Preventing constipation in babies and toddlers: Here’s how!

Constipation is often simply a result of not eating enough fiber or not drinking enough water. A small disturbance in your baby’s usual daily routine is often enough to confuse the intestines.

How does constipation occur?

Proper nutrition plays a major role in healthy development, especially for babies and small children – and also for intestinal health. But even if the switch from milk to porridge or solid food takes place, this can initially be unusual for your protégé and lead to constipation. However, with the right diet, you can easily prevent constipation.

If you don’t breastfeed your baby or not breastfeed it fully, you can use baby food. Make sure that in the first few months of life you feed your baby pre-food that is very similar to breast milk. In this way you reduce the risk of digestive problems. Follow-on formulas, on the other hand, are only suitable if you are already offering your child complementary food. If you give your child the bottle, you should pay careful attention to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Too low or too high a concentration of food can have a detrimental effect on your baby’s digestive tract. For example, too much powder has a dehydrating effect, which can cause constipation.

Healthy diet, healthy gut

From about the 5th to 7th month of life, you should get your baby used to a varied diet by gradually introducing supplementary food. A vegetable and potato mash is particularly suitable as a first complementary meal. Once your baby has gotten used to this porridge, you can add some meat. A month or two later, cereal-milk porridge and fruit-cereal porridge can also be on the menu. Apples, apricots, blueberries, grapes, pears, plums and strawberries are particularly recommended: They are very high in fiber and therefore important for healthy digestion.

However, babies under the age of one should not be fed too much fiber. Grains containing gluten should initially only be offered in small quantities to check how well gluten-containing grains are tolerated. If your child is already constipated, reduce constipating foods like bananas.

If your child is a little older, it should also drink enough additional liquid to help digestion – after introducing three porridge meals a day, for example. Water or unsweetened teas are particularly suitable. However, before feeding paps, drinks in addition to breast milk or infant formula are not necessary. Exceptions are circumstances that withdraw water from the body, such as fever, vomiting or diarrhea.

Tips to prevent constipation

• Make sure your baby gets enough sleep: restful sleep is important for the entire organism. The small body needs the break in order to be able to properly convert the nutrients it has taken in. How much sleep your child needs depends on their age and type. In this article you will find an overview.
• Stick to a fixed daily routine: Feeding regularly and taking an afternoon nap at the same time will help your child and his body to develop a routine.
• Massage your baby: If your child is restless due to digestive problems, try a light tummy massage. Gentle clockwise movements calm the stomach and intestines.
• Encourage your child to move more: A sluggish body and sluggish intestines are closely related. Encourage your little treasure to crawl, play and romp and in this way stimulate the natural digestive processes, which then lead to relaxation of the strained muscles.
  Tip: Don’t put your child in the bouncer too often, but better on a baby blanket on which it can kick to its heart’s content. In this way, it can develop the muscular strength it needs to move later.

Since your baby’s digestive rhythm is still developing, it is quite natural that digestion can be absent for several days. It becomes critical when painful abdominal tensions are added. In this case, you should take your child to a pediatrician.