Poopy Boys

Can't have twins and not blog about poop! Our boys are good at taking turns: crying, waking, eating, and now... pooping!

Since birth, the big guy has been one pooping machine! He pooped just about every diaper change 8-10 times per day. He has always been taking breastmilk with human milk fortifier (extra calories and nutrients because of his preemie status) until recently when I was given the ok to exclusively breastfeed without the HMF. Well, since we stopped the HMF he stopped pooping, completely! Its been 5 days now and nothing. At first I was a little concerned but then looked online and read that exclusively breastfed babies go through a growth phase at around 2 months (which is their adjusted age when you count back from when they were supposed to be born) and stop pooping as regularly because they are using all their nutrients leaving little to no waste. As long as he isn't uncomfortable or fussy (which he isn't) there is nothing to worry about. I'm satisfied for tonight but will be double checking with our pediatrician in the morning.

The little guy on the other hand has always had trouble pooping. He would strain and strain, and we would give him ke.rns juice (per pediatrician) and ultimately an enema when it would get bad. When he would finally poop it was like black sludge oozing out(it was not really black cause that is bad- but very very dark green that it looked black). He would strain so much that he gave himself an umbelical hernia while he was in the NICU. The docs chalked it up to him being on much higher calorie HMF (since he was smaller), extra iron for his anemia, and all his meds.

Since coming home he has been taken off 80% of his meds and is down to half his HMF intake, and now HE is the pooping machine! And he doesn't just poop, he explodes, all the way up his back, hose him down, EXPLODES! On the positive side, he doesn't have to push too much so his little belly button is not as big (doc said it would take up to a year for his hernia to self correct).

Another good thing is that he has finally outgrown the Newborn diapers and was moved up to size 1 (hopefully they will hold more), just as the big guy moved up to size 2. Another milestone for our preemies!

We are hoping they both regulate and find a happy medium soon, but until then, we will be proceeding with caution!

Edited to Add: Just as I published this post the Big Guy joined the "Exploding Poop" club! So smelly!....so when does potty training start?