Comments, Christmas week, and other crap

First of all, I know there's something wrong with accessing comments on all the posts from before I switched domain names last Wednesday, and am trying to figure it out with the Typepad people. The comments are all still there, I just don't know how to get to read them yet, but it will all get straightened out soon.

Second, I'm going to be out of town with very limited internet access next week (December 24-28), so I'm going to set posts to autopost every day that week. But in the spirit of combating the stress of that week, I'm going to put an open post up that stays at the top of the screen, so people can just stop by and comment about whatever they feel, whether they need advice, want to vent, or are just looking for some non-family conversation. If you're feeling bored or sad or irate or like you could use a little community, please stop by and see what's up.

Third, we've got another disgusting topic today. In the spirit of the vomit conversation from a few weeks back and the pee overflow question of Friday, can we talk about poop explosions and diarrhea? One of my co-workers was out a few days last week because his toddler had the stomach flu and they were just drowning in vomit and diarrhea. OK, maybe I could have used a different verb there. They were overwhelmed by keeping up with the substances coming out of both ends of the little lad. That's better.

So we're looking for tips on dealing with diarrhea. While we're here, we might as well talk about regular old poopsplosions that newborns have.

I've pretty much got nothing on diarrhea.

I do know about projectile poop, though, and my biggest tip is to put layers on the child's butt to catch the poop. That's one reason I did cloth diapers at the beginning with each of my kids, and not the fancy pocket diapers either. It seems like the extra layers of prefold + cover helps contain the runny newborn poop so much better than a one-layered disposable can, or a pocket diaper that has the effect of a one-layered diaper. The times there was a big poop in a disposable or pocket diaper, the poop got all over the clothes. In a prefold + cover,it all stayed inside the cover.

I've even heard of people who use disposables buying PUL (laminated fabric, what modern cloth diaper covers are made of) covers and putting them over the disposables to make that extra layer to protect the clothes.

Another thing I know about is the two kinds of normal poop that can mimic diarrhea. One is runny green poop. Green poop happens when the milk runs through the kid's system too fast. Sometimes that will happen with a stomach bug (and can continue to be green even after the other symptoms are gone). The other thing that can make green poop is if there's a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, or the mom has oversupply. The foremilk is the first milk the baby gets, and it's watery to hydrate the child, plus it has lots of lactose. The hindmilk is the milk that comes at the end of a nursing session, and it's full of fat to bulk up the child.

If the mother has oversupply, the child gets mostly foremilk and can never drink enough to get the hindmilk, so they have too much lactose in their systems and their poop can be green. (Other symptoms of oversupply are: falling asleep within a few minutes at the breast then waking up ravenous an hour or so later; putting on weight really rapidly; and making little goat baby noises. If your child is doing this, you may have oversupply.)

The other normal poop that can mimic diarrhea is "drool stool"." When a child is teething, s/he produces drool, and lots of it ends up going down the back of the baby's throat. (If your teething baby has what sounds like a smoker's cough in the mornings, it's from the drool down the back of the throat.) It passes through the stomach and will come out in the poop, as slimy long shards of drool. The drool can also make your baby's poop so acidic you can smell it (eew) and can cause patches on the butt and anus that look almost burned from the acidic drool. (So now your child is in pain in the gums and the butt. Lovely, isn't it?) Use a non-zinc oxide diaper rash barrier cream (plain old Vaseline or Aquaphor will work well) proactively each time you change a diaper to make a coating to prevent the next poop from touching the skin.

I hope you finished your breakfast before you started reading this morning. Please post your poop-related tips for all to enjoy.

Comments

[Kelly]

wow! i just read this after changing my 5-month-old's green runny poop diaper. these usually happen in the morning for us. she DOES fall asleep at the boob shortly after latching on in the night and wakes up hungry a bit later. what can i do about it? (i'm hoping this doesn't involve pumping in the middle of the night....)

[kelly]

oh, and the comments disappeared from some of the older posts well before last week. i noticed this 2-3 weeks ago, if that gives any clues to the problem.

[amy]

re: drool stool. i always knew it before i opened the diaper because it smelled like adult vomit - really acidic and pungent. and i could change that diaper immediately and have it not be soon enough to prevent at least a little burn on the little one's butt. poor kid.

also, my daughter was not much of a drooler, except when she was teething two or more teeth at a time, which is how she got almost all of her teeth. one tooth alone didn't trigger enough drool to cause problems on both ends, so the drool stool was a pretty good indicator that the next week was gonna suck for tot and mom.

[Pam]

The only poop-related tip I have, is that you need to know how to remove all the covers and padding on the carseat. Baby girl had a poopsplosion (love that term!) a couple months ago in the car. First, it smelled like we were driving through a sewage treatment plant all the way home and then when I took her out of the carseat, I realized it was EVERYWHERE! Soaked through the diaper, clothes, and carseat padding. And of course I had to go out later in the day, had no idea how to take that padding off and was faced with the prospect of putting her back into the poop covered carseat, layered with a receiving blanket to prevent secondary poop transfer to a new set of clothes. Parenting is so glamourous. Have you ever seen the mama merit badges? http://www.mamameritbadges.com/ (I'm in no way affiliated with the company), I've just thought since that day that I deserved the diaper badge. I'm sure all the parents here deserve that badge actually.

[JenN]

Kelly re: oversupply. I had this issue with my son and did block nursing during the first month as described on kellymom.com to correct it:
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/fast-letdown.html

That page should help you decide if you really have an oversupply issue, which I understand would be a little unlikely at 5 months old. Is it a recent occurrence? If so, maybe it is teething related?

I used pocket diapers to contain my son's explosive poops - they worked great from months 3-6. However, then the drool stools came along and the pockets were of no use - I just made sure my son was sitting on a think, washable blanket when it seemed like poop was on its way. I wish I would have known that prefolds work better than pockets.

[Parisienne Mais Presque]

The only poop tip I have is my mother-in-law's miracle method of getting poop stains out of clothing: rubbing dry bar soap on the stains just before popping the clothes in the washer.
Works on some of the scariest poop stains. In fact, it works well on most stains, as long as they aren't oil-based.

Of course, I kind of suspect everyone else was already clued into the bar soap trick and I just had to wait to have a baby to find out.

[swissmiss]

Like Kelly, what do you do if you suspect oversupply? Express a bit before nursing? I'm checking out the Kellymom page now.

[rudyinparis]

No advice, except for this: if a newborn goes more than, say, 4 days without pooping, you should prepare yourself for anything. There is a spectacle coming your way.

[Colleen]

Our 2 1/2 year old had a terrible stomach virus last week that ended with three days of relentless, bountiful diarrhea. Our pediatrician finally recommended a (miracle!) product called, Florastor for Kids. I wrote about it on my blog last week. I couldn't believe how quickly it worked to stop the diarrhea and make her (and me!) feel better. Every parent should have this stuff in their cupboard:

http://delaneydiaries.typepad.com/the_delaney_diaries/2007/12/im-sold.html

[Susannah]

I got nothin' on diarrhea, but I love "secondary poop transfer"! That's the bane of my existence now that the lad has become a squirmy wiggling twisty octopus creature on the changing table. I am happy when it's just secondary poop transfer- I've gotten as far as quaternary: butt to heel to wrist (mine) to fingers (his). Oy.

[megbert]

@Swissmiss: I had oversupply with my DS, and my lactation consultant had me nurse on the same side for several nursing sessions in a row before switching to the other side. This allows your baby to get the hindmilk instead of getting just foremilk. It helped a lot.

[Trope]

Gosh, I'm thrilled to have someplace to discuss poop... this is a question I'm always forgetting to ask the pediatrician. My son (6 mo) often has terrible vinegary smelling poop, and he's exclusively breastfed (or was until a few days ago). We don't have the terrible acid burns on the butt, though, and he doesn't do the green poo. We might be experiencing oversupply still (I have the boobs that keep on giving) but he is gaining weight JUST fine.
This post greeted me on the heels of a dramatic two-diaper morning, so once again, Moxie, you are timely!

[hedra]

BTW, I can get to the comments by going through the technorati tags. Out, then click their link to come back, and ta-DA! Comments!

Oversupply - if it's just the morning poop, likely you're just having the morning high supply thing (highest supply is early morning, I think 2 AM to 8 or 9 AM?), and if they've just gone through a growth spurt or nursing fest, your supply may be just a bit higher than needed, and it 'shows' most in the high-supply time of day. Block nursing for those feeds will help. If it isn't 24/7, then it will probably adjust at the next growth spurt or sooner. Pumping before or expressing isn't useful - that just says to the body 'keep making this much!'. Instead, block nursing allows each side to get a little engorged, in sequence, which says 'shut down production a bit'.

Oh, and oversupply can cause FTT type growth if it is severe enough. My SIL had this issue, produced enough for triplets, but had one baby at a time. Babies didn't grow well at ALL to start with, because if the oversupply is too excessive, the milk goes through so fast that there's not even enough time to digest the lactose very well. Other signs of oversupply - frequent scanty thin poop, and plenty of pee. Like, a teaspoon each poop, 8+ times a day, that kind of thing. Or just 'staining' the diaper. And little to no curds (though that can be from different issues, good normal supply poop tends to be fluffy and curdy, like whipped cream or pudding with seeds). I had one kid with normal poop - the first. I had oversupply even with the twins, which, um, there's no solutin to. Already block feeding on BOTH sides, thanks! Just had to wait it out. I've also heard that doing every 15-30 minute feeds (carry baby strapped to chest with full access, everywhere) can also help with oversupply, because they never FILL up on the lactose-overloading foremilk... but I never tried that, myself.

Other poop spotting: Milk/Soy Protien Intolerance and/or allergy poop: Green, but stringy, mucousy, or jelly-like. Often sour smelling (lemony or worse), but not always - mine often had 'stealth poop' for their reaction poop - no smell AT ALL that I could determine. But burns! OWIE burns. High acid.

Toddler diarrhea: After solids start... culturally we seem to go overboard on fruit for them at 1-3 years old, because we want them to eat healthy and make good habits, and we have no idea how much is a normal day's worth of fruit for a toddler (IIRC, it is just a half-cup total, or about 2 oz of juice, but you'd have to check that out separately). At the same time, ability to digest fructose is lowest between 1 and 3 years old (probably before 1, too, but there's less whole fruit consumption at that point). Thin, blowout, liquidy stools, often with acid burning/blistering due to un-reabsorbed stomach acids/bile eating their skin. OWIE. Cutting back on the fruit and especially juice and dried fruits (including fruit leathers, fruit snacks, and fruit sauces like apple sauce) is the main solution. Keep an eye out also for anything but minor consumption of sorbitol, xylitol (in swallowable toothpaste), mannitol (etc., the -ol esters used as sweeteners), because they're not well tolerated during low fructose tolerance periods. Usually nothing particularly 'bad' about this, just unpleasant and uncomfortable (and can delay potty training if it is bad enough). Growth typically is normal, despite the blowouts. Most kids grow out of this phase around 3 or so, and then can tolerate increasing amounts of fruit. Oh, and sorbitol is naturally found in apples, pears, and pit fruits (peach, cherry, nectarine, etc.). Snacks sweetened with fruit concentrates or high fructose corn syrup can also set them off. Bonus (or not!), there's often a behavioral element to overloading with fructose, it mimics ADHD in some kids, and anxiety or depression in others. Whee. On the plus side, fructose clears the body in 3 days, so it's a quick fix and no waiting 5 weeks to see if that was playing a role! :)

Cleanup and protection: I find that the 'creamy' type bum-creams do not protect well enough (that is, 'stick') with diarrhea issues, and the creamy ones also seem to sting if there's an acid burn. We mainly use Desitin (original, fish oil smelly) and Aquaphor (like petroleum jelly) for protection. Hose off the blowout in tub with warm water (or using a washcloth) if the skin is burned, pat dry before applying ointment. THICK layer of ointment.

Undressing: use those shoulder-overlap onesies as an underlayer if there's a risk of blowout poop - you can take them off DOWN (over the diaper) instead of up, to keep the poop out of their hair. Still have to wash half the baby, but that's better than all the baby.

[hedra]

BTW, I can get to the comments by going through the technorati tags. Out, then click their link to come back, and ta-DA! Comments!

Oversupply - if it's just the morning poop, likely you're just having the morning high supply thing (highest supply is early morning, I think 2 AM to 8 or 9 AM?), and if they've just gone through a growth spurt or nursing fest, your supply may be just a bit higher than needed, and it 'shows' most in the high-supply time of day. Block nursing for those feeds will help. If it isn't 24/7, then it will probably adjust at the next growth spurt or sooner. Pumping before or expressing isn't useful - that just says to the body 'keep making this much!'. Instead, block nursing allows each side to get a little engorged, in sequence, which says 'shut down production a bit'.

Oh, and oversupply can cause FTT type growth if it is severe enough. My SIL had this issue, produced enough for triplets, but had one baby at a time. Babies didn't grow well at ALL to start with, because if the oversupply is too excessive, the milk goes through so fast that there's not even enough time to digest the lactose very well. Other signs of oversupply - frequent scanty thin poop, and plenty of pee. Like, a teaspoon each poop, 8+ times a day, that kind of thing. Or just 'staining' the diaper. And little to no curds (though that can be from different issues, good normal supply poop tends to be fluffy and curdy, like whipped cream or pudding with seeds). I had one kid with normal poop - the first. I had oversupply even with the twins, which, um, there's no solutin to. Already block feeding on BOTH sides, thanks! Just had to wait it out. I've also heard that doing every 15-30 minute feeds (carry baby strapped to chest with full access, everywhere) can also help with oversupply, because they never FILL up on the lactose-overloading foremilk... but I never tried that, myself.

Other poop spotting: Milk/Soy Protien Intolerance and/or allergy poop: Green, but stringy, mucousy, or jelly-like. Often sour smelling (lemony or worse), but not always - mine often had 'stealth poop' for their reaction poop - no smell AT ALL that I could determine. But burns! OWIE burns. High acid.

Toddler diarrhea: After solids start... culturally we seem to go overboard on fruit for them at 1-3 years old, because we want them to eat healthy and make good habits, and we have no idea how much is a normal day's worth of fruit for a toddler (IIRC, it is just a half-cup total, or about 2 oz of juice, but you'd have to check that out separately). At the same time, ability to digest fructose is lowest between 1 and 3 years old (probably before 1, too, but there's less whole fruit consumption at that point). Thin, blowout, liquidy stools, often with acid burning/blistering due to un-reabsorbed stomach acids/bile eating their skin. OWIE. Cutting back on the fruit and especially juice and dried fruits (including fruit leathers, fruit snacks, and fruit sauces like apple sauce) is the main solution. Keep an eye out also for anything but minor consumption of sorbitol, xylitol (in swallowable toothpaste), mannitol (etc., the -ol esters used as sweeteners), because they're not well tolerated during low fructose tolerance periods. Usually nothing particularly 'bad' about this, just unpleasant and uncomfortable (and can delay potty training if it is bad enough). Growth typically is normal, despite the blowouts. Most kids grow out of this phase around 3 or so, and then can tolerate increasing amounts of fruit. Oh, and sorbitol is naturally found in apples, pears, and pit fruits (peach, cherry, nectarine, etc.). Snacks sweetened with fruit concentrates or high fructose corn syrup can also set them off. Bonus (or not!), there's often a behavioral element to overloading with fructose, it mimics ADHD in some kids, and anxiety or depression in others. Whee. On the plus side, fructose clears the body in 3 days, so it's a quick fix and no waiting 5 weeks to see if that was playing a role! :)

Cleanup and protection: I find that the 'creamy' type bum-creams do not protect well enough (that is, 'stick') with diarrhea issues, and the creamy ones also seem to sting if there's an acid burn. We mainly use Desitin (original, fish oil smelly) and Aquaphor (like petroleum jelly) for protection. Hose off the blowout in tub with warm water (or using a washcloth) if the skin is burned, pat dry before applying ointment. THICK layer of ointment.

Undressing: use those shoulder-overlap onesies as an underlayer if there's a risk of blowout poop - you can take them off DOWN (over the diaper) instead of up, to keep the poop out of their hair. Still have to wash half the baby, but that's better than all the baby.

[hedra]

BTW, I can get to the comments by going through the technorati tags. Out, then click their link to come back, and ta-DA! Comments!

Oversupply - if it's just the morning poop, likely you're just having the morning high supply thing (highest supply is early morning, I think 2 AM to 8 or 9 AM?), and if they've just gone through a growth spurt or nursing fest, your supply may be just a bit higher than needed, and it 'shows' most in the high-supply time of day. Block nursing for those feeds will help. If it isn't 24/7, then it will probably adjust at the next growth spurt or sooner. Pumping before or expressing isn't useful - that just says to the body 'keep making this much!'. Instead, block nursing allows each side to get a little engorged, in sequence, which says 'shut down production a bit'.

Oh, and oversupply can cause FTT type growth if it is severe enough. My SIL had this issue, produced enough for triplets, but had one baby at a time. Babies didn't grow well at ALL to start with, because if the oversupply is too excessive, the milk goes through so fast that there's not even enough time to digest the lactose very well. Other signs of oversupply - frequent scanty thin poop, and plenty of pee. Like, a teaspoon each poop, 8+ times a day, that kind of thing. Or just 'staining' the diaper. And little to no curds (though that can be from different issues, good normal supply poop tends to be fluffy and curdy, like whipped cream or pudding with seeds). I had one kid with normal poop - the first. I had oversupply even with the twins, which, um, there's no solutin to. Already block feeding on BOTH sides, thanks! Just had to wait it out. I've also heard that doing every 15-30 minute feeds (carry baby strapped to chest with full access, everywhere) can also help with oversupply, because they never FILL up on the lactose-overloading foremilk... but I never tried that, myself.

Other poop spotting: Milk/Soy Protien Intolerance and/or allergy poop: Green, but stringy, mucousy, or jelly-like. Often sour smelling (lemony or worse), but not always - mine often had 'stealth poop' for their reaction poop - no smell AT ALL that I could determine. But burns! OWIE burns. High acid.

Toddler diarrhea: After solids start... culturally we seem to go overboard on fruit for them at 1-3 years old, because we want them to eat healthy and make good habits, and we have no idea how much is a normal day's worth of fruit for a toddler (IIRC, it is just a half-cup total, or about 2 oz of juice, but you'd have to check that out separately). At the same time, ability to digest fructose is lowest between 1 and 3 years old (probably before 1, too, but there's less whole fruit consumption at that point). Thin, blowout, liquidy stools, often with acid burning/blistering due to un-reabsorbed stomach acids/bile eating their skin. OWIE. Cutting back on the fruit and especially juice and dried fruits (including fruit leathers, fruit snacks, and fruit sauces like apple sauce) is the main solution. Keep an eye out also for anything but minor consumption of sorbitol, xylitol (in swallowable toothpaste), mannitol (etc., the -ol esters used as sweeteners), because they're not well tolerated during low fructose tolerance periods. Usually nothing particularly 'bad' about this, just unpleasant and uncomfortable (and can delay potty training if it is bad enough). Growth typically is normal, despite the blowouts. Most kids grow out of this phase around 3 or so, and then can tolerate increasing amounts of fruit. Oh, and sorbitol is naturally found in apples, pears, and pit fruits (peach, cherry, nectarine, etc.). Snacks sweetened with fruit concentrates or high fructose corn syrup can also set them off. Bonus (or not!), there's often a behavioral element to overloading with fructose, it mimics ADHD in some kids, and anxiety or depression in others. Whee. On the plus side, fructose clears the body in 3 days, so it's a quick fix and no waiting 5 weeks to see if that was playing a role! :)

Cleanup and protection: I find that the 'creamy' type bum-creams do not protect well enough (that is, 'stick') with diarrhea issues, and the creamy ones also seem to sting if there's an acid burn. We mainly use Desitin (original, fish oil smelly) and Aquaphor (like petroleum jelly) for protection. Hose off the blowout in tub with warm water (or using a washcloth) if the skin is burned, pat dry before applying ointment. THICK layer of ointment.

Undressing: use those shoulder-overlap onesies as an underlayer if there's a risk of blowout poop - you can take them off DOWN (over the diaper) instead of up, to keep the poop out of their hair. Still have to wash half the baby, but that's better than all the baby.

[hedra]

Go through the Technorati tags to get to the comments for the other posts.

I'll post the rest of my comments later - back to work!

[Jenn]

This is more on the foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. I had that, not so much from oversupply, but from nursing twins and switching which one was on each breast after every feeding. What helped me was to "assign" each one a breast and they always drank from that one (this was around 4 months or so and nursing was finally firmly established and I didn't need to try to keep building supply). Within a few days poop was back to normal color.

Just thought I'd throw that out there for anyone nursing twins since there isn't a whole lot of twin specific info out there.

[Shandra]

I had major oversupply issues and block nursing (nursing on only one side for x hours, then switching, etc.) helped a lot.

I also had an overactive letdown during that time and would express a tiny bit before each nurse. Ah the joys.

[Luann]

My son is a champion pooper. When he goes, he goes big. Usually once a day, so we can keep it contained, but if he skips a day we know we will have a poopsplosion on our hands. A waterproof lap pad was part of my wardrobe for the first six months of his life. My main tip is that you should change them the instant you think you smell something - the longer they sit in it, the worse the mess. Now that he's almost 11 months, we can usually tell by ear what's going on down below. I'm definitely trying Parisienne's soap trick. Sometimes if it's really runny we take him to the tub and hose him down with the handheld shower. He's never had a long bout with diarrhea (i.e. more than 2 diapers worth) thank God.

Hey,mystery solved at last! I had oversupply in the first months, first misdiagnosed as mastitis (problem is, the treatment for one is the EXACT opposite for the other.) Finally I talked to a nurse who figured out that it was too much milk causing my constant plugged ducts and fevers. The boy had green poop throughout this phase and nobody every told us that oversupply could be a cause. This explains a lot. Moxie, I love this place!

Luann

[flea]

Tip for diarrhea in older kids (already potty-trained): it is better to put them in some old pull-ups you have lying about the house - even if the kid protests she is too old for pull-ups - than to have to throw away a futon mattress when the child sleeps through an episode of diarrhea and the parents don't discover it until several hours later. Just sayin'. It was hands-down the nastiest bodily secretion incident of my parenting career so far. There's no shame in pull-ups or even big-kid diapers when you're sick.

[jessica]

Wow, I thought to myself as I began reading this, "I'm fine with poop. It's puke I have issues with." (even cat puke)

But Moxie, I have completely re-thunk my stance based on your well-articulated poop descriptions.

I think this particular post should be distrubuted in high schools as a form of birth control.

And seeing as we're talking about poop and all, my daughter pooped on the floor this weekend. A Toddler Log. Which I'll take any day over the wet runny stuff.

:)

[Julie]

God I wish I had known about this site when Alex was little and I suffered from an undiagnosed oversupply....green poop, very loud crying within a few minutes of nursing......it forced us to switch to pumping/bottle feeding at about month 3. Which was hard for me both physically and emotionally. But things calmed down a bit and he ate better (though at 2, to be honest, it's still a struggle). So in addition to the symptoms Moxie mentioned, you might want to also look for the hysterical fussing that happens within a few minutes of nursing - most of it is frustration with the flow - too fast. And the thing that surprised me the most is that we had about 2 months of very successful nursing before all this hit us. Then Whammo. My milk really kicked in and everything went to hell. Which is a good reminder that your milk supply is constantly changing. I foolishly thought that once it came in, we were pretty much set. Wrong. Aside from the content of the milk changing to meet the baby's needs, your body might make some whackadoo changes without any rhyme or reason. Since everyone is different, my best advice is to invest in a really good lactation consultant to help you through the phase. Endless internet research did much to confuse and frustrate me. A good LC will be able to diagnose you and coach you and make adjustments based on your body and your baby. It's a very emotional time to begin with, and to have feeding problems on top of it is EXTREMELY difficult.

As for diarrhea......above and beyond the BRATY diet.....just fluids fluids fluids. Even small sips of something every hour. We even resorted to taking an old Polyvisol dropper, washing it out and using that to give him some drops of water every 15 minutes or so during the worst of it.

And can I say, out here in CA the stomach flu is running rampant. All 3 of us had it last week...of course one right after the other, and then my mom got it. Luckily it hits fast and hard and then is gone. Hang in there all my puking/pooping friends!

[Moxie]

Parisienne, you can get out oil-based stains (including lipstick) by buying bar soap with olive oil in it. I get mine at the health food store. And I never thought of rubbing regular bar soap on poop stains!

I had major oversupply with my first one, and had the screaming at letdown, baby goat grunting, etc. Block nursing as described on the Kellymom page (we eventually had to go on one side only for four hours) fixed it up in about three days. When I had my second son, I was aware that it could be a problem, so I did modified block nursing on my own starting a few days after my milk came in for a week or so.

[caramama]

For poopslopsions and other messy poops, I highly recommend putting one of those disposible changing sheets on your changing table prior to putting the messy baby down. I know disposible isn't best for the environment, but in our early days they saved my sanity when the poop was everywhere. Also, carry plastic bags and a change of clothes in your diaper bags, as poopslosions don't always happen at home.

Oh, and don't leave your or your partner's laptop near the changing table. Sometimes poopslosions happen when the diaper is open, and that stuff can really shoot.

[liz]

We had more than one up the back and into the hair: often while MM was seated in the high chair!

We'd leave him there for a minute, while we donned a trashbag (raincoat style!) to protect our own clothes and put three or four layers of dry-downs on the changing station. And get plenty of wipes ready. And a clean diaper prepped.

Then, WHOOSH! Out of the high chair! On to the station! Whammo! Off comes all his clothes and dirty diaper! WHISK! Wrap it all in the top layer of dry-down! WIPE! WIPE! WIPE! Off comes the next layer of dry down! POP! On goes the new clean diaper! WHEEE! MM goes into his crib for a moment while...we hose everything down.

My experience was that poopsplosions happened more frequently when the diaper didn't fit right, much like leaks. My theory is the poop gets squeezed up the back like a toothpaste out of a tube. But I could be talking out my butt.

[paola]

I remember when my daughter was really crabby in the first few weeks ( around 6). I just couldn't explain why she was screaming her head of, inconsolably, from around 8 to 11 and seemed to be in pain, not every night, but some. I knew this behaviour was fairly typicle of littles at this age, but it wasn't as bad as this everynight, which made me think it wasn't the usual 'witching hour' problem. I finally read about the foremilk-hindmilk problem and lactose intolerance and the best way to deal with this was nurse even up to 3 times from the same breast and then switch. I thought I'd give it a go, not expecting any change. Change happened overnight. I never had the same freaking out that I had had when I was switching breasts during one feed.

[Sara]

The only suggestion I have for diarrhea is yogurt sems to do the trick. It seems like once my kiddo is keeping food down he still has the lingering diarrhea. Go ol' Yo Baby works every time.

[Jen]

Soaking clothes overnight in baby OxyClean took the stains out of the clothes every time, including during our hellish rotovirus adventure where there was a poopsplosion at least twice an hour.

Oh, and the Bumbo seat does an amzing job of squishing poop up the back of a diaper.

[Amy]

My favorite is the electric green poop that comes from drinking a blue icee. I nearly freaked out at that the first time around!

When my baby had diarrhea from antibiotics, my doc suggested acidophilous (sp?) caplets. Worked like a charm.

[Kathy]

Personally, I suspect that the disposable diaper companies are in cahoots with detergent manufacturers, or clothing makers, or SOMEONE. Because those diapers with the flat backs just turn the baby butt crack into a poop funnel -- straight up into the onesie every time! We switched to pocket diapers, which have some elastic on the back of the waist. No more poop up the back, ever!

Instead, we have the problem that when the pocket diapers get saturated, they seep pee through the leg holes onto baby's clothes, and mine. Pick your poison! (Or use two hemp liners in case of abundant pee.)

[Jen]

I'm having trouble visualizing (listen-izing?) what "baby goat noises" sound link.... does anyone have a more detailed description?

[melissa]

As for the BRAT diet... Am I correct that the "A" is apple? Because... holy cow that does not work here! I don't know if the apple has enough fiber to keep 'the flow' going or what. We had a 5 day bout of horrible diarrhea, and the ped told us French Fries. So we got fries and baked them and lo and behold it worked like a charm. (Plus, DD would actually eat it, since she was up to her eyes in crackers and actually cried when I gave them to her!)

[Jamie]

I though BRAT was Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast. I would have though you were right Melissa, that apples have way too much fiber. In fact, they're my standby toddler constipation cure. I had no idea other people have had success using the BRAT diet to actually treat diarrhea. I thought it was just a suggestion of plain, digestible foods that might actually stay down. I've had my best diarrhea curing success with a south american cure -- rice water. The idea is to boil rice in more water than recommended on the package and then give the starch filled water to your ailing small one. Since the concept behind this is to harness the binding power of starch I think you could probably also use water from potatoes or pasta though I've never tried that. All of these may need some flavouring and, so far, a little jello powder has worked best; plenty of flavour without a lot of fructose and the added binding power of gelatin.

[Jennifer]

Disposables are definitely the worst for poopsplosions: we used them some when DD was wee, and inevitably the poop when straight up the back. The never ever happened with the cloth (prefold + cover) diapers, no matter how much poop she managed to squeeze out.

Oversupply/overactive letdown can definitely happen early on. It was terrible, when around 3 months, DD would latch on, cry and fuss, eat, and then 20 minutes later want to eat again. She never seemed satisfied, even when her little belly was round and taut as a drum. Block nursing solved it, and eventually my boobs calmed the heck down.

[Robin]

Trope! So glad to see someone else has experienced the odd-smelling poops. We actually held off on solids due to the wierdness of the poo smell (and the absolutely heinous toots that preceded for days). The smell rivaled bad adult diarrhea/toots. My sister described it as kind of moth-ball after-smell, and I thought of it as a rotton cabbage smell. G actually saved it for a week to do a 12-pounder on the airplane. People actually moved away from us, and the airline attendant *ran* down the aisle toward us with a garbage bag when we changed it.

Anyway, I wrote Moxie and she recommended acidophilus (sp?) and that helped. Solid foods helped a lot, too--per the doc, the kid had the flora/fauna in there to handle solids, so we should give them something better to do than rot milk. Things have gotten a lot better since we started that.

Now it's just the massively increased smell of solids-based-poops. Sigh.

Does anyone here do EC? and how is it with pooping?

[Salexuel]

Jen - if your kid were making baby goat noises, you would know. Visualize a little goat. Think of the noise it makes (sort of a "eh eh eh"), and you've got it. My twins made this noise a lot when they were first born, but only at night. Since they were "sleeping" in our room, my husband likened it to sleeping in a barnyard.

[Rachel]

Just realizing I probably had some oversupply issues when my 14 m.o. was a wee thing. Huh. Wish I had known then! Thanks for the heads up for the next one.

Anyway, I wanted to post this because it is poop-related and hard to find anything about it on the web. My little one at about 3 or 4 months old had poop filled with little black flecks that looked like the black seed-like things in banana bread. It lasted for several days. After our dairy intolerance issues and my elimination diet and my tendency to watch her poop like a hawk, I was all "What the...??" Wondering if she'd been eating my mascara or something, if only she could've gotten the darned lid off. It was so strange looking. But then, after much searching, I found on some message board a discussion of meconium (sp?) that would emerge much later and bear a strong resemblance to the black stringy flecks in banana bread. Bingo! I called the pediatrician and talked to a nurse who confirmed my ID was correct. (I didn't take her in for a diagnosis from the get-go because A) she had no other symptoms and B) it was flu season. I wasn't about to chance it.) So if you see this, it is apparently harmless, just might cause some alarm!

[Foster]

My best friend has done EC w/ her 6-month old daugther since she was born, and she loves it. She uses cloth diapers and has changed about 6 poop diapers in all that time. Never had a poosplosion b/c of EC. She actually said that poop cloth diapers were so gross that if she were not ECing, she would prolly use disposables! Pesonally, I think it looks like a pain to put the baby on the pot every 1/2 hour to pee, but if I could get my kid to do all poops in a pot (I couldnt care less about pee diapers), I might do it. OH, but, baby does have trouble when she has gas. She thinks that she needs to poop, but doesnt, so she cries to go on the pot, then does nothing, then cries b/c mom takes her off and she still thinks she has to poop b/c of gas. BIG down-side imho. My friend LOVES EC, so there ya go!

Is it true that you do not have to pre-rinse or soak breastmilk poo prefold cloth diapers? I recall hearing that somewhere and wanted to know if it's true. Makes the fact that we are going to use cloth look 1000% more appealing. I know that Moxie doesnt have info on the wet-pail method, but it is the method we plan to use for poop diapers b/c our good friend uses it and actually wrote a manual on how to do it. With wet-pail you only need to run the diapers through one pre-spin and one wash, not two or more!

[Sara]

I am using cloth- I at most I do a pre-rinse and then my 'whitest whites' cycle which includes an extra rinse at the end. I don't always to the pre-rinse. The poo comes right out! My hemp inserts for pocket dipes get stains, but they came right out in the sun. I do a dry pail.
I take mine (6 month old) to the potty sometimes, and I keep meaning to try harder with EC. Perhaps different poo with solid food will be my impetus to change.

[Kathy]

Foster:

Washing machines have come a long way, baby. We don't wet pail, and even with formula and solid foods, all we have to do is a hot rinse cycle and then one normal wash (hot wash, cold rinse). No bleach, half the detergent you'd use for clothing, it's easy-peasy.

They even make these awesome rice paper inserts for when toddlers have the solid turds that you want to flush. To make it easier to knock the poop into the toilet, you just lay the paper inside the diaper, lift and toss the poop, and the wet soaks through to the diaper.

I'm using Fuzzi Bunz, which are made out of synthetic fibers, so maybe cotton's a little different. But I believe it's the same deal -- no need to soak, unless you've got a 20-year-old washing machine.

I remember my kid sister's diapers were always soaking in the toilet, and I just don't think I could manage to do cloth if that were still the routine. yuck.

[Karen]

My "diarrhea tip" is to watch out for diaper rash. We came down with a stomach bug just before Thanksgiving, involving both vomiting and diarrhea and both baby and mom. Because this was just before(!) the Nov. post about vomiting, we were left to our own devices. Thankfully we have cats, hence lots of old towels and enzymatic cleaners to avail ourselves of, and we figured much out for the next time. (Like, don't carry baby with you to the laundry room, as he might not be finished, and food refusal followed by burp, well, is a warning to heed, especially when he's tied to your back.) We've never had any problems with rear rifling, maybe because we use covers with elastic in the back, but for poop cleanup undercover I first use washcloths (which I rinse and wash with the diapers) and then I pop him in the bathroom sink for a short soak. He had not had diaper rash to this point (11 months). But while we were sick he had diarrhea and more concentrated urine (from the double-whammy of his fluid loss and my lowered supply) and so to top off his illness he ended up with red and puffy spots of diaper rash. I upped the sink soaks, applied a teeny bit of aquaphor, and fed him yogurt to keep them in check.

[Amy]

Okay, here's a question for all you poopologists...my LO, who just turned 1, has been teething like crazy for over a month--she's got 6 teeth coming in at once! Last Friday she threw up twice and had really gross poops for three days. Other than a low appetite, she seemed fine (no fever, napped okay, acted normal). The poop wasn't quite diarrhea since she wasn't going any more frequently than normal, but her poops were almost foamy and the color of her 7th gen. diapers (very light tan). And VERY smelly--acidic. And seemed to explode. Even though she wasn't interested in solids, she nursed like crazy. By Sunday night her appetite was back. I attributed both the puke and the poop to teething. Am I missing something? Has anyone experienced poops like this? Thanks!

[colleen]

Anyone ever heard of using rice paper inserts in pockets and prefolds to catch poops?

[Meika]

Ahhhh, poop. Isn't it the greatest?! My daughter was one of those babies who went days and weeks between poops - fifteen days was her record - and then blew out 90%+ of the time until she started getting complementary foods. Lots of stories there - of runny, mustardy poo cascading down my belly because she was sitting on it, of walking around with a naked baby because I'd forgotten a change of clothes... and oh, we were overseas at the time, and did we ever get some stares for that one - look at that crazy foreigner and her naked baby!

The best story, though, happened when my daughter was just shy of six months old and we went to the City Art Museum. It was the last day of the Dali exhibit and the place was *packed* - you could hardly get close enough to the artwork to actually see it. Know what's coming? Yeah. She pooped on the floor. Squirted right out the sides and, SPLAT, on the floor. Ahhh, memories...

We EC now. How much laundry would I have saved by knowing about that earlier??? :-)

[Julie]

Amy......yes. Probably just teething. I don't think you've missed anything. Alex did the same thing at about 1.....cut all four of his first molars at the same time. The weird thing about teething is that (in my non-scientific observations) the teeth seem to go through phases of moving and not moving. He's been cutting his 2y/o molars for what feels like forever. The tops have broken through.....so they're done. But the bottoms are not yet in, and I can tell sometimes that they're bothering him. I keep looking for them to break through, they don't, then he's fine again for a few days before going back to being bothered.

I have a potty training question if anyone is still out there commenting: Alex is able to go pee on the potty when we sit him down and say "go pee". He'll do this for about 4 days in a row right before bath or bed....and then not want to do it anymore. I kind of go with his flow....mostly b/c I'm not that eager to enter into that "do you have to pee before we go?" debate.....but also b/c I'm lazy. Should I start getting serious about it with him over my 2 week winter break?

[Kathy]

Colleen asked: "Anyone ever heard of using rice paper inserts in pockets and prefolds to catch poops?"

Yep. In fact, if you scroll up to my earlier comment, I talked about them.

Here's the online store of a mom I know, although I'm sure you can find them elsewhere online:

www.cozybabyboutique.com

Click on "diaper accessories," and then "inserts and doublers." You'll find a few options for flushable liners.

:-)

[hedra]

Applesauce may be VERY BAD for kids under 3, I agree with substituting potatoes if possible. Just not enough fructose absorption, and adding the fructose plus the naturally occuring sorbitol, and you get toddler diarrhea even without an infection!

Speaking of toddler diarrhea... too much fructose (plus natural -ol esters like xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, etc.) = diarrhea from about age 1 to about age 3 (earlier if you do more fruit earlier, but most people don't). That means go easy on the apples, pears, peaches, and other pit fruits, plus dried fruits, fruit leathers and snacks (which often have applesauce in them), high fructose corn syrup (for some kids, others aren't bothered by it, they don't yet know why), and things sweetened with fruit concentrates (often apple and pear), and DEFINITELY limit the juice. A serving of juice at this age is technically just 2 oz! A full day is just 1 1/2 cups of fruit/juice, and that can even be too much for the low fructose absorption period.

Also, oversupply when severe can lead to LOW growth as well as high growth. If things go through so fast they can't even digest the lactose efficiently, you get FTT with too much milk. (SIL again here - two kids with FTT with severe oversupply - I'm talking 3x the amount needed, not 1.5x.. she shoulda had triplets.) Frequent scanty poops (smears to a teaspoon or two, no curds, 'vanish into diaper' poop, etc., often 8+x/day), short grunty cries (the goat-like thing), frequent almost panicky urgent feeding demands, fussing at breast, etc.

My kids learned to either sip and let go (one would sip and turn her face away, sip and look away again - I figured out that she didn't like getting sprayed, and that was why she looked away), or let the excess dribble, or other methods to handle the overactive letdown side, and I used block feeds (except with the twins, when ... well, hard to let one side get engorged when one side per child! I did switch every 24 hours to try to balance things out, but ...).

Burned bottoms: Acidic poop = blistering burns or skin eaten by acids, even if caught quickly (and my kids would stealth poop or hide and avoid me if it was a burny poop, ARGH). Creamy 'nice smelling' ointments tended to burn/sting, and not protect enough. I went with original Desitin or Aquaphor - thick, gooey, protective, and don't sting. Bonus on the Desitin, even with the stealth poop (no odor), you get a strong fish oil stink if they pee or poop in it, so you can get a heads-up on the rapid re-change thing.

Oh, and supply tends to increase with each child. Same is true for cows and pigs, btw. The increments can be small or large, but they do happen. So if you've had oversupply before, you are likely to have it again. And if you didn't have it before, you're still at risk of having it with the next child or the one after (etc.) if you keep going. I used to think this was a safety valve for if you were still nursing a toddler, but ... well, it happens in cows and pigs, too. And they don't nurse older offspring while nursing new offspring. So it's more fundamental than that. Handy, though, if you're nursing two.

[hedra]

Applesauce may be VERY BAD for kids under 3, I agree with substituting potatoes if possible. Just not enough fructose absorption, and adding the fructose plus the naturally occuring sorbitol, and you get toddler diarrhea even without an infection!

Speaking of toddler diarrhea... too much fructose (plus natural -ol esters like xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, etc.) = diarrhea from about age 1 to about age 3 (earlier if you do more fruit earlier, but most people don't). That means go easy on the apples, pears, peaches, and other pit fruits, plus dried fruits, fruit leathers and snacks (which often have applesauce in them), high fructose corn syrup (for some kids, others aren't bothered by it, they don't yet know why), and things sweetened with fruit concentrates (often apple and pear), and DEFINITELY limit the juice. A serving of juice at this age is technically just 2 oz! A full day is just 1 1/2 cups of fruit/juice, and that can even be too much for the low fructose absorption period.

Also, oversupply when severe can lead to LOW growth as well as high growth. If things go through so fast they can't even digest the lactose efficiently, you get FTT with too much milk. (SIL again here - two kids with FTT with severe oversupply - I'm talking 3x the amount needed, not 1.5x.. she shoulda had triplets.) Frequent scanty poops (smears to a teaspoon or two, no curds, 'vanish into diaper' poop, etc., often 8+x/day), short grunty cries (the goat-like thing), frequent almost panicky urgent feeding demands, fussing at breast, etc.

[hedra]

(cont... yeah, too long again!)

My kids learned to either sip and let go (one would sip and turn her face away, sip and look away again - I figured out that she didn't like getting sprayed, and that was why she looked away), or let the excess dribble, or other methods to handle the overactive letdown side, and I used block feeds (except with the twins, when ... well, hard to let one side get engorged when one side per child! I did switch every 24 hours to try to balance things out, but ...).

Burned bottoms: Acidic poop = blistering burns or skin eaten by acids, even if caught quickly (and my kids would stealth poop or hide and avoid me if it was a burny poop, ARGH). Creamy 'nice smelling' ointments tended to burn/sting, and not protect enough. I went with original Desitin or Aquaphor - thick, gooey, protective, and don't sting. Bonus on the Desitin, even with the stealth poop (no odor), you get a strong fish oil stink if they pee or poop in it, so you can get a heads-up on the rapid re-change thing.

Oh, and supply tends to increase with each child. Same is true for cows and pigs, btw. The increments can be small or large, but they do happen. So if you've had oversupply before, you are likely to have it again. And if you didn't have it before, you're still at risk of having it with the next child or the one after (etc.) if you keep going. I used to think this was a safety valve for if you were still nursing a toddler, but ... well, it happens in cows and pigs, too. And they don't nurse older offspring while nursing new offspring. So it's more fundamental than that. Handy, though, if you're nursing two.

[hedra]

Arg! clarifying: serving per day is 1.5 cups of FRUIT, or max of 6 oz of juice, and that's not in combination (don't want it to look like 1.5 cups of juice is normal - that's blowout-city!). For each 1/2 cup of fruit, 2 oz of juice. If they drink a juice box, they're already over the full fruit intake for the day. And they often can't even cope with the 1.5 cup (3 servings) value at 1-3 years old, either - tweak the values to see where they digest well.

Best bet fruits (and juice) for avoiding toddler diarrhea: clementines (not other oranges), green grapes, japanese persimmons (not american - the flat square ones are fine, the long pointy ones are not), slightly under-ripe bananas, frozen berries (commercial freezing breaks down the fructose), canned peaches in syrup (not juice), mandarin oranges in syrup (not juice), lemon/lime juice, grapefruit, and froz concentrated orange juice(reconstituted).