The early newborn days are over! In those days, poop was more frequent. Your baby will naturally poop less as they get to be a few weeks to several months old.

How much does your baby poop?

The early newborn days are over! In those days, poop was more frequent. Your baby will naturally poop less as they get to be a few weeks to several months old.

Daily pooping to a schedule is not yet something you should expect. As long as your baby is feeding normally and gaining weight (½ kg a month), don’t worry about the number of poops.

Some babies 2 months or older poop once a day or more often. Other babies poop once every few days or even once a week. Even if your baby is pooping less frequently, they should still have a big poop that is soft and easy to pass when they do go.

Pooping frequency depends in part on what your baby is eating.

If your baby is only being breastfed they may not poop every day. This is because their body can use up almost all the components of breast milk for nutrition and there is very little left that needs to be eliminated. After the first 6 weeks or so they can go even a week or two without a poop.

If your baby is formula-fed they might have up to four poops a day or just one every few days.

Most of the time, your baby is not really constipated. They may not have developed a routine for pooping yet. Some babies do not develop a bowel movement (BM) pattern for a while. In rare cases, constipation may be caused by a lack of nerves going to the intestines or by a problem with the way the intestine is formed at birth. Your baby can be tested for these conditions if your doctor feels it is needed.  

Baby will show symptoms like fewer stools than their usual pattern, straining more than normal to have a bowel movement, a change in how the stool looks from soft and mushy to small, hard pebbles, or like a large, round golf ball, loose and watery. abdomen (belly) bloated or swollen with gas, stomach pain.

What can you do to help your baby poop?

• Giving your baby a warm bath to relax them or exercising their legs, like riding a bicycle, will help stimulate the bowels to move.
• A massage with warm oil will help to settle Vata Dosha in their body which hardens stools. Apply a finger dipped in the oil at the anal opening to soften the anal muscles.
• Feed frequently for good hydration.
• Contact your paediatrician before giving them laxatives, baby mineral oil, or enemas to treat constipation.
• See a doctor if your baby is irritable and seems to be having stomach pain. Infants will pull their legs up to their stomachs and cry when they are in pain.
• Your baby has constipation and develops vomiting, and their belly looks like it is bloated or filled with gas. You see blood in their stool, Their constipation does not get better with treatment.