From Breastmilk to Solid Foods

I started introducing my nine-month-old to solid foods several months ago. Lately there has been some strange-looking red stringy stuff in his diaper. Should I take him to his pediatrician?

As your baby experiences a variety of new foods, his bowel movements will look quite different from the yellowish, curdlike stool of an exclusively breastfed infant. It will begin to resemble and smell more like an adult’s stool.

You can expect occasional undigested or poorly digested elements to appear in his diaper. Babies don’t really chew foods. They gum them and then swallow them, so when they start to eat small soft pieces of fruits and vegetables, you may see these in the stool.

You can also expect a change in the frequency of stools after solids are added to the infant’s diet. All of these are normal developments, but if you become concerned, call your child’s pediatrician.