Struggling to poo at 18 months old :(
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Before switching milk, I would increase fibre in his diet, ripe fruit such as banana, apples maybe fruit pots/pouches and plenty of vegetables and water .. reduce white bread, rice, pasta and go with wholemeal options. If that doesn’t work I would then look at what else it could be.
Honestly doesn’t sound like a dairy intolerance. Try to get him to drink as much water as possible and have some fruit (pineapple,pear,prune,peach all the p’s) before having breakfast lunch and dinner. What about trying to sit him on a potty to poo or when he’s struggling. It might be that he just needs the squatting position to get the pop out. Pooing whilst standing can’t be comfortable, especially when they are older doing proper hard adult poos! X
Knees higher than hips, like squating when the stool is hard, muscle not strain much and easy to flush out... give more water, sometimes hot water or warm water works, riped bananas before bed time do work... if already on cow's milk you can dilute the milk and can give him... check baby gut health foods it could help you...
Diet changes will not help for our experience. It’s safe to give him miralax in his milk. We have to put 3 tsp every day for our daughter since around that age so it’s been about year now and it’s much better. If it builds up too long he will have to do a full cleanse and that’s no fun for anyone.
For my little girl I switched from whole milk to semi skimmed and that helped with this. It wasn’t as bad as what you’re describing but similar.
Try the prune pouches for 6 month olds they’re a god send and we use them every 2 to 3 days to help my son poo (he turned 18 months today)