Constipation and Gut Health and How to Help
One of the questions I am most commonly asked about as Cooper’s mom is about tummy troubles. Did he have them when he was younger? Does he now? The answer was yes. And now thankfully, no.
Many children have constipation. Children with autism might have more problems with constipation than other children. And difficulty with things like sitting on the toilet and eating different foods can make treating constipation challenging.
Our son was no stranger to this. Since he was unable to communicate pain or discomfort, it took us some time to figure out that his stomach hurt. The pain affected his sleeping, his ability to focus and communicate, even potty training. Not to mention how in kids like Coops, pain can bring on self-injuring and aggression.
When I learned what was going on with our son’s stomach issues, I made it my mission to help him. But unfortunately, getting medical help isn’t always the easiest.
Here are three things that we used to help our son with his constipation at home:
Diet Changes
Every person knows the importance of a healthy diet. Fruits, vegetables, meats and grains are needed for a healthy body. Too many processed foods are bad. But when you have a child with serious food aversions, and in our case, a child who only ate 5 foods, this can feel impossible. My advice…start small. Small, small changes add up. We started with fruit pouches. Often the flavors were masked by a sweet taste and fruits and veggies were hidden within. After we mastered those, we went to strawberries, then blueberries, then raspberries. All of this took months and even years, but we saw huge improvements in his stomach and overall wellbeing when he started eating better.
Introduced Fiber with HyFiber for Kids
HyFiber for Kids is a clear liquid fiber with FOS prebiotics that can be found on Amazon (make sure to look for HyFiber For Kids. It’s the bottle with a duck on it). Produced by Medtrition, which is a leading medical food company with products used across the world. The cool thing about HyFiber for Kids is that since it’s a liquid it’s easy to take. Simply take it on its own or use in your favor foods or clear drinks. Because there are 6 grams of fiber in only one tablespoon, large quantity servings are not necessary. Best of all, no more messy powders or mixes! I will say that best results can be achieved with daily use over a multiple weeks.
Click HERE to visit Amazon and order!
Swapped Milk for Water
Dairy can cause constipation in people, especially kids and when Cooper was younger, he lived on dairy. Milk was the only liquid he would drink, and yogurt was his main source of protein. I knew that he needed to water. I knew we needed to reduce his dairy consumption. But, and it’s a huge but, it felt like climbing Everest. We did it though. Slowly, and small changes over time. Like everything, figuring out what would help Cooper was trial and error.
Parents don’t give up. Try new things. Focus on fixing the problem before it starts rather than a Band-Aid after. The three changes above were huge for us and success in potty training came rather quickly after.
We want our kids to feel their very best and that starts with their stomachs.
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