When your baby starts to feed on solid foods, the switch from milk to solids naturally comes with a lot of changes. All the new, variety of foods affect every aspect of their digestion system, including what appears in the diapers!
Before your baby starts on solids at typically around the 6-month mark, it is best that you prepare yourself in advance for the fact that your baby's poop will go through some changes. How?
Ways Baby's Poop May Change After Starting Solid
1. The smell
Well, no stool smells great! But it is not until you start your baby on solids (especially when you have been exclusively breastfeeding), the stool probably won't stink THAT bad. However, once your baby starts on solids, that's going to change. Solid foods will produce even stinkier stool and as your baby eats more and more solids, the poop will only get smellier. It is what it is, folks!
2. The colour
Before starting solids, your baby's poop was probably on the yellowish-brown spectrum consistently. After starting solids, however, you will likely see every colour of the rainbow in the bowel movements, depending on what your baby eats.
Feed your baby plenty of pureed spinach during lunch, you may very well see green-coloured poop during bedtime. Offer a bowl of steamed carrots for dinner, you might wake up to a diaper full of bright orange poop the next morning. This is nothing to fret about as your baby's digestive system is still fairly immature and is learning how to process solid foods, hence bright-coloured poop is completely normal at this stage.
3. The texture
This may not apply to your baby if they are formula-fed. But if your baby has been breastfed all this while, you may notice after starting solids, your baby's stool is firmer and more shaped as opposed to being runny and liquid-y when they were breastfed.
4. Undigested food may appear
This may not be the case when your baby is still on pureed foods, but it may appear once you start introducing some chopped table food into the mix. Is this a concern? No, it is actually completely normal! Your baby's digestive tract is much shorter than an adult's, hence, there is not enough time for their body to break down all of the food they are eating. It also can occur if your baby is not chewing their food a lot before swallowing, which is totally expected when they have just started out on solids. Nevertheless, it is a great indicator that they have actually consumed some food!
5. The frequency
This varies depending on your baby. Normally, the frequency of bowel movements will go down once you transition from an all-liquid diet to starting solids. This is due to solids bulk the stool up, there is usually less fluid being taken in, and sometimes it may take a while for your baby's digestive system to adjust.
However, some babies poop way more after starting solids. Other babies may face the opposite problem, which is constipation. To find out how you can alleviate constipation, read our previous post -- Here's How You Can Prevent Constipation in Babies.
