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The FFF Quick-and-Dirty Guide to Formula Feeding: Recognizing Sensitivity, Intolerance or Allergy to Formula | Fearless Formula Feeder
If you have a few minutes, please read the blog post in the link that I have attached to this post. I know that some people feel like I am way over exaggerating our situation or even lying about some of this stuff, but the blog link above is so similar to what we've went through. It gives me some comfort to know that I'm not just crazy. I can't believe its taken me this long to find her blog. She also wrote a book about not feeling guilty about formula feeding. I can't wait to purchase the book and read it!

So rice cereal is not agreeing with your tummy at all so far. It upsets your tummy so much that you won't sleep for more than about 3 and a half hours at a time at night and I've had to change your clothes and crib sheets several times from blow-outs in your diaper. I literally put a pinch of cereal in your bottle last night and your crib was a mess. I know the only way test if this is just your body getting used to a food change or an intolerance to rice is to keep giving it to you in small doses, but this is exhausting. Might try it just a few more nights and then call the doctor for some guidance because I don't think how this cereal is making your tummy feel is normal.

On a sad note, your daddy is having a very rough day today. One of his waitresses had a baby around 8:30pm last night and the poor sweet little boy passed away around 1:30am this morning :( Your daddy is very upset about this and the whole thing just makes me feel terrible. That is so heart breaking. The issue had went undetected during the pregnancy so this couple had no idea that their baby wasn't healthy. If you have a moment today, send some positive thoughts to this couple that I will leave unnamed out of respect for their situation.

It is situations like this where I take a step back and think that no matter what we are going through right now, I have you baby. I can hold you and kiss your sweet face. It makes me sad for parents out there who aren't able to do that. I love you my baby girl, always and forever.

Baby Food

Well sweetie I haven't written an update in far too long. You had your 4 month visit at the doctors last Monday and of course it did not go exactly how I expected. Nothing with you has so far, and I think I just need to get it in my head that nothing with you ever will. I need to start expecting the unexpected with you. That way I won't keep getting my hopes up.

At your official 3 month visit (I say official because we have been to the doctor so many times its hard to keep track of exactly which visit I'm talking about) your weight had gone up to the almost the 50th percentile because we had finally gotten some control over your food allergies. So you were about average for your age at that time and that made me feel so hopeful because we've had so many issues with your allergies and weight. On Monday we learned that your weight has dropped back down to the 20th percentile for your age :( This is frustrating and confusing for mommy. So mommy has made a tough decision this week. Once we can get you on a more balanced diet with your formula, some baby cereal, and some fruit and veggie baby food I am going to stop breastfeeding. So I will still be pumping for at least another month, but the end is in sight. It makes me feel relieved and yet so very guilty at the same time. Obviously what we are doing right now isn't working for either one of us darling so mommy needs to do what is best for the both of us. I know that some of our readers will be surprised at the decision I have made, but I feel like I fought a good fight and now I need to accept defeat. Please don't think that I made this decision without weighing my options. There is only so much I can put my baby and myself through before I need to re-evaluate her feeding situation. I tried my hardest and made so many changes to my diet and lifestyle, and I'm honestly very proud of myself for sticking to this for as long as I did.

So now lets talk about baby food. We finally found a brand of packaged rice and oatmeal baby cereal that you can eat! Almost all packaged baby cereals have soy in them, but a brand called Beech Nut (http://www.beechnut.com) makes their rice and oatmeal cereals dairy and soy free! So if you have a baby with food allergies or know someone who does, please suggest this brand to them. A lot of their foods are soy free, dairy free, gluten free and/or vegetarian. It is more expensive of course, but well worth it if it gives you an option for food for your baby. I thought for sure that we were going to have to make all of your baby cereal from scratch at home. I started looking a few weeks ago at our normal grocery store places for things that you could eat and I was so discouraged because I hadn't found any options. There is one Kroger in the area that has a great allergy section. It is two whole rows of foods that are mostly gluten free, but they have a lot of soy free and dairy free options too. This is where I get a lot of my food these days, but we have to make a special trip to this Kroger so I decided to take a look at their baby food selections while we were there last week. I was so excited to find something you can eat! We tried the rice cereal last night and you were not a big fan of the texture! It was funny to see you try a "solid" food. Hopefully soon we can introduce your baby oatmeal and single fruit and veggie options. We have to introduce new foods very slowly to make sure that your tummy can handle them. I hope as long as we keep dairy and soy out of your diet for now, we won't see any more allergic reactions from you.

The doctor did discuss trying to get some soy back in your diet at around 6 months just to see how you would react to it. If that went well, we could try dairy some time after that. Children can start outgrowing their childhood allergies as early as 6 months, but usually it takes longer than that. I'm really hesitant to introduce dairy back into your diet until you are at least a year old I think. I'm open to trying soy before that, but I just don't want to rush the dairy side of things. You are still at such a low weight that I don't want to chance you not being able to gain weight again due to allergic reactions.

So at your 4 month well visit, the doctor wasn't as concerned about your weight because you've always been low weight. She was very concerned about the size of your head, though. You have always had a big head. Your daddy has a big head and your uncle Alex has a big head so you get it from both sides. Your body had been growing proportionately, though, until this last visit. Your head had always been in the 70th percentile range for your age. Well Monday we learned that it has jumped up to the 95th percentile! This is not good. So your weight for your age is at the 20th percentile, but your head is in the 95th percentile. I'm not sure how you can hold your head up child. We had to set-up another doctor's appointment on February 12 just so that the doctor can take a closer look at your head. If she feels like it is still continuing to grow at the rate that is had from 3-4 months, she is going to have you get a CT scan. The concern here is that you might have swelling of the brain or too much fluid around your brain. This news made mommy scared. Thank goodness for other mommies writing blogs out there because I turn to them anytime we get scary news about your health. It is comforting to know that other moms out there have gone through the things that we have. So of course I Google and blog searched for babies with big heads and found out that in most cases things end up okay. My fingers are crossed for you baby! I keep telling telling myself that we can't take anymore discouraging news yet we still keep hearing it. One of these days we will go in for a doctors visit and hear good news I just know it. Or maybe that's just a dream of mine. Again, I need to start expecting the unexpected with you so then I won't be let down.

I do want to say a few things about these "well" visits at the doctors office. When I was calling around to other pediatricians offices to get a second opinion on you in December, it became very clear to me that you are not considered a "well" baby. I guess I knew this in my own mind, but to have someone else actually say it to you kind of makes the realization sink in. There are a lot of pediatricians out there who only deal with "well" children. These are the kids who come in for their scheduled visits and shots and maybe occasionally if they get a cold, but other than that don't have any other health issues. I guess we are lucky that we got into our doctors office when you were only four days old because I was denied by almost every other pediatricians office for a second opinion because you are not a "well" baby. I understand why they do this. Pediatricians are busy and most do not have time for hour long office visits and that is how long ours last most of the time because there is always something that comes up at these visits. Its just kind of sad for mommy that you are labeled that way right now.

Well dear I should get off of here. I am glad that you are feeling better after last week's shots. You are back to being my smiley, cuddle-bug baby. Just know that I love you always and forever and want what is best for you my darling baby girl.

Is medicine failing breast feeding moms?

Is medicine failing breast-feeding moms?
This is an interesting article that I read today.

Diet Changes

Wow sweet baby B. It's finally time for mommy to write a post about all of my diet changes. We are now past the holiday season where I was around a lot of good food that I mostly could not eat so hopefully things will get even easier with my diet from now on.
So as I've said before, I have had to cut out all foods with milk products, milk protein and soy from my diet so I can continue to provide breast milk for you even if it is just part time. Right now your bottles are half breast milk and half special formula. You are starting to eat more at one time, but less times a day. This has been a challenge since I'm not producing more breast milk during the day than I used to, so sometimes your bottles are a little more formula than breast milk. This bothers me, but it is the best that we can do right now. I'm trying to stress less about pumping every so many hours or a certain amount of times a day. I just need less stress in my life right now.
Mommy has never been able to stick to a diet on her own baby. If I was making all these diet changes for myself, I would have cheated on my diet so many times by now especially with all the holiday food I've recently been around. Since I am doing this for you, though my darling, I've been able to stick to it. I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself. It has been extremely hard, costly, and caused mommy quite a bit of stress. I feel like I'm hungry most of the time these days, but every day I'm learning about new foods that I can eat or trying new recipes using milk free/soy free butter substitute and almond milk.
I don't branch out with foods a lot right now. I'm afraid to branch out too much at this point because I'm fearful we will find something else that you might be allergic to. Right now the foods that I've been eating have helped you feel better so even though a lot of what I eat is not extremely flavorful, as long as you are happy that is all that matters to me. I eat a lot of pasta (egg or whole wheat noodles) with pasta sauce and bacon pieces in the sauce for some added meat protein. I have to be very careful about what pasta sauce I choose. When I go grocery shopping these days I literally have to examine every single food label. Every Kroger brand pasta sauce has milk in it, but there are some Prego options that I can have. I used to always just buy whatever was on sale. Cheap was my motto when it came to grocery shopping. I would say all these diet changes have made our grocery bill go up about 200%. I'm not even exaggerating about that number either baby. Eating healthier and having to switch to these different foods is definitely not cheap. I also eat a lot of rice, veggies, and imitation crab made from other fish. Sometimes it is the little things that you might not think about that will get you too. Most taco seasoning and spice mixes/rubs will have either a milk or soy ingredient! I would have never guessed that, but we figured it out the hard way. My diet really is limited at this point. I hope to add specific recipes to some upcoming blog posts soon so that if any other mothers out there are going through the same thing, they have some recipes to start with. It has been difficult for me to find resources online about milk free/soy free diets. There was a mom who created a spreadsheet of foods that she liked to eat when she was going through the same diet changes for breast feeding purposes. I have found this spreadsheet to be very helpful for grocery shopping. I think that I may create a spreadsheet of my own in the next few months with some of the foods that I have found as well. Here is the link to her spreadsheet: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tSt1VyIgb6Li5FMjMer6xZA&single=true&gid=0&output=html
I am grateful for companies like Lays who do fry some of their chips in sunflower oil instead of vegetable oil which almost always contains soybean oil. Regular Lays BBQ chips or regular plain Sun Chips are my junk food go to right now. It is just nice to have at least a few options of things that I can quickly put in a bag and take to work. I don't have the option to order Jimmy Johns or grab Arby's if I don't have time to pack a lunch in the morning because there is really nothing that I can eat at restaurants these days. I have to plan every meal and every snack. Sometimes this is very difficult especially when I work both of my jobs in one day and I'm out of the house for over 13 hours. That's a lot of food to pack and carry with me!
I love breakfast foods, but my breakfast options are very limited right now. I cannot just throw a yogurt or breakfast bar in my bag to eat on the way to work. I ALWAYS used to eat breakfast on the go because I value my sleep, but now I have to plan breakfast time into our morning routine. I do have some cereal options. Mini wheats and Honey Nut Cheerios are two of my favorites. I now use almond milk as my milk substitute. I have tried coconut milk before and I find it to be just a little too sweet for my liking. I do like SO Coconut milk coffee creamer for coffee when I drink it, though. I can also make my own oatmeal or cook up some eggs in the morning if I have time. Eggs now have to be cooked in olive oil or my milk free/soy free butter substitute because pan spray has soybean oil in it.
Next week I want to try to make no cheese lasagna. If I can find some almond milk cheese at a whole foods in the area I may try that on lasagna, but I'm really starting to feel ok without cheese. I used to love to eat cheese baby. I would eat it all the time on everything so it was a big change to cut that out. I have been missing sweets lately too. I want to try to make some milk free fruit pies soon. Your daddy made me some no bake cookies last week with 100% cocoa, natural peanut butter because regular peanut butter has soy in it and a milk free/soy free butter substitute. They are really quite good!
As I'm getting used to all these diet changes, things are getting easier. I'm craving less of the foods that I used to eat and I can tell that my taste for things has changed. I have just been craving fat lately. It is hard to explain, but I can tell that my body just wants fat. Not necessarily sweets or junk food, but fat. I used to eat a lot of fat in my diet, more fat than I needed. Honestly, I did not eat well before I changed my diet and to be truthful, my diet is not very well balanced right now. I'm glad that I'm still taking a prenatal vitamin since I'm breast feeding so I at least get the vitamins I need daily for you. I need to eat more fruits and veggies because I don't feel very healthy right now. I had you in September, but I weigh about 15-20 pounds less than BEFORE I got pregnant with you baby. So I've already lost all of the baby weight that I gained with you plus 15-20 pounds more on top of that in just a few months. It has been a rapid weight loss. I thought for awhile that my weight had kind of evened out, but I can tell that I'm starting to lose weight again in these past few weeks. You just keep gaining weight and mommy just can't stop losing it! Everyone tells me that I look good, but I just don't feel healthy. I know I shouldn't complain about losing so much weight, but I'm really not trying to lose weight right now.
I know my blog posts always seem negative and I feel like all I do is complain. I hope that everyone reading our journey can understand that mommy has had a very rough past four months. My body has been through so many changes. I had you baby. That's a huge adjustment to a woman's body to begin with. Then I've felt more stress than I could have ever imagined in these past four months. I've had hormone changes, diet changes, sleep deprivation, and depression. Physically I'm not sure how much more I can take and mentally I just feel kind of numb. I know that you are feeling better baby so now mommy needs to start taking better care of herself. You are my number one priority, but now that I have you taken care of, mommy needs to take some time and focus on myself. I made all of these changes for you my sweet girl and I wouldn't have it any other way. I would do absolutely anything for you. I love you so much and will always and forever.