# toddler bowel movements?



## milkeriffic mama (Aug 31, 2007)

nak...condensed version

ds has been at a new daycare for 2 months. he is 16 months old. yesterday was the second time they sent him home for "diarrhea" when he was not sick. i took him to the doc the last time they sent him home, and he was 100% fine. The big prob is that his stools are often loose/watery (which doc said was okay) and that he poops about 3-6 times a day normally. he is totally healthy and growing normally. nurses and eats lots of healthy table foods. but according to daycare's policy, they send them home after 3 watery stools. So DH and I are meeting with the director on Monday. She was very responsive when I told her this was an ongoing issue and agreed we should sit down together and figure things out.

Thus far, I've already consulted w/ the pedi who is writing a note explaining what is normal for DS (and what is normal for BF toddlers) and that this is not a sign of illness, and I've consulted state licensing to make sure that from a licensing standpoint, a doctor's note would be sufficient to allow him to stay at school (it is). Ultimately, I think director is concerned with how to tell if he is sick then if they don't follow their exact policy. i think we can talk about other signs of illness and i think doc's office is hopefully addressing that in the letter too (fever, vomiting, crankiness).

So here are my questions-
1) anyone have a toddler w/ similar bowel patterns to this?
2) anyone have any other suggestions for anything i can do to in preparation for meeting with the director?
3) anyone have any useful resources regarding toddler bowel patterns or bf toddler bowel patterns?

Thanks!


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## angelachristin (Apr 13, 2007)

Sorry you're dealing with this. It's amazing how no one knows what breastfed poop looks like! My toddler isn't in daycare, but he was for a few months when he was an infant, and I was constantly getting alarmed notes about his "diarrhea."

That being said, my DS is 18 months old and gets 95% of his nutrition from BM still, but his poops are not loose at all anymore. I'm glad you have a doctor who is helping you take care of this.


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## Llyra (Jan 16, 2005)

My kiddos are 15 months old, and they also have soft stools several times a day. I think I changed 8 dirty diapers yesterday between the two of them, and that was a typical day. When they nurse less, the stools firm up and turn brown, and when they nurse more, they loosen and turn yellow again. I have always assumed that that's normal.

Daycares just aren't used to seeing the stools of toddlers who are breastfeeding, since so few mamas continue to breastfed into the toddler period. Which is sad, ya know? That's your biggest point to talk about, I think.


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## milkeriffic mama (Aug 31, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Llyra* 
My kiddos are 15 months old, and they also have soft stools several times a day. I think I changed 8 dirty diapers yesterday between the two of them, and that was a typical day. When they nurse less, the stools firm up and turn brown, and when they nurse more, they loosen and turn yellow again. I have always assumed that that's normal.

Daycares just aren't used to seeing the stools of toddlers who are breastfeeding, since so few mamas continue to breastfed into the toddler period. Which is sad, ya know? That's your biggest point to talk about, I think.

Thank you for at least letting me know that I'm not alone. When I enrolled him in this daycare, it was specifically because they were very health conscious regarding food (we send lunch, and snacks are communal brought by a different student each week- but the list of snack recommendations is totally what we would feed him), BUT ALSO because they were 100% supportive of us sending breastmilk in his sippy cup and said they'd had kids in there that had done that before. Now granted, I don't know how old those kids were or if their poop was like DS's, but I'm frustrated that the majority of problems I've had with daycare seem to stem from something having to do with bfing/breastmilk (I know that's getting off topic and could be a thread for a whole other board).

The doctor's note was awesome, saying that DS is totally healthy, normal, has chronic loose stools, and is in no way sick or contagious. They also photocopied a passage from a book for me to give to the daycare on the stools of bfed babies and told me that I should tell the daycare it would still apply even though DS eats solids based on his breastmilk intake. he nurses whenever he wants when he's with me (4-5 times a day during the week. More on the weekend).

This school is definitely more crunchy than the last one we were at, but I think the big hang-up now is how can they tell he's sick if they can't go by his poop? My other logical thought is people don't have diarrhea every time we're sick so there are plenty of other factors to look at. So I guess my next question is, are there any good suggestions for what I can tell her to look for if they're not using poop beyond the normal fever, crankiness, not eating, funky snot? He may poop 3-4 times between breakfast and lunch, normally but then only poop 1 or 2 other times that day, so I'm hesitant to try and quantify...Thoughts?

p.s.---I have constipation predominant IBS (thankfully in a sort of "remission" since getting pregnant with DS), but I think that doesn't help the situation because I'm ultra-sensitive about being aware of bowel patterns and poop.

Thanks again for any help. sorry for the rambling!


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## pbjmama (Sep 20, 2007)

I don't have any suggestions but my 2 year old hasn't had a really formed stool yet - ever. I'm glad you have a great doc to help you out!


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