Thank you so much for all the good info. I really appreciate it. To answer your questions, as far as DD's sensitive tummy, there were no known intolerances, however she always had poopy problems - mainly in the form of gas and not pooping for 4 days at a time consistently for her first 4 months and being in obvious pain (didn't make a difference if it was breast milk or formula and I realize this isn't constipation given when she did go it was rather explosive and no hard stools, but it was always a very painful process leading up to a poop). Around 4.5 months she started going once every 3 days and then every other day until finally around 6 months she was pretty regular daily, with much less gas and pain. We started solids at 6 months exactly and she is 100% formula fed since 5 months.
We talked to her doctor early on when we started solids as it was clear rice cereal was binding her and my doctor thought that might be the case due to her history. Sure enough we switched to oatmeal right away and that helped. Over the course of the last 5-6 weeks, I have tried to slowly introduce foods giving them all at least 3-4 days or more, to see if there are issues. So far she steadily eats pears, prunes and peas, which don't cause any problems. She did well with sweet potatoes too, but we haven't had those in a couple of weeks. The problems started with carrots and then apples, which both left her extremely constipated (didn't go for days and when she did it was horrible - super hard and very painful for her to pass). It also caused horrible nights of sleep since she was in so much pain, but didn't hear her passing gas, just could tell she was writhing at night and super uncomfortable. It was obvious it was the tummy and rubbing it seemed to help a little bit, but still she was so upset. I was feeding her pears and prunes those days too, but didn't seem to help things out. So we went back to old reliable peas, prunes and pears and things normalized again. With the foods that caused problems I did talk to the doc, who did not seem too concerned, and just said to hold off and try other non-constipating foods (to her credit she didn't mention avocado, but for some reason I figured it would be okay and I had just bought some beautiful ones at the store). I then tried the avocado earlier this week since she really hates the peas and she loved it so much. Then came an even worse reaction than that to the carrots and apples and another couple days of not pooping, horrible tummy pains, bad sleep and a horrible constipated poop when it finally did arrive over a 2 day period. She still showed signs of discomfort a day after as well. We stopped the avocado immediately and introduced green beans 2 days ago given that's usually a safe bet. She seemed a bit gassy from those yesterday and today but still too early to tell the reaction. So in summary, her biggest problems seem to be with the tummy pains and constipation, but she has been crankier than usual and for the first time had the most horrible diaper rash this last month (also talked to the doc who said it is common when they start solids).
I have been giving her new foods more at lunch than breakfast since she is not overly hungry in the morning, but given the pains, it does make sense to give earlier and give her the day to work through it. It might help with our nights too. I have been keeping close track of when the foods are given too and the reactions. I appreciate all your good advice and any further thoughts you may have. Thanks for reading through this all!
