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Baby Poop After Starting Solids And When To Worry About Your Baby

Baby Poop After Starting Solids

When your baby starts eating solid foods fairly regularly, you will notice some changes to your baby’s poop. 

Baby’s bowel movements are important as much as we want to avoid discussing them.

What gets left behind in your baby’s diaper is how we know that your baby’s diet is healthy, that your baby’s digestive system is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and that your baby isn’t constipated.

Baby food and solid foods often change a baby’s poop—everything from the color to the consistency and even the smell.

In this article, we’ll discuss baby poop after starting solids. Still, we’ll also talk about constipation, food allergies, and how eating solid food, coupled with breast milk or formula, can further change the consistency of your child’s bowel movements.

When do babies start solids?

Some parents partake in a practice known as baby-led weaning, and these families often start to introduce solids at around four months of age.

However, at this point, it’s more of a simple introduction than anything that substantially affects your baby’s diet.

Starting solid foods is done most often at around six months. At this age, your breastfed baby should continue to consume breast milk as their main source of nutrition. And formula-fed babies should continue to consume infant formula as their primary food source until twelve months.

Understanding baby poop before starting solids

There are many types of poop that we become accustomed to as adults when we change our baby’s diaper. We start to understand what is “normal” for our baby.

We may have considered poop observation when it comes to our little ones to be gross before we were parents. Still, it is quickly understood by most moms and dads that understanding and paying attention to the baby’s poop answers many questions about the baby’s health.

Before they ever start solids, baby poop is something we get used to dealing with.

For new parents or caregivers, the following briefly describes what is considered “normal” for baby poop before starting solid foods.

1. Newborn poop

Newborn poop is called meconium. It’s the first type of poop you will encounter, and it is no pleasant experience.

Meconium is black and sticky and difficult to clean. Black poops are often not a sign of good health but don’t worry about your baby’s poop this time. It’s supposed to look this way.

A day or two after delivery, the poop will change to a yellow poop that is grainy or seedy in consistency. It will resemble the color of mustard.

2. Breastfed baby poop

Breast milk is full of nutrients and healthy fats that help to build your baby’s immune system, body, development, and more. However, breastfed babies have their own variety of poop that store-bought baby food, or infant formula, just does not produce.

Breastfed babies usually have yellow poop, and they poop after each feeding. So you’ll be changing lots of diapers if breast milk is how you feed your baby.

The good news is that your baby’s poop is usually soft and smooth and isn’t very difficult to clean. Breastfed poop requires a diaper change more often, but this is typically a bowel movement that is quick to clean and fairly predictable.

3. Formula-fed poop

Baby’s poop for formula-fed babies tends to vary a bit due to the different brands and blends available. 

Food allergies cause some parents to seek out specific blends of baby formula that are easier on the tummy, cow’s milk free, and so forth.

If you suspect your infant may need a specific formula blend, consult your baby’s doctor to discuss the best brand or blend. You can often get samples so you don’t have to purchase large cans of baby formula while trying to find the right type.’

Baby poop color for formula-fed little ones can be yellow, brown, or even green. Formula-fed poop tends to occur less frequently than breastfed baby poop.

Regardless of whether you feed breast milk or formula, the liquid diet babies are on for at least the first six months should have poop that is always consistently soft. Most babies with hard poop or balled poop are well on their way to either dehydration or constipation.

Baby Poop After Starting Solids

Baby poop after starting solids

Baby’s poop after starting solids can vary in color, consistency, smell, and frequency, depending upon how often they eat solid food and what sorts of solid food they eat.

The key is ensuring your child’s poop remains soft after starting solids. Many parents think it’s okay if a baby begins to pass hard poops or struggles to pass a bowel movement because new foods are harder on little digestive systems.

However, if your baby’s head is turning red due to straining or the poop is hard, then there is a good chance they are constipated.

Managing constipation means limiting certain foods, ensuring that your baby has enough fluids to stay hydrated and that the foods you’re feeding your baby aren’t upsetting or getting bound up in the digestive tract.

Baby poop guide

It may seem strange to your friends, family members, or older children that you must pay so much attention to your little one’s poop, but it’s important, especially when your child starts eating solid foods.

Having a quick baby poop guide is a great way to have important information at your disposal.

The following lists the different colors of poop, what they may mean for your child, and if you should be worried:

Worry-free poop colors

The following are the various colors of infant poop that can come about due to the food they have been eating and the amniotic fluid they have consumed while your baby is still in your belly!

Black 

This color of poop is the first poop that your child will pass. A newborn should pass meconium within the first 24 hours of life. It is tarry, sticky, and difficult to clean, but it means that all is well.

Yellow

Within the first couple of days, younger children pass dark or even bright yellow in color and seedy stool. It should resemble fancy mustard. 

This is healthy and simply means the gut bacteria and digestive system are doing their job.

Breastfed baby poop will typically stay yellow until solid foods are introduced.

Orange or Brown

Babies on formula often have poop in these colors or a combination of these two colors. When introducing solids, these are expected colors as well.

Green

This is a typical color for babies who consume formula. It is also common when the baby tries a new food. 

There’s nothing to worry about as long as they are not watery, loose stools, or hard and super solid.

Baby Poop After Starting Solids

When it’s time to call your baby’s doctor

The following are the colors of poop that you need to pay attention to and that your baby’s pediatrician needs to know about. 

If you see your baby’s poop in the following colors, you can save the diaper after the diaper change or snap a photo to show the doctor so that proper steps can be taken to ensure your baby’s health.

Black

While it’s normal for a newborn baby to have black poop for their first poop, an older baby or toddler with regular milk feeds or eating solid foods must not have black stools.

This can indicate bleeding in the upper intestines, which must be addressed immediately.

White

White poop can mean babies have a food allergy, some anal fissures, or issues that have caused bleeding. It can also mean that your baby’s liver is not functioning properly.

Red

Red poop can mean that constipation has occurred and that food allergies exist. It often means that bleeding has occurred somewhere in the process and should be addressed immediately.

It should also be noted that once your little one starts drinking fruit juice, the color of the poop can change to reflect the dyes in the juice or the fruit that the juice came from. This means it can take on a red hue sometimes.

Baby constipated after starting solids

Constipation happens to everyone at some point, but it can be serious for a baby. It’s uncomfortable and can cause impaction and a backup of undigested food in the intestines.

Some finger foods are difficult to process. For example, peanut-containing products take longer to break down. If your baby has difficulty passing stools or is straining, you are well on your way to constipation.

You should always keep track of what foods your baby has been eating so that you can watch for and note any food allergies that may occur, as well as what foods you have fed that have caused issues with constipation.

Iron-rich foods, rice cereal, and other starchy foods can cause constipation in babies and even older children.

Understanding baby poop

Once you become a parent, all bets are off, and you become a bona fide poop expert. It doesn’t matter how gross you may have found the act of defecation before parenthood; you will undoubtedly find yourself studying what gets left in the diapers like it’s a work of art whose meaning needs to be discerned.

Hopefully, this article has given you enough information to understand and interpret most variations of your baby’s poop, and now you know when to be concerned and what is expected.

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