Started solids too early...Where to go from here? Spoiler alert: there's poop

[tekcez]

Hope you mamas can help me on this.  I haven't found a ped whose advice I trust regarding nutrition. Sad.

So I started my DS on solids last week.  He is 5 months 2 weeks.  I thought he was ready.  Now I know that he is developmentally, but not in his gut.  The first thing I gave him was steamed sweet potato in one of those little mesh baggie things.  He held it on his own and munched down and swallowed a bit.  No sign of gut problems. A week later I gave him banana mushed up and thinned out with bm.  Loved it.  Couldn't get enough.  No gags, no tongue thrust, just very happy baby.  I'm pretty sure the banana plugged him up a bit, because he didn't poop for a couple of days and he is a daily pooper. Once he cleared the banana, I went back to sweet potato.  So yesterday, I gave him a couple of tablespoons of pureed sweet potato.  He gobbled it down.  

Last night the trouble began.  Here comes the detailed poop description  He pooped around 3:30 am, which is unusual.  He is a day time pooper typically.  Didn't notice anything weird about the poop.  Then he kept pooping, each time the poop got lighter in color and more watery but with less volume as the day went on.  The last poop, which was really (pardon the term) more of a "shart" (ew, I know), was fairly mucousy and had the teeniest of tiniest little fleck of blood in it.  

Now given this reaction, I'm holding off on any more solids for a while, and, when I do offer them again, I will allow him to self feed rather than do any purees.  My questions to btdt mamas are:

Given this reaction, how long should I wait to try solids again?  What should it be?  He wakes up enough at night all on his own.  I don't need to be adding extra wakings for tummy troubles.  

Sweet potato seems pretty innocuous to me.  If he reacted to it once, will he react poorly again when is system actually is ready?  Or do you think it was just because it was too soon?

Did I just totally screw up his lil tummy? 

TIA

[~Adorkable~]

since sweet potato seems so mild, i wonder , did you eat anything yourself that could have triggered it thru breast milk?

[tekcez]

You know, I haven't eaten anything new, but, I don't know why this didn't occur to me before, I ran a low grade fever and had some chills and body aches the night before feeding him the sweet potato.  I took ibuprofen because the body aches were so bad.  Do you think that could have been the cause?  Or the illness??
 

[Deepfeet]

I am no expert,

but I have read that babies don't get the proper enzymes to digest carbs until around 8 months (I don't remember the article but perhaps you could google!?)

I have also ready (haha, oh boy) that a baby's gut can be fixed with 2 weeks of ebf... so if something bugs it up, boob it up for a while and then try again...

W let DS gnaw on raw apple, nectarines, suck juice out of oranges, for  a while before he started really eating. Then around 8 months, once the teeth cut through, he'd have pieces of potato or carrot or celery from our soup, a little broth, mashed banana (but I found with banana, he'd eat a lot - and get heavy poop, so I cut back and bf more)...

I personally think the longer you wait to introduce solids, the better your baby's gut will do once the food (which is mostly for fun in the first year) comes along.

I think kellymom has some advice on navigating through the first solids... check there perhaps?

[tincia]

It def sounds like it might be connected to a mild illness like u described. We just encountered something very similar. Hopefully that is all it was!

[tekcez]

Probably was...though it gave me a kick in the pants to do a bit more research on starting solids.  I think we'll stop for a while, let him play with spoons, cups, water.  Then let him self feed tiny amounts to experiment with texture.

[flightgoddess]

If you were sick and had something out of the ordinary (ibuprofen!)  then that could be part of the poop issue. If he seemed that eager for foods, then by all means, offer him bits to try/mesh sack to suck. (The mesh sack is GREAT for teething...put cold/frozen fruit or soft cubes of puree in there and your babe will be in heaven :)

[RStelle]

My dd had the same thing when she was exclusively bf, lots of poop, turning into mucus like poop. She also had a bit of blood in her poop so of course I called her Dr. (who I totally love) right away, and he said it was pretty common, just a sign of a mild tummy bug. He had me bring her in just to be safe since there was some blood so he could do a culture, but she was fine. In my experience once babies want to eat and can handle eating without gagging, the rest of their bodies are ready for food, too.

[TheDivineMrsM]

Originally Posted by RStelle 
In my experience once babies want to eat and can handle eating without gagging, the rest of their bodies are ready for food, too.

ITA with this. 

Solid food is going to change the color, consistency, and frequency of poops. He might be coming down with a stomach bug, or it might just be a randomly odd-looking poop. He doesn't NEED solids yet, so you aren't harming him if you decide to stop for a bit. But if he was interested and able to eat, I'd offer him other kinds of foods.