If you aren't careful, toddler constipation can totally sneak up on you. I'd been lucky this far that we hadn't had any real issues. Eighteen months of breastfeeding and a kid who loves veggies had me far too complacent. Really, if I had been paying attention, I would have caught the signs.
Potty training masked the fact that our normally regular girl was no longer regular. While she was regular in her irregularity, I should have known. Then there was the eating. So far she has taken after her father's side of the family's ability to eat large quantities and still stay trim. In fact, with my eating less, she could eat as much if not more than I do. So when she recently slowed down her eating, a lot, I just figure she was finally acting like a normal toddler. I was enjoying having leftovers from dinner to take to work. Lastly, there was her horrible mood, all the damn time. She was always cranky, irritable, and stubborn. Which seems to be exactly the way anyone else in our house gets when they haven't gone enough.
By the time we figured out what was going on, it was too late. No amount of prunes and pears was going to change the fact that she needed to get rid of what was bugging her. Last Thursday was by far the worst. If it were not for the amazing Rita Arens and her book Sleep Is for the Weak I wouldn't have been nearly brave enough to do what needed to be done when she ran out of energy to finish things. Three times. (If you haven't read that book you should. Most of it is short enough to fit an essay or three into the little bits of me time you get)
It took days for things to finally clear up. We are now requiring veggies be eaten before anything, milk is being withheld until we have progress, and there will be a prune a day with breakfast. (she calls them donuts, I don't argue) I do not EVER want to go through that again.
The only thing we are struggling with still is that she isn't too keen on drinking water as much as she should. Another thing we've never had an issue with. I'm not fond of giving her juice, but to get fluids in her, I might have to resort to it. Any bright ideas? Also, favorite preschooler water bottle? We had planned on going Sigg, but given recent news, I don't feel any reason to support that kind of trickery. Maybe a new water bottle with help get interested in water again.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
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7 comments:
I find it ironic there's a Pepto Bismol ad running next to this post as I type this.
I've done it again since I wrote that post -- hang in there!
Ugh, that doesn't sound like fun at all =( My parents dealt with that with my sister and they're still talking about the brain damage it caused. I'm glad that things are cleared up a bit now and I hope you don't have to worry about it happening again for quite some time.
Also, good luck with getting water into your precious girl. I don't have any advice, just best wishes!
Would a twist of lime or making cucumber water help? Give it a little flavor without adding all the sugar of juice?
i like kleen kanteen. xo
Boo would never drink water, for the longest time. We ended up doing 75% water 25% juice or pedialite to give some flavor. We slowly weened down the pedialite because it is PRICEY and soon it was just water. Adding flavor isn't a bad thing, and Whole Foods has some organic ones that don't have sugar in them. We use them when the kids have just had ENOUGH water. It adds some flavor.
Water bottle, let her pick one out. That will make it more hers, as long as you let her pick what she wants.
Good luck!!
How do you feel about Crystal Light? It's not a perfect solution, but it lacks the sugar of juices. We also drink a lot of sugar-free Kool-Aid in our house.
oh, we just went through this last week with my 2.5 year old! awful awful stuff :-( we've been doing the apple juice (10-20% with water) and then i made pumpkin cake and black bean brownies to add to the massive quantities of fresh apples and whole grains we've been pushing. constipation is terrible!
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