What's the longest you've gone without pooping?

For Desmond, it was 6.5 days.  6.5! 

Some may think that this is TMI (if so, stop reading), but I have a very efficient digestive process.  I probably poop once every 3 days.  Anymore than that and I know that I've been eating really bad-for-you foods or I'm sick.  So when Desmond reached the 4 day mark, I started worrying that maybe it wasn't just super great digestive genetics that I passed down.  I knew that breastfed babies have erratic pooping schedules anyway and that it was normal for an exclusively-breastfed infant to go a few days without pooping, just as long as he was producing a 6-8 wet diapers a day, which he was doing.  But at day 5, I was kinda freaking out.

Des wasn't anymore fussy than usual and it didn't seem like he was pushing to poop a lot.  He didn't seem to be in any pain, but still.  I wanted some poop.  When I called my mom to apprise her of the situation, she told me that the same thing happened to me when I was little.  I had gone several days without pooping and my mother asked one of her friends for advice.  Here is the advice this friend gave:

take a green onion, chop off the bottom root part, and make several small vertical slices in the end that you just chopped off.  Dip that in some vegetable or olive oil and then proceed to slowly tickle the baby's anus.  Yes.  My mom did that.  To me.  And she LOVES telling that story to anyone who'd listen.

I hung up the phone in disgust.  There was no way I was sticking food inside my son's butthole.  Besides, we needed the green onions for the chili I was making that night.  So, here's what I did.  I took the baby thermometer, rubbed some lanolin on it (I didn't have petroleum jelly), and gingerly inserted the end of it into Desmond's bottom.

Des's face when I inserted the thermometer.

I couldn't even look him in the eye while I did this.  I hoped that he wasn't internalizing the humiliation so that it would surface as the cause of some sort of psychological defect during a therapy session.  Just kidding.  Desmond rather enjoyed it.  I inserted it in about a half inch or so, wriggled it around a bit, and pulled it out.  I did this a few times.  Unfortunately, for as much as it relaxed Desmond, it didn't even produce a single fart.  

The next day, we went to Desmond's 2 month pediatrician appointment where his doctor assured me that everything was ok.  And guess what, that night, it was.  I was holding Desmond and all of a sudden, I heard the wettest rumble down below.  I ran to the changing table, took his pants off, unbuttoned his onesie, and saw this majestic sight:

Yes!  Soiled from back to front!  I have never been so happy about a shitty diaper in my entire life.  After this poop, he proceeded to poop once a day for the next 3 days.  We're now back to a drought; it's been 3 days since his last poop.  What I don't understand is how he can poop every single day for a while and then go as long as 6 days while still keeping the same feeding schedule.  The last few days, I've even been feeding him once every 1.5-2 hours instead of the usual once every 3 hours.  Where does it all go?  And why do breastfed babies have such erratic elimination schedules while formula-fed babies don't?  Christy, you probably know the answer.  Can you tell me how it all works?