No more milk please!

A few weeks ago my son, now 2.5 years old was struggling with a cold. Now that winter is upon us in London, I was prepared for the fever, coughing at night, runny nose and of course the crankiness that a cold brings on. This lasted a few days, and what he wanted to eat and found easy to eat was soft foods and his favourite tipple, warmed up milk. I was happy with him eating something rather than nothing, and drinking milk rather than being dehydrated. However, what this lead to was a serious case of constipation.

Some children go to the loo every other day, while some go even a couple of times a day. Both are considered healthy. But something was a miss when my little one didn't got for 4 days in a stretch. He also became exhausted and found it painful to go to the toilet. Eventually he did go after having lots of soft pear and syrup of figs. But this really was the worst case of constipation he had faced.

My daughter on the other hand has never, ever had this problem. And I realised that she doesn't favour milk the way my son does. They were being fed the same meals so what was the problem? This made me want to assess his diet. I knew his milk intake had to be lowered as he was definitely having close to 3 glasses of milk and often favoured milk over his food.

So I did a food diary for a week. The first day of the food diary looked something like this:

Weetabix with milk for breakfast
2 bites of banana
quarter bagel
rice and yoghurt (vegetables and lentils discarded)
biscuit
half an orange
stir fry noodles with prawns (baby vegetables discarded)
2 glasses of milk

Not only was he having a lot of milk and mostly all carbohydrates, his portion size wasn't great. In fact if he was hungry he would fill himself with milk which meant no fiber to ease his bowels.

So step one was omitting the milk at every other time of the day except at breakfast with his cereal. He was having yoghurt so this made up the 2 glasses of milk which toddlers should be having daily. He wasn't allowed milk any more but watered down juice and just plain water was happily accepted.

His appetite didn't change straight away but 10 days later it gradually grew and his appetite doubled! Cutting down his milk portion has made way for him to feel more adventurous with his food and hungry during meal times. His bowel movements have improved and so far no constipation. I also have to keep on top of offering more water throughout the day. I am now offering more fruits at snack times, and pear is still his favourite!

So to keep on top of your child's constipation:
offer plenty of water throughout the day
offer fiber (avoid bran), so fruit/lentils/veg
check your child's food intake- too much carbohydrates or dairy?
and finally offer syrup of figs or prune juice to help your child

Message me if you need any advice spicesformysweets@gmail.com

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