Poopy Pebbly day!

Disclaimer: The author did not receive any compensation or cash payment in writing this post; the author does not mean to persuade readers and has no intention to promote either. This is an honest opinion. 

Good morning everyone! How was your night? Ours was good! I even wonder what this day would be like after seeing a bright and a smiling face...our very own pretty little angel! Could there be any sweeter than waking up with this kind of morning? A very encouraging start! good vibes!!!.  
She is such a sweetie baby making me one proud mama…

hmmm...What a trickery trick! I was just trying to make myself believe that our day went fine because in reality it did not. The culprit? My baby is constipated. She had a hard time passing a very hard, dry and somewhat pebbly stool. So instead of seeing her smile, I saw a child crying in pain. My baby is straining to pass stool and it seems to be hurting her!  Really! Just imagine her drawing her legs up, grunt, groan as her face turned red while trying to poop! the worst part of it, the presence of blood. Indeed very alarming! My poor baby!

So instead of lotion, massage, hair dress, and our plan to make month of February a red day everyday is no longer possible...we were busy on theses things: laxative! Diapers! wipes! Diapers! wipes! diapers! I changed her every single time she pooped... and she passed pebbly stool a couple of times. 

Possible reasons:

• I added solid food to her diet. I never thought transition period could this be heartbreaking! despite the fact that I introduce instant cereal slowly—first meal was a little bit of watery(likened to a milk formula), and I tried to make it more pasty with each meal. Besides the fact that we also stepped up to Bonamil Milk Supplement from Bonna Infant formula a week earlier than prescribed by the manufacturer.  Bonamil should not be introduce before six months but I do not think a week earlier will really matter.  
• Ivy isn’t getting enough water. I only give her water every time I am giving her vitamins and food supplement--and hey! just drops of water everyday using a medicine dropper. Absolutely not enough. Thus her system might, in any case, responded by absorbing more fluid from her milk and cereals resulting to a hard and dry bowel that are difficult to pass.
• Am I guilty of not being accurate when preparing her milk formula? I usually pour 2 scoops of formula powder to  4 oz water. Instruction on how to prepare single feed indicate to mix 1 scoop  of powder to 60 mL of water and I guess I do follow instructions. Recommended feeds in 24 hours is 4-5 feeds with 180 mL each, In Ivy’s case (since I feed her as much as wanted to be fed) she consumes an average of 8 bottles in 24 hours with 4oz each feed. If I will be charge of over filling the scoop that makes her milk a concentrated solution then perhaps I might feel guilty because I noticed it is indeed a little bit concentrated way before but I still entertained the thought that maybe its normal to a bonamil. 

For remedies, I did:

• I started to give Ivy water. Yesterday she consumed about 4oz and consumed the same amount today.
• I temporarily stopped feeding her solid food. Maybe just for today.
• I Added Caramelo to water Caramelo is said to be some form of sugar from sugar cane. Accordingly, this works by drawing additional fluid into baby’s bowel to soften the stool. I don’t really give her this formula mainly because of the reasons: First,I don’t want her to become accustomed to drinking sweetened water and Second, I am not really sure how it was processed to become cubed caramelo sugar. Kind of a risk to health I supposed.

Caramelo

• I gave her a massage—I tried to lift her knees to her chest, I tried to move her legs backwards and forwards, and I also gave her a tummy massage which I usually do after bath.
• This morning I gave her  stimulant laxative Dulcolax which contain the active ingredient bisacodyl. It is said that it works by stimulating the nerve endings in the wall of the large intestine and rectum that causes its muscles to contract more often and with increased force, thus it can empty the bowel. It is actually like of a hardened petroleum jelly so I was able to insert it to her rectum more easily, at the very least, lessened mental torture of hurting my own baby.

Her system may be emptied by now and free of pebbly stools but I’m still trying to monitor her condition after she poop a slimy and bloody streak :(
The good part? Baby appears well, she is well and is active... she played, she smiled...she is calm. Dad said there is nothing really to worry about, every child goes through this stage and its normal, Ivy can get through it because she is TOUGH!

time to go to sleep :) Good night everyone!