Too Much, Too Fast?

I don't understand the rush with feeding babies non nutritious food when all they need for normal brain development is breast milk or formula. My girls had nothing but breast milk until they were 1 year old then they went to table food.

Our pediatrician said no solids till 6 months - but our son was slow to take to solids - he was almost a year old before he was into it.
Beast milk is very digestible - so infrequent pooping on breast milk is nothing to worry about.
Now that he's getting more fiber and other things he can't digest in the solid food, of course he's pooping more.
If he's not showing any signs of tummy trouble, then I guess baby food this early isn't hurting him any, but keep up with the breast milk at least till he's a yr old.

2-3 times a day is very healthy. Adults also should go at least once or more a day.

My first child also started eating baby food when she was 4 month old since she started teathing and that is what my pediatrician recommend.

However, it is normal with the bowel movements.

B.,

Welcome to mamapedia!

Yes. It's normal. Your pediatrician should have talked with you about it and how to start him on food to ensure there are no allergies. Did your pediatrician NOT talk with you about this before you started him on baby food?

At 4 months? I think it's too early. I hope it's just like rice cereal and oatmeal not anything thicker than applesauce.

Good luck.

Yup they poop a lot more and poop changes color and consistency, when they eat solids.

Mine pooped daily when they were breastfed - but all babies are different (just like all adults are).

I breastfed first, then offered food at the meals to make sure they still got enough breastmilk when we started out. For one of my babies, they said start at 6 months, then it changed to earlier. Just do one new food at a time (we started with cereal) in case he's allergic to anything.

That food is leaving less room in his tummy for the nutritious breast milk he needs to grow and develop. I don't understand why you would do this? What does your pediatrician recommend?
And yes, when more goes in, more comes out.

There's more fiber and stuff they can't digest in the baby food, and so there's more stuff to poop out. The consistency changes too. Assuming the poops are still within the range of normal consistency, I'd say it's normal. I trust that your decision to put him on baby food was made in conjunction with the pediatrician. I did it at that age because my son wasn't gaining weight and my breast milk supply had gone down drastically, so the pedi put him on fruit and veggies plus formula. Please talk to the doctor about your concerns with overfeeding - if he's in a growth spurt or if he was behind a bit, he needs to eat.

What's really extremely odd is that a breast feeding baby was only pooping every 2-3 days. I hope you told your pediatrician about that.

I'm glad the feedings are going well for you - a lot of babies just don't know what to do with the solids and they can't figure out how to work the food to the back of the mouth with their tongues!

I would talk to your pediatrician about it, but it sounds normal to me. Both my kids pooped daily at that age...usually a couple times a day. It sounds like you are doing just fine...it's good you are maintaining his breastfeeding schedule. I see a couple people seem perplexed by why you would add solids to his diet. I did this exact same thing with my son bc the pediatrician recommended it. She thought it might help him to sleep more. He was usually up 6-8 times a night...the worst sleeper EVER. He did not sleep through the night till he was 2 although he slowly got better. At age 1 or 1.5 I remember he would sleep for about 3 hours at a time and I felt like it was a MIRACLE. The woman who ran the mommy-baby classes where we lived said that in the last 30 years he was the worst sleeper she had ever seen. Feeding him the baby food seemed to help a tiny bit.

I started my boys on rice cereal at around that age (once they were able to move the food back and swallow it without gagging their doctor said it was fine to start these soft cereals marking them very runny), and after a couple of weeks we started with a few veggies one at a time to watch for allergies. I do remember their number of bowel movements increasing but if you have any concerns please contact your doctor, he will know best since he knows your babies individual needs :)

Can I just point out that baby food is ONLY flavored goo? It has no nutrition in it? Compare the labels. Baby food is not nutrition. It's like giving your kid a candy bar(Baby food tastes super good but it's not nutrition) when they need to have their dinner (Formula is full of nutrients your baby needs to live) instead.

You are putting goo in your baby and not giving them the food they need, formula is 100% of their nutritional needs.

Babies get fed baby food, they love it because it's flavorful. They want more and more and more because they're starving for nutrition.

The flavored goo makes them fat because it's useless calories and they cry all the time because they're hungry and get fed MORE baby food because they "love" it.

Feed your baby his bottle every single time first. Then when he's older you can add in baby food AFTER he's had his bottle.

So many people say "The bottle doesn't fill them up so I put them on baby food". That's okay but you still need to make sure your baby is getting their full bottle of formula many times per day.

I started giving solids at 4 months too but stuck to organic rice cereal only until they were 6 months old. Pooping is the same as what you are experiencing.

Please talk to your pediatrician and lay out exactly what you're feeding him and when. Did you begin solids at four months on the pediatrician's recommendation, or did you consult the doctor before starting? While some folks do start on maybe a single type of cereal that young, our pediatrician said that formula or breast milk contain everything a baby needs, and that starting solids too soon would make the baby feel fuller and take less of the much more essential breast milk/formula. It really isn't nutritionally necessary to start solids so young, and it can mean the baby gets less of the truly nutritious stuff. I knew people who started that early but who did so because their own mom or grandmother said "that's what we always did"--but it wasn't necessarily what pediatricians recommend today.

And your baby should have been pooping more than every two to three days even just on breastmilk or formula. I would definitely mention to the doctor that pre-solids, your son was pooping pretty infrequently. Going from once every three days to three times a day is a big change caused by all the solids and might be too much, too fast, as you put it.

breastmilk is easily and often completely digested with little to no waste. because its perfect nutrition for baby. adding the baby foods there is waste to be made and thats why babys pooping more. if the poops are not rock solid and hard to pass and are not straight liquid then baby is fine. check things over with your pedi if your are concerned. but what you describe is what my pedi told me to expect when i started solids with my breastfed babies.