolism (eg less/different blilrubin) or just that BM makes up a big part of her intake. Meat I've never seen, actually, I think what little she gets is broken down pretty well. Carbs like pasta, oats etc, you also don't see much. It tends to be stuff with skins or very fibrous things that don't get pierced, like blueberries or sultanas.
The main thing to remember really is that if you think the poo looks weird, double check what you've been giving baby, just as you would yourself – beetroot will turn it red, blueberries make it black, broccoli is green flecks and so on. If it's unusually runny or stinky, or just plain “wrong”, it's worth checking for teething – there's no direct evidence that teething affects the GI system but I guess excess saliva might make things strange. Same with a cold, you'll see mucus. If you still can't pinpoint it and it continues (one weird poo does not illness make), check with a GP, especially if there are other symptoms.
Hope that's of some use…
it sure is, thanks seawood.
my 2 year old had a strange nappy the other day, then i remembered he had eaten a lot of blue playdough the day before – does that count for blw?
I suppose it would be fine if you had made it yourself …(apart from the blue colouring!) The beetroot thing always makes me laugh, it can turn your wee red as well – someone once told me this, but I have never witnessed it and I often eat beetroot – apparently some people lack a certain enzyme (to deal with beetroot) and it turns their excretions red. My LO eats a lot (for a baby) of meat and I think it turns their poo very dark brown – maybe it's the iron – that turns your poo black doesn't it?
I'm easily distracted from work on a monday morning and have just googled 'beeturia'! Apparently if you or your child does have red wee/poo after eating beetroot or other foods (playdough?!) coloured with it you MAY be iron deficient. It only affects 10-14% of the population but individuals can vary and they think it may be due to 'iron hunger'.
Just had to add that no-one told me raisins can go through untouched… the Munch has fallen in love with raisins after stealing some from her little boyfriend at baby group and I called my mum in hysterics at these 'black lumps that look like dead flies in her nappy'. To which my mother (of 5 kids) just laughed at me
There's no sympathy for an over-reacting panicky first time mum….