One way to cure constipation in babies

Constipation. It's a terrible thing. Especially when it's your baby who's suffering.

My son was three weeks old when it started. I could tell he was in pain. He was screaming and screaming and his contorted face turned an alarming shade of purple. I tried everything I could think of to calm him down, but as a new mum I admit I was flying blind. Then I checked his nappy and discovered a small rock hard lump of poo. Now that can't be good. Especially considering that up until this point he'd been filling his nappy with unmentionably disgusting offerings which looked not unlike peanut butter. So I knew the small hard rock was just wrong!

I then did what any new mum would do - began the long hard search for useful information which would help me fix the problem. The key word here is 'useful'. If you are a parent you will be aware of the staggering amount of 'how to' advice that's floating around out there when it comes to babies. I have never come across a topic with such a swamp of well meaning but often useless information that you have to trawl through to find some answers. There are books galore, websites aplenty and government sponsored brochures which are handed out by community nurses like there's no tomorrow. I admit that yes, some of them DO contain ideas that help and there's no doubt that I've learnt things. But I've really had to work hard to sift and sort and extract the useful ideas from the crapola.

So to all of you out there who are new to this parenthood gig - be patient, try different things, don't become overwhelmed by it all and you will eventually figure it out. Here is a tip which may help you sort out the constipation issue quickly, and you won't find it in any of the above mentioned books, websites or government brochures. I know because I have read them ALL and none of them helped me. Instead, I came upon a solution by accident. And it's really simple. It doesn't involve forcing your child to drink water or prune juice, adding sugar to their bottles, massaging their tummy, changing brands of formula, giving them medication or spinning them around three times under a full moon.

All you have to do is make up your baby's formula in a jug, not in individual bottles.

Sounds too easy doesn't it. But it works. I switched to a jug when he was about 6 weeks old because he was drinking larger amounts and it just seemed more convenient to make up four or five feeds at a time rather than mucking around adding scoops of formula to each bottle. Besides which I am quite uncoordinated and I often spill the powder all over the place when trying to get it into the small opening of a bottle!

Since then, hey presto, the constipation has stopped! Now you'd think that there'd be no difference because I'm still using the same brand of formula and making it up in the same ratio (i.e. so many scoops to so much water). But I've found that whenever I make up a single bottle (for example if we're travelling or away from home) he gets constipated again the next day without fail. So now I just stick to the jug and there's no need to try to get him to drink water, which I found was really difficult.

I hope that helps someone and good luck with being a parent. I've no doubt it's the most rewarding job you will ever tackle!