Does normal infant stool have mucous at all?

[SarahAlexMom]

Hi ladies,

I've been on TED for 3 weeks. Ds (2 months old)'s stool has no visible blood for four days now. However, there is still some mucous in the stool, although much less than before. Also the color has turned to yellow brown (from green or green brown). I wonder what "normal stool" should look like? Is yellow brown normal? Also, does normal stool have some mucous at all?

I asked a neighbor whose baby is the same age. She said her baby's stool is yellow, seedy, and no mucous at all. So do I have to wait for the mucous to completely disappear, and the color to turn yellow, before trying new food?

[waluso]

I don't think mucous is normal but IME it takes a while for the mucous to go away. You may get different responses to this, but if everything else is at baseline except for the mucous personally I would start adding in foods. It's important on a TED to get more foods in your diet as soon as you can. Just go slow and make sure you can tell when there is a reaction. I'm not sure about whether brown is normal, I haven't seen a normal poop since DD was a few weeks old.

[nalo]

Mucous is not normal in infant poop but it sure sounds like you're heading in the right direction. I agree that it can take quite some time and a good deal of healing for it all to go away. Normal infant EBF poop should be yellow but if it's now yellow-brown as opposed to green and green-brown that is really a great sign. I agree that you want to be careful in how long you stay on the TED. Are there some veggies/fruit/meats that you feel like you could trial? I would take a peek at the Joneja scale of foods (it's in the stickies - or you can just google it) to pick a handful of low allergenicity foods you may want to trial in the near future so you don't stay on the TED for too long. Keep up the good work!!!

[SarahAlexMom]

Besides the mucous and poop color, everything else is much better. Ds's eczema and congestion was gone soon after I eliminated diary, before I started TED. However, he still has some small bumps on his skin, including face, head and legs. I wonder if the bumps are allergy related or just dry skin?

I plan to wait for another three days to make it a week blood free, before introducing new food. I would like to try broccoli, oats, and salmon. I was eating broccoli and oats when he had blood in the stool, so I wonder if I should not try them first? On the other hand, I so want to have them! Any suggestions?

[kjbrown92]

Oats are usually cross contaminated with gluten, unless you specifically buy gluten free oats, and even then a lot of people who can't have gluten, can't tolerate oats either (like my kids, and my neighbor's kids). So you may not want to do that first.

Broccoli is a gassy vegetable.

Salmon is a good one though! Full of all sorts of nutrients. If you search for joneja allergy chart or something like that it has the most likely food allergens. We did an unofficial survey on here a few months ago, in this forum, to see what the results were for intolerances vs. allergies to see least likely foods to try. If you PM me your email address, I can send you the chart if you want to pick foods from the bottom of the list.

[gilamama]

Originally Posted by kjbrown92

Oats are usually cross contaminated with gluten, unless you specifically buy gluten free oats, and even then a lot of people who can't have gluten, can't tolerate oats either (like my kids, and my neighbor's kids). So you may not want to do that first.

Broccoli is a gassy vegetable.

thats what i was thinking

[earthmama4]

Originally Posted by SarahAlexMom

Hi ladies,

Also the color has turned to yellow brown (from green or green brown). I wonder what "normal stool" should look like? Is yellow brown normal? Also, does normal stool have some mucous at all?

I asked a neighbor whose baby is the same age. She said her baby's stool is yellow, seedy, and no mucous at all. So do I have to wait for the mucous to completely disappear, and the color to turn yellow, before trying new food?

I wonder the same thing. My LO is almost 2 months and I was on a TED starting at 3 weeks old. Now I am doing mostly top 8 free, but I have a handful of other suspect foods I am also avoiding because I can't get his poos to stay consistently healthy! I finally started joking that he must be a "rainbow pooper" because he poops fluctuate from yellow/brown/green/orange...at least there have been no purple or blue!

I am keep holding off on introducing foods for the same reason - I can't seem to get that magical yellow seedy poop to stay for more than a diaper or two. And I can't figure out what the culprit foods are.

What I have been doing, so I don't drive myself crazy, is ignore the color (a bit) and focus on the consistency. For me, a green or brown poo that is seedy is more healthy than a yellowy brown with mucous. Mucous is a sign of irritation. Stuff that looks like it came from a sick persons nose should not be coming out of my sweet baby's bum! Sorry that's gross...but true.

I also look at the whole package. Its not ALL about the poo. Is baby happier? Sleeping better? Reflux is improved/gone? Those signs matter. I have decided that my LO has very sensitive bowels, and the slightest irritants produce reactions there. But he is doing much better overall - and mama's gotta eat some foods, so I try not to over-react to each slightly imperfect diaper.

Also, the dairy does take a LONG time to get out and the bowels are notoriously slow to heal. I read it can take 2-3 weeks to get out of YOUR system, and another 2-3 weeks to get out of baby's system.

I agree you are headed in the right direction. Give it some more time and hopefully you will see more improvements. (BTW I've been craving salmon too!)

[SarahAlexMom]

Thank you earthmama4 for your reply. It made it easier for me to be more patient waiting for a normal poop to come!

I plan to start introducing a few more food in my diet, without waiting for ds to get well totally. I'm losing weight more quickly then I intended, and DH insisted that I should add more food starting today.