My eight week old baby is having trouble with bowel movements. Is this normal for breast fed babies?

Answer 1

What do you mean by having trouble with bowel movements? If you are asking if it is normal for breastfed babies to go a long time between BMs, then yes it is normal. My daughter often went 8 days between BMs. Breastmilk is the perfect food for a baby and it is almost completely used by the baby. Since there is no waste, there is no solid waste in the diaper. There is absolutely no reason to try to stimulate your baby to have a bowel movement, when its ready it will come.
If your baby looks uncomfortable in any way, or is not having wet diapers, then there is a problem and I would recommend calling your pediatrician or a lactation consultant.

Answer 2

After reading your question I immediately went to my copy of La Leche League's WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING Frequency of bowel movements varies from baby to baby and even from week to week with the same baby. Some babies may have very frequent bowel movements that are a little more than a stain on the diaper. At first, your baby may have a bowel movement with every nursing. This is definitely not diarrhea in the breastfed baby. It is a sign that he is getting plenty of milk. As he gets older, past six weeks or so, he may have only two or three large bowel movements a week, sometimes only one a week: even less often is normal for some babies. As his bowel movements decrease in frequency, they will increase in volume. There is room for considerable variation among perfectly normal breastfed babies.

Answer 3

Well what kind of trouble? Constipated? A breast fed baby's bowel movements should be rather runny, yellow in color and seedy looking. Have you by chance started the baby on cereal? Some moms start giving them cereal in their bottle to help them sleep but it can also constipate them.

Answer 4

Absolutely!! I remember the days well. The only thing that we could do to help sometimes was to do the bicycle with her legs (to move around the intestines), we did a couple times with the thermometer trick (don't do this too often, but it is "taking a rectal temp" which forces the rectum to relax), and we did some prune juice watered down a couple times. It passed pretty much as fast as it came on, probably about two or three weeks (and after that...WOW!)

Answer 5

Breastfed babies only need to have a BM once every few days, because they dont have the waste to dipose of that formula fed babies have.

Answer 6

It can be..My sister's kids dont poop that much because the breastmilk is almost all used by the body of the babe..My babies poop more though..I would say make sure you are drinking enough water..If youre not, it can stop them up.