Rice cereal causing gas - try apple juice?

[ashmom]

My LO is a 4 1/2-month-old 20-pounder who has been on rice cereal since 2 months as recommended by his doctor for his tummy troubles.  I was putting a couple teaspoons of rice cereal in a bottle of expressed milk (he's BF).  At 4 months, we switched to spoon feeding the rice cereal.  All was going well until we added an a.m. rice cereal feeding in addition to his regular p.m. one.  Since then he has had horrible nights with gas pains.  Easy solution is going back to just a p.m. feeding.  But so many people are recommending we give him apple juice to help out with the gas - either mixed with the rice cereal or diluted in a bottle.  Good idea or not?   

[em_here]

Is he constipated or just gassy?

For gas you can try bycicling the legs, and some wind meds such as infacol/gripe water etc

For constipation you can get lactulose from over the counter to help soften the stool.  By all means you can offer some juice, I was told fresh orange juice mixed with water once a day would be helpful

Rice cereal can cause a lot of gas and constipation. 

What sort of tummy troubles did he have by the way, just curious?

[ashmom]

He's definitely gassy as evidenced by his high pitched screams in the middle of the night! 
I'm not sure if he's constipated.  He poops about every other day and it's usually a diaper blow out.  Our doc told us this was normal for a BF baby, but I wonder if the little bit of rice cereal is affecting him. 

His tummy troubles which necessitated the introduction of rice cereal were gas and a little bit of reflux.  In general, he was just very uncomfortable - tight tummy, arching back, stiffening up whole body, but not a whole lot of spit up. 

We bicycle the legs constantly and have tried mylecon.  Will look in to the other meds and maybe try the OJ.  Thanks for the suggestions!

[em_here]

You are welcome, I am surprised they didnt prescribe a med for the reflux...... rather than constipation and gas causing rice cereal.. They could have given a milk thickener too.... can you ask about that, then you can just do solids as fruits and veggies

[ashmom]

We did actually try reflux meds first with  no success.  The rice cereal helped instantly.  But I think we need to keep it to just a couple teaspoons per day rather than adding more. 

[em_here]

Ah I see, I was just wondering if the doc didnt try anything first.  Big hug, hope it works with the oj and wind meds etc, doesnt sound fun at all xxxx

[eclaire]

OJ strikes me as really acidic for a little one.  I thought anything citrus was introduced much later as it was really hard on the intestine?

We used a bit of prune juice as that was what was recommended for us

[evan08]

I introduced rice cereal to my lo at 5 months it was so horrible he screamed in pain when ever he would pass stools because the cereal made them hard and also constipated him, Prune juice helped alot, I would give it to him 10 mls of it in a bottle, if I didn't much improvement the morning of the third day I would give him a bit more and it always softened things for him.