How many bowel movements a 6 week old should have?
My daughter is 6 weeks old, and she is being fed breast milk (I pump) and similac advanced formula. Each feeding she has 3 ounces breast milk and 1-2 ounces of formula. She is only have 2 maybe 3 bowel movements every 24-30 hours. Is this normal? How much does your 6 week old poop!? I just want to make sure nothing is wrong. She also has 6-9 wet diapers a day, so there is no problem there.
Tagged with: bowel movements • breast milk • wet diapers
Filed under: Bowel Cleanse
During the first six weeks, newborns generally have at least one bowel movement per day, and may have as many as 15. Stool frequency in breastfed babies can vary even more – from as many as 15 per day to just one bowel movement every few days, after a few weeks. The passing of only one stool every few days does not necessarily indicate constipation. Neither does grunting, pushing, or turning red in the face while passing a stool. This is normal as long as stools are soft, do not contain blood, and do not appear to be causing pain.
That sounds about right. They seem to start slowing down around a month old. Before that, was she pooping several times a day?
Don’t worry, there’s a pretty wide range of "normal". Since you are supplementing with formula, she may go down to just pooping once per day. If she were completely breastfed, she might have gone down to just pooping every 5 days.
Sounds fine to me.
She sounds fine to me. One of my twins (at about that age) went for about two and a half days with out a bowel movement. I actually called the doctor. They assured me it was normal, especially with a child who gets any amount of breast milk because that absorbs better. They said to pay attention and if his stomach seems to be tight or if he seems uncomfortable or if having a bowel movement seems to be difficult for him than I should call back.
http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/pediatricks/poop.asp
There is something important to point out regarding frequency of stooling in an exclusively breastfed baby. Many parents are concerned when after the early weeks where they may have been seeing a little bowel movement in almost every diaper, they suddenly begin to see days go by without any. This is perfectly normal. There is a great range of frequency of bowel movements with exclusively breastfed infants, ranging from a couple of times a day to several days. There are completely healthy nursing babies that have a bowel movement once a week, once every ten days, or even a few that go a bit longer. If your baby is healthy, developing well, nursing well and the consistency of the bowel movement when it does make its appearance is soft or loose, then do not be concerned. It is not constipation if it arrives in soft form. Constipation would arrive in pellets and hard formed pieces.