Mushy diapers every day, normal for a two year old?

[cablevi]

Parker is two now and for months has had mushy diapers. They're not runny or watery but just major mush. He has not been vaccinated at all and we've had him tested for allergies and did a blood panel and everything came back fine.

I have done some elimination diet and it seemed he had an intolerance to foods with high pectin and his stools got a little better but they're back to being mushy again. We've taken him off of milk a couple of times (we only buy organic) and even tried goats milk for a quite a while and sometimes it seemed better but it wasn't consistent.

His diet is usually fruit and toast or multigrain waffle in the morning or oatmeal with a little yogurt

lunch is some sort of protein with broccoli slaw mixed with fruit and yogurt and dinner is about the same. We try to get vegetables in at lunch and dinner and fruit is given at almost every meal but not in large quanitites.

He doesn't have a lot of sugars and he doesn't seem to be in pain although there have been some major diaper rashes from the mushy diapers.

Every morning he gets a probiotic, multi vitamin, dha and vitamin d3.
I'm wondering if there is something we're missing. We're taking him off of milk again and limiting his dairy (just a little bit of greek yogurt) to see what happens. What do we do to up his calcium during this period (other than give him another supplement) and is the mushy diaper thing normal when it happens every day?

The doctor thinks he'll just outgrow it but I'm not so sure. Any suggestions out there or am I worrying over nothing?

[tanyalynn]

What foods have you eliminated? And was it sequential or all at the same time? My DD's poop got noticeably firmer when we took out gluten and dairy, our allergens...

need to run, basically bad bacterial balance for us (we use kimchee, works better than other veggie ferments for us) and the food allergens were worsening the situation, making a bad environment, but just removing them wasn't enough

[NamastePlatypus]

DS1 hubby called mud butt because that is what he did his whole life until he was 4 and we started the gluten and dairy free. Within a week it was normal!!! We started GFCF because he is on the spectrum and we had hit a plateau in therapy, made all the difference in not just his bowels, but his behaviour

[MoonStarFalling]

My ds still had three soft poops a day (like newborn breastmilk poop) until about the time he weaned, he was 5. He was mostly veg, high raw, ate a ton of fermented foods. I think he just got a ton of fiber plus breastmilk. It helped to get him potty trained because if they go in the toilet they look pretty normal, where as in a diaper they looked like mush.

[sbgrace]

In my son's case it was a chronic parasite once and a chronic bacterial infection the other time. Both times metametrix comprehensive stool analysis told us what was happening. I highly recommend it. They'll find any bacterial overgrowths, yeasts, parasites that might be causing the stools. They'll look at digestive enzymes and digestion in general to see if low levels of digestive enzymes might be the issue. They'll look for evidence of gluten intolerance too and other things like sIga levels and eos levels. I highly recommend it. They can probably tell you a doctor in your area to run it if you don't have one who will. We did have to pay up front but insurance reimbursed us at an out of network rate. That was bcbs/anthem so I don't know how other insurances handle out of network labs. It would have been worth it to pay it all on our own for the information we got.

Outside of that you might look at the types of fruit he's consuming. Fruits and fruit juices (particular ones) can cause loose stools all on their own if in enough quantity.

[cablevi]

We've done blood tests for parasites and bacteria and all came back negative.

He is not nursing and was weaned at 14months because I was pregnant and my supply dried up. We've eliminated apples, jelly and any kind of food that has pectin added to it. We've took him off of milk 3 days ago and he stills has mushy diapers.

In the past we eliminated wheat and it didn't make a difference and he's been tested for celiac disease and that came back negative.

He doesn't drink any kind of juice, only water and until recently, milk. His main fruits are bananas, pears (on occassion), nectarines, strawberries and small amounts of blueberries and oranges. We limited anything that has a high acidic value like tomatoes and oranges because they cause a lot of mushy diapers too.

[sbgrace]

There aren't blood tests for parasites or bacteria. Did you mean stool? Further, even stool tests don't typically screen for the most common chronic parasites. Metametrix is far superior in that as is Genova. If you didn't do one of those stool tests I highly recommend that.

[kjbrown92]

Originally Posted by cablevi

I have done some elimination diet and it seemed he had an intolerance to foods with high pectin and his stools got a little better but they're back to being mushy again. We've taken him off of milk a couple of times (we only buy organic) and even tried goats milk for a quite a while and sometimes it seemed better but it wasn't consistent.

Every morning he gets a probiotic, multi vitamin, dha and vitamin d3.
I'm wondering if there is something we're missing. We're taking him off of milk again and limiting his dairy (just a little bit of greek yogurt) to see what happens. What do we do to up his calcium during this period (other than give him another supplement) and is the mushy diaper thing normal when it happens every day?

If you're trying to figure out if dairy is the cause, then you'd have to take him off alllllll dairy (not just milk, and even goat's milk, sheep's milk, or any other milk that contains casein) to get a true test. If it's because he's intolerant to milk, then even yogurt can do it. The top 4 intolerances are dairy, gluten, soy, and corn, but any food can cause any symptom.

For calcium, we do bone broth (simmer for 24-36 hours for chicken, 48 hours for beef, pulls all the calcium and minerals from the bones into the broth), broccoli, spinach, salmon, anchovies...

[mamakay]

Eating lots of fruit makes their poo mushy like that. I wouldn't worry about it.

[dogmom327]

DS is finally getting better in this department but we had to take him off all dairy, all grains and all beans to see the change. He does get mushy diapers now if he eats too much fruit on a given day but otherwise it's much firmer.