All I wanted with Baby #2 was a normal food relationship. You know, the kind where you nurse Baby, and he grows, and then you feed him solids - all different kinds of solids so he continues to grow healthy and strong and doesn’t get picky - when he’s old enough, until eventually, you wean him to milk and table food.
You know, the kind of relationship most babies have with food.
It seems that is not the plan that Heaven has in mind for me. Apparently, instead it is my lot in life for my babies to have completely abnormal relationships with food, and not in a good way.
Not that I am complaining. At least not now. I have moved on past that: I’ve accepted the situation, I’ve learned how to make the best of it, and most days it is just a way of life that I don’t even think twice about it.
But there have been a few bumps in my road that jostle up all the emotions, bringing them to the forefront for a little while until I work through them once again and get on with my life. I’ve already told you about his struggle with constipation, and his lack of interest in finger foods, but there’s another concern that’s been building for a while and finally came to its ultimate and undesired conclusion.
I am now supplementing breast milk with Nutramigen. I did it before with my Certain Little Someone, and I am doing it again with Baby Boy. The problem is that he was not gaining weight, and had not been for some time. After ruling out other causes, like possible allergens still in my diet, I realized that I was just putting off the inevitable and admitted that he simply wasn’t getting enough milk from me to help him grow. He was getting enough to satisfy his hunger, keep happy most days, and even grow lengthwise, but not enough to gain weight.
Coming to this realization was painful, to say the least. Like I said, all I wanted with Baby #2 was to have a normal nursing/feeding relationship.
I went through the same exact thing with my Certain Little Someone and have come to the conclusion that when I take certain things, like dairy and eggs, out of my diet, I don’t replace them with an adequate amount of calories that would enable my body to keep up a good supply of breast milk.
Nutramigen is not what I want to be feeding my child - it’s full of ingredients that I otherwise avoid. But it’s too late to replenish my supply, and my only other alternative is to make formula myself, which is just not going to happen (I do not have time in my day for that!). So I tell myself to be grateful that dairy-free formula exists because at least it will help my Baby Boy to grow!
It’s been almost two weeks since I started the supplementation, and this morning when I weighed him, Baby Boy had gained about 5 ounces. Right now, for me, that makes it all worth it.
