What to feed a child with an upset stomach

The digestive system in children is imperfect, so diarrhea is common. It can appear for various reasons, but diet will always be the main treatment method. If you eat improperly, indigestion will worsen. And in children, complications develop quickly. Therefore, in addition to drug therapy prescribed by a doctor, it is necessary to use a diet.

Basic principles of diet for diarrhea in children

Diarrhea is a disorder of stool, expressed in its frequency and liquid consistency. Due to inflammation or infection, water absorption is impaired and its tone increases. He can empty himself up to 10 times a day or more. Therefore, the body loses a lot of water and minerals.

Because of this, dehydration develops, and this happens especially quickly in children. If you do not stop inflammation and improve digestion, serious consequences are possible. A diet for diarrhea in a child helps restore intestinal function and prevent dehydration.

Why does diarrhea occur?

Children may react with intestinal upset to unusual foods, overeating, or stress. There are several common causes of diarrhea:

• infectious diseases;
• helminthic infestations;
• food poisoning;
• poisoning;
• allergy;
• inflammatory diseases of the digestive system;
• dysfunction of the pancreas;
• poor nutrition.

When should I take my child to the doctor?

When an intestinal disorder appears due to improper feeding or after stress, you can cope with it with a diet. In mild cases, it is enough to follow it for 2-3 days. If no improvement is observed during this time, it is recommended to consult a doctor. This must also be done in the following cases:

• if the baby is less than a year old;
• when symptoms of intoxication develop;
• elevated temperature;
• Vomiting appeared simultaneously with diarrhea.

How to feed a child correctly?

The most important rule of a diet for diarrhea in a child is that you cannot force him to eat. And for the first half day you can’t give anything but water. The rules of therapeutic nutrition and the duration of the diet vary depending on the severity of the child’s condition and the cause of diarrhea. But there are also general principles:

• you need to eat little by little, but often, every 2–3 hours;
• give the child only warm food;
• food needs to be well boiled and pureed;
• food must be fresh;
• be sure to drink a lot.

This regime should be followed for 5–7 days, sometimes longer. After this, gradually introduce new dishes. After the condition improves, you need to give the child fermented milk products with bifidobacteria: natural yogurt, acidophilus. This is necessary in order to restore the intestinal microflora. Those foods that are prohibited should not be given for another 2-3 weeks after recovery.

When is hunger required?

From the point of view of pediatricians, forced fasting and drinking only water are not required during diarrhea. It is enough to correctly determine what to eat and in what quantity. This will help the child maintain strength. If the baby asks to eat, it means that the body requires it, and the healing process begins. There is no need to refuse food unless advised by a doctor.

The pediatrician will give recommendations on what to eat if your child has severe diarrhea. However, it must be borne in mind that there are cases when feeding a patient is not only undesirable, but also dangerous:

• Black chair. Dark stool can occur for physiological reasons, for example, after eating prunes. The most dangerous and undesirable factor is internal bleeding. Blood mixes with bile and turns black. Typically the bleeding is in the upper gastrointestinal tract or small intestine.
• Severe vomiting. You should not feed your child if he has severe and prolonged vomiting. Food can trigger another attack of nausea. First you need to stop the vomiting or consult a doctor to determine its causes.
• Suspicion of appendicitis. Inflammation of the appendix can occur in different ways. Appendicitis is not always detected immediately. Sometimes there are no sharp pains, but in any case the child feels discomfort, it is difficult for him to straighten up, he lies on one side. Nausea, vomiting, and high fever often appear. The treatment is surgical only, so feeding will be unnecessary before anesthesia.
• Acute pancreatitis. Inflammation of the pancreas is accompanied by severe pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. In this case, you need to fast for a day and drink water. After the end of the acute period, a diet is prescribed.
• Severe abdominal pain. Any acute abdominal pain requires examination. You should not put off visiting a doctor if your child complains of such sensations. In this case, it is dangerous to feed and give painkillers before the doctor arrives, as they will blur the clinical picture.

If alarming symptoms appear or your health deteriorates, you must show your child to a doctor. A pediatrician is also required if diarrhea does not go away within 2 days and the patient’s condition does not improve. A dangerous symptom is a high temperature, which often indicates an infection.

Drinking regime

The most serious consequence of diarrhea for a child is dehydration. It's not just water that goes away with loose stools. Minerals that are important for the normal functioning of the body are lost. Therefore, the most important thing in treatment is to restore the balance of fluids and salts.

In case of severe diarrhea, the child is given pharmaceutical solutions, for example, “Regidron”. It is given every 15 minutes, a couple of spoons. If necessary, make the solution yourself. Take 1 liter of water, dissolve in it a teaspoon of soda and salt, as well as a tablespoon of sugar.

In addition to such solutions, to restore the water-salt balance, the child should be given plenty of fluids to drink. The following drinks are allowed:

• drinking water;
• mineral water with released gas;
• weak sweet tea;
• decoction of lemon balm, chamomile, rose hips;
• rice slimy broth;
• blueberry juice;
• dried fruit compote, but without prunes;
• apple and pear compote;
• diluted freshly squeezed juices - carrot, apple;
• berry jelly.

What to feed a sick child on a diet with diarrhea?

Immediately after the onset of diarrhea, only semi-liquid and pureed foods are allowed. It should be easily digestible and not irritate the mucous membrane of the digestive tract. The diet for diarrhea in children should be gentle. The first few days the diet is severely limited. But even after recovery for 1-2 weeks, you need to monitor the child’s diet and not give him harmful foods.

Then, as intestinal functions are restored, you need to expand your diet. You are allowed to eat porridge and boiled vegetables. They are well boiled and crushed into puree. Protein products are required. This is white poultry meat and lean fish. They also need to be boiled and twisted. Meat is used to make souffles, meatballs, steamed cutlets or meatballs.

Prohibited Products

It does not matter what the cause of the diarrhea is or the condition of the child. Some foods are always prohibited during diarrhea:

• fast food;
• chips, crackers, cereals;
• soda;
• store-bought juices;
• yoghurts, ready-made fermented milk products;
• milk;
• baked goods, white bread;
• confectionery;
• chocolate, sweets;
• smoked meats;
• fatty food;
• fried foods;
• pickles, marinades, semi-finished products, canned food;
• cabbage, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers;
• beans;
• spicy seasonings.

Diet for diarrhea in a 2 year old child

Usually at this age the baby has already abandoned the breast and switched to adult food. But after the onset of diarrhea, it is recommended to return to pureed soups and purees. Potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin are allowed, you just need to boil them. Be sure to prepare slimy rice porridge. You can use buckwheat or oatmeal, they are also easily digestible. But it’s better to cook the flakes or puree the finished porridge.

If the baby is accustomed to solid food, he can be given white bread crackers or dry cookies. Egg yolk, chicken breast, and lean fish are allowed. Food must be pureed until pureed. It should be warm; hot and cold should not be given.

The child definitely needs to be soldered. It is recommended to give water, compote, herbal decoctions. The baby should receive 1-2 spoons every 15 minutes.

Diet for diarrhea in a child under 5 years old

By this age, children often become picky when choosing food. After the onset of diarrhea, they completely refuse to eat. You can't force them. Fasting for 1-2 days is not scary. You just need your baby to drink as much as possible. Rice water, jelly, blueberry compote, chamomile tea - these drinks in mild cases help improve bowel movements without medications.

The diet for diarrhea in a 3-year-old child should be gentle. All prohibited foods, sweets, and canned foods are excluded. If the baby cannot eat unsweetened porridge, it is allowed to add honey. He should not eat fresh vegetables and fruits, canned food, or fatty foods. The white meat of chickens is boiled and made into a soufflé or puree, or steamed cutlets can be prepared. Portions are halved, but the baby needs to be fed after 2-3 hours.

A diet for diarrhea in a 4 year old child includes the following dishes:

• slimy oatmeal or rice porridge with water;
• pureed vegetable soups, possibly with chicken broth;
• steamed cutlets, meatballs or pureed chicken meat;
• low fat cottage cheese;
• crackers, dryers, biscuits;
• berry jelly;
• baked apples;
• bananas.

Diet for diarrhea in a child over 6 years old

At this age, you will have to greatly limit your child’s favorite foods. All treats, chips, and soda are prohibited. No smoked meats, sausages, or canned food. The patient must be fed pureed porridge, vegetable soup, and meat soufflé. Secondary chicken broth with crackers, boiled fish, lean meat, and baked apples are allowed.

How to create a diet?

With proper therapy, 1–2 days after the onset of diarrhea, the condition improves and the child develops an appetite. At the same time, they switch from liquid food to normal food. An approximate diet might look like this:

• in the morning, pureed oatmeal without milk and jelly;
• then soft cottage cheese, baked apple;
• for lunch, give rice porridge, steam cutlet, compote;
• then chicken broth with crackers;
• dinner may consist of an omelet and blueberry juice;
• Give your child rice water before going to bed.

Diet during recovery

If the acute stage has passed, there is no need to immediately allow the child to eat whatever he wants. For some time, the body will need gentle nutrition to allow the intestinal mucosa to recover and normalize the microflora. Products for diarrhea in a child contribute to this, but a diet is also necessary in the future.

Therapeutic nutrition after diarrhea in children is based on several rules:

• It is not recommended to eat sweets, fast food, or carbonated drinks for some time. The longer the break and rest from junk food, the better the intestines will recover.
• The basis of nutrition should be cereals and liquid low-fat soups, puree soups. They are rich in fiber and vitamins, but do not overload the digestive system.
• Potato dishes are nutritious and healthy. It can be eaten baked or boiled. The exception is French fries, which are deep-fried and are bad for the pancreas.
• To restore strength, you need protein, so your diet should include chicken, lean beef, turkey, and rabbit. You need to give up fried meat for some time.
• The consumption of fresh bread and baked goods should be reduced. Bread can be eaten, but dried and preferably black.
• Experts say that you can eat any fruits and vegetables after the exacerbation ends. However, it is advisable to eat them baked so as not to further irritate the stomach and intestines.
• It is not necessary to deprive your child of all sweets. If he has already begun to recover, he can be given vanilla biscuits, crackers, marshmallows, crackers and biscuits.
• The diet must include fermented milk products. In order not to burden the pancreas, it is better to consume them in low-fat form. You should choose only natural yogurts, without fillers, as well as fermented baked milk, kefir, and low-fat cottage cheese.

You can and should give salt. It retains water. Of all seasonings, salt is acceptable, so you can add salt to dishes.

If a child is prone to diarrhea or suffers from chronic pancreatitis, a constant diet needs to be developed. Soda can be replaced with compotes, sweets with fruits and dried fruits, cakes with fruit salads and yoghurts. If you constantly return to poor nutrition, periodic breakdowns will occur.

Diet for diarrhea in a child under 1 year old

In infants, diarrhea can appear due to climate change, daily routine, teething, or poor nutrition of the mother. This reaction occurs to overheating, the introduction of complementary foods, and stress. It is not recommended for infants to limit it in food, even with diarrhea. The baby must be given breast milk, as from it he will receive the necessary antibodies. It is recommended to feed the baby every hour, but little by little. This will help restore the functioning of the digestive tract.

When a baby is breastfed, the nursing mother must also follow a diet. She should give up canned food, semi-finished products, smoked meats, and ready-made foods. You cannot eat tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, grapes, or legumes. Milk and sweet carbonated drinks are prohibited.

If the baby is artificial, it is recommended to switch him to fermented milk or lactose-free formulas. It is recommended to feed him every 2 hours, giving no more than 50 ml at a time. In the case when the baby has already received complementary foods, you need to give up vegetable and fruit purees and juices. Rice or buckwheat porridge is allowed. It is prohibited to introduce new products until stool improves.

Symptoms of diarrhea in babies

Diagnosing diarrhea in an infant is not easy, since signs of diarrhea in an adult are normal for a baby. You need to understand that even a hungry baby can go to the toilet about 8 times a day. This is also possible after every meal, especially in breastfeeding babies. The differentiation of loose stools from diarrhea is presented in Table. below.

Diarrhea in infants can be diagnosed by the presence of the following signs:

• loose stools;
• the child defecates more than 10 times a day;
• intestinal flatulence;
• refusal of food;
• weight loss;
• stool has a strong putrid or acidic odor;
• elevated temperature;
• feces contain mucus, foam, undigested pieces of food, streaks of blood;
• stool is not the typical green or black color;
• colic.

Differences between normal loose stools and diarrhea

Normal stool in a newborn

Many young parents are looking for an answer to the question of what kind of stool a baby should normally have. To begin with, it should be noted that in this case the norm is absolutely arbitrary, since each person’s body is individual.

In the first days of life, the baby's stool should be black, since during this period meconium, the original feces, is released. This substance has a viscous consistency. On the first day, a baby can poop about 10 times. The amount of bowel movements will depend on the intensity of feeding. From the second to the fifth day, the baby may not have stool. Only slight discharge of meconium accumulated in the intestines is possible. Until all the original feces leave the intestines, the baby will not have normal stool. These days, the baby does not poop more than 2-3 times a day.

From about the second week of life, the functioning of the gastrointestinal canal is restored. At first, there are irregular bowel movements, but more frequent than in the first days after birth.

With breastfeeding, the nature of bowel movements is determined by the individual characteristics of the newborn, who begins to adapt to mother's milk. At this stage, the composition of the milk has not been formed, lactation is in a state of development, so the baby’s feces may not yet be standardized.

Children aged 1-2 months defecate quite often. They poop at least 7-8 times a day. It is possible to talk about what a baby's stool should be like when breastfeeding only by knowing the nature of the mother's diet. Proper digestion of food by a child is influenced not only by the physiological, but also by the psychological state of the nursing mother.

Prevention of diarrhea

Children often have diarrhea; their intestinal microflora is still imperfect. To avoid frustration, parents need to follow these rules:

• wash vegetables and fruits well;
• boil meat and fish;
• Children under 6 years old should not be given mushrooms;
• raw milk is undesirable;
• Be sure to boil the water or pass it through a filter;
• feed your baby breast milk for as long as possible;
• introduce complementary foods gradually, only on the recommendation of a doctor;
• do not give fast food, soda, chips, limit the amount of sweets.

If a child develops diarrhea, he should be immediately switched to a diet. It is also advisable to consult a doctor to find out the cause of the disorder. In mild cases, if you follow the diet rules, the stool returns to normal within 3–4 days.

IMPORTANT! Informational article! Before use, you should consult a specialist.