Backed Up

Last Thursday, we experienced Cecelia's first problem with plumbing.  So, if you don't want to know about that kind of thing, don't continue to read this post.  She was having trouble passing her poo and was screaming just to make sure I knew that she was NOT. HAPPY.  But as the saying goes when you gotta go, you gotta go, and there's only one way out.  So, we tried to persist, and then I tried to help, and boy was that a bad idea!  I had my first real new mom scare where I was certain we'd need to go to an ER to get this problem addressed.  I called the doctor and waited to hear back, and waited, and waited.  Did I mention the screaming?  Well, actually, in between pushing bouts, she was fine and dandy and happy, but when it hurt...it hurt.  So, we were advised to cut certain things out for the time being and increase others.  We had given her prune/apple infant juice, but I had cut it with water.  The doctor indicated that it should not be cut with water, b/c the sugar is what helps to get things going.  Rice cereal, most babies first food, is probably what bound her up.  We introduced this first, and then when she was up to fruits, I cut it out.  Then I decided she could continue to have the cereal with fruit until it was used up.  Because, if you don't know this about me, I hate to waste things.  Apples, another part of the BRAT (no, I'm not calling my daughter names) diet was something else I decided should be cut out and potatoes.  I tried to introduce potatoes on Wednesday and she was just not into that...mashed potatoes, yum, but I digress.  Now, she barely touched those potatoes, but I couldn't be sure what had caused this.  So, in my drastic mind frame, I cut out all solids, deciding to soften those insides up and then reintroduce things one at a time again, but not really waiting in between to re-accustom her body and give it time to pass whatever was blocking her up.  Breastmilk has a natural laxative effect on the body, so exclusively breastfed babies are never constipated...introduce solid food and it can be a rude awakening indeed.  So, on the other end of things...no pun intended, she is in the clear and things are flowing again as they should.  The next food on her menu would have been bananas but we waited a few days to introduce that because it's the B in the BRAT diet.  Oh, the BRAT diet was something I first heard of watching John and Kate + 8.  B=Bananas, R=Rice, A=Apples, and T=Toast.  These are the foods you should feed a baby/child who is experiencing loose stool, so when the opposite is true, as it was for us, it's a good idea to do the opposite, i.e. cut those foods out, and try others specifically p foods - prunes, pears, peaches, etc.  But not potatoes.  It was also suggested that I drink prune juice since it passes through to baby through the milk.  Yuck...but I did it...for her.  Anyway, back to food.  So, since pears were good and she'd already had those, she drank juice and ate pears for the first two days or so, then we brought carrots back, then a new food: butternut squash (which she loved), apples (as I read that apple juice/sauce was good...differing info, but either way, she'd have to have it again some time) and I got whole wheat oatmeal cereal instead of rice cereal.  This morning she had bananas and it did NOT have a binding effect, so here's to poo!