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This Little Piggy
Like a lot of nursing moms, I have been neurotic about whether I am producing enough milk for my bouncing baby boy, especially since he is a skinny little thing. (Although, to be fair, only his arms and legs are skinny. He's sporting a round, bulging belly, kind of like those malnourished Ethiopian children...wait a minute, that doesn't support my case...) We started giving him a bottle now and then to better monitor how much he is getting and try to determine whether he was getting enough. I had been feeding him 2 ounces of breastmilk (as was instructed by the pediatrician) whenever a bottle has been involved. He would slurp down the whole thing and seemed to be content with that amount, but then as soon as he started to get sleepy, he would root around and gnaw on his hands.
We started experimenting with formula last week, giving him 2 ounces at bedtime as a cue to go to sleep for the night. Again, he gulped down every last drop, and I think if he could have licked down the insides of the bottle, he would have. We started increasing the amounts of milk and formula that we were giving him, first to 2.5 ounces, then finally to 3 when that still didn't seem to be enough. I'm assuming that he is hitting a growth spurt or that he has his mom and dad's habit of eating whatever is in front of them, hungry or not. Either way, I am confident that he will exceed his weight gain goals by his 2 month visit...
He still roots and whines (and growls and screams, etc.) as soon as his eyelids start drooping, so unless we need to bump his feedings up to 4 ounces (which is completely ridiculous for a baby his size - the suggested amount for his 8.5lbs is 2.65 ounces!), I think we'll just have to deal with his desire to nurse 24-7. I had my 6 week checkup yesterday and everything is A-OK. But I did mention this issue to Mari, to which she said, "Girl, you don't need to be doing that. You can't have a baby hanging off you all day long." I was glad to hear her say that and assured her that I was doing my best to prevent that from happening, which hasn't been easy. She suggested trying a pacifier, and I explained to her that A knows the difference and gets even fussier when I patronize him by offering a fake version of the real thing. Dang, I knew having a smart baby would complicate things, I just didn't think it would happen so soon...
Like a lot of nursing moms, I have been neurotic about whether I am producing enough milk for my bouncing baby boy, especially since he is a skinny little thing. (Although, to be fair, only his arms and legs are skinny. He's sporting a round, bulging belly, kind of like those malnourished Ethiopian children...wait a minute, that doesn't support my case...) We started giving him a bottle now and then to better monitor how much he is getting and try to determine whether he was getting enough. I had been feeding him 2 ounces of breastmilk (as was instructed by the pediatrician) whenever a bottle has been involved. He would slurp down the whole thing and seemed to be content with that amount, but then as soon as he started to get sleepy, he would root around and gnaw on his hands.
We started experimenting with formula last week, giving him 2 ounces at bedtime as a cue to go to sleep for the night. Again, he gulped down every last drop, and I think if he could have licked down the insides of the bottle, he would have. We started increasing the amounts of milk and formula that we were giving him, first to 2.5 ounces, then finally to 3 when that still didn't seem to be enough. I'm assuming that he is hitting a growth spurt or that he has his mom and dad's habit of eating whatever is in front of them, hungry or not. Either way, I am confident that he will exceed his weight gain goals by his 2 month visit...
He still roots and whines (and growls and screams, etc.) as soon as his eyelids start drooping, so unless we need to bump his feedings up to 4 ounces (which is completely ridiculous for a baby his size - the suggested amount for his 8.5lbs is 2.65 ounces!), I think we'll just have to deal with his desire to nurse 24-7. I had my 6 week checkup yesterday and everything is A-OK. But I did mention this issue to Mari, to which she said, "Girl, you don't need to be doing that. You can't have a baby hanging off you all day long." I was glad to hear her say that and assured her that I was doing my best to prevent that from happening, which hasn't been easy. She suggested trying a pacifier, and I explained to her that A knows the difference and gets even fussier when I patronize him by offering a fake version of the real thing. Dang, I knew having a smart baby would complicate things, I just didn't think it would happen so soon...
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