Help quick please! A friend of mines daughter is breastfeeding and the baby hasn;t taken a shit in a couple of days evidently and the doctor told her to give the baby formula to get her to shit! wtf?!?! I know y'all had some great links but I'll be damned if I can find even one right now.
How old is the baby? a newborn breastfeed baby should have 4 poops a day. But once they get older (sorry not sure how old, maggie can tell you) breastfeed babys can go 5 days without pooping and it is perfectly normal.
she's only about a week old...yeah, I remember that mine would crap just a little bit for weeks sometimes. I just can't believe the Dr. said feed her formula just like that!
I thought too, that formula fed babies poo more often, but that it is quite normal for breastfed babies to poo only once in a few days. So there is no reason to make a baby poo by feeding formula, if the not-pooing-that-often is normal for breastfedbabies. Especially because the breast is sooo much healthier! But there are some experts here....
Breastfed babies actually stool more frequently. What your freind needs is a Consultation with a PRIVATE Lactation Consultant. (The ones at the hosptial are just TOO busy most of the time to give you more than a few minutes, while a private, self employed LC can give you hours, if that is what you need.) www.iblce.org has lists of LCs in each state. www.breastfeeding.com also does she clicks on her state and finds and LC in her area www.lalecheleague.org has volunteers who can give her phone advice and occasionally can make a home visit, a LLL leader can deal with less serious lactation situations, but could probably give your friend help with this situation. Usually infrequent stooling is from not feeding the baby often enough, putting the baby on a "schedule" and/or letting the baby sleep too long between feedings. An average newborn should be feeding 10 or more times in a 24 hour period, should be going NO LONGER than 3 hours between feedings, and often much less than than (meaning feeding every 20 minutues at certain times of day is perfectly nornmal) and stooling 3 of more times a day and having at least 5 wet diapers. She needs to talk to someone right away. Forumla won't neccesarily solve the problem, it could be quite simple or really complicated. She needs to talk to someone One on One. Kaster, after the first month or so, some breastfed babies go days without stooling (they use more of the milk, so there is less waste also the baby's intestines grow) but a newborn should be stooling at least 3 times a day, for the first 4 weeks at least.
I want to thank you all for yout help! I sent them the link to this thread and I know it will be helpful. She did give the baby a couple of bottles which she didn;t care for much. Her milk seems to be coming in better now too. Just not much help or support for breastfeeding and I was afraid her efforts would be sabotaged if she had to keep giving the baby a bottle without the real problem ever getting addressed and especially since its her first child. Ty all for such quick answers!! Hey lenemarina, lol, can we switch places on the map for awhile? My sweety lives in Denver (for now, hehe)
