My 3 1/2 Month Old Eats Every 2 1/2-3 Hours...
Lounge By JaeRodriguez Updated 21 Aug 2010 , 4:29am by margaretb
zespri- YES the second time was SO much easier! SO much, it felt more natural and not like work!
Holly- Now I totally get where you are coming from, it made me *SO* angry when I was told to supplement with formula by my pediatrician's nurse when I was worried about his jaundice. Did she inform me that bottle feeding is not the way to do it? Or to use a syringe, NO! So how am I supposed to know?!
It was only when he wouldn't take the breast and mine were absolutely engorged to the point where I couldn't even hand express that I remembered the Hospital had a lactation consultant and I called her crying and that ANGEL woman told me to come in right then!
She was so mad that the nurse didn't bother to make sure I was clear on how to supplement, she got Abram to nurse the second I sat down (magic ;] hehe) and let him eat until I felt human again and then showed me how to use the syringe!
I agree, while my pediatrician would say "that's awesome" if I was to choose breastfeeding over formula, there isn't advice readily handed out to me about it. The hospital was the only place where I felt like I had advocates, they were so great about getting in there and helping me when it didn't come natural like every woman thinks it should!
If I have another one, I will certainly try to breastfeed, my goal is one year now that the first baby (and WW3) are out of my mind! haha zes- there is a light at the end of the tunnel! 
That is very true 77yrt, My hubby has these random allergy attacks- so random that he can eat at a pizza place his whole life and then one day eat there and within 30 minutes he's broken out in hives and can't breathe! He doesn't have insurance to go to the dr and find out what his triggers are, we know it's happened with seafood too... I'm terrified that my boys may have something to that effect!
This just brought back a memory. My 2nd son (now 4 years old) was tiny but perfectly healthy when he was born. At around 6 lbs and then losing a little weight the first two days, he was under the 10th percentile for weight on his first check up. So his doctor was very concerned with him being so little and breastfed. He tried to push a formula to us -that he had at his office!
When I refused the formula he almost threatened me, saying "i don't want to have to report you." I told him that in no way would I starve my baby, but the regular milk needs a day to come in (and the more they nurse in the beginning, the more milk you get and the easier it is).
So I just took the formula to end this discussion and later at home I threw it out. I also saw other couples with newborns coming out of his office with a bottle of formula.
On our next check up, our baby had gained more weight than (according to his papers) are possible. So he did not believe that the nurse had weighed him correctly and went back to weigh him himself. When the same number came back, he got upset and unplugged the whole scale, reset it and then checked the weight again. And so the same number shows up the dr. just said, "oh, I guess it's a true weight gain then." At 6 months he was a chubby little baby (only breastfed) and his weight was up to the 90th percentile.
I never had any support from our dr I still don't like him and am searching for someone better.
Wow adevag, that would peeeeve me off!
I can't believe that seriously!
That's an awful experience Adevag. My midwife told me babies are fine for quite some time without food when they are newborns, but I couldn't bear the thought of him being hungry. So while I had lactation consultants with their hands all over my boobs, and machines hooked up to me trying to get the darn milk out I decided to give him some formula to keep him going. While they didn't offer it to me, they also didn't make me feel like crap for asking for it. I had to sign something to say I understood that 'breast is best', and they had me feed it to him from a cup so that he would not get nipple confusion. And when my milk finally 'trickled' in, they set me up with an inline feeding system, whereby a little tube taped next to my nipple fed him formula. They said that way he would continue to suckle and stimulate me, but get rewarded for it with the formula. Gosh, they were amazing!
I think we're lucky here in NZ, 'breast is best' is promoted, but neither myself, nor anyone I know, has ever felt judged for wanting to use formula.
Isn't it funny how we all like to share our baby war stories....hehe! I love reading them, as well as learning from them, it makes me feel relieved to know I'm not alone.
Amen, it's like "oh, yeah, I feel like I'm the only one who is/has/was ever gone through this!" NOT! That's exactly what they did for me with the syringe and a tube by my nipple! I was like wow, who knew! haha Zes- It is kinda a normal thing to formula feed here, but now I think it's starting to come back into trend to breast feed so maybe the doctors will start to get with it! ;]
They had you sign something that said breast is best, that seems so weird! Here they just go "Are you breast feeding" (both times I said yes though) and they were like okie dokie! The lactation nurses are the best though, it's like they come in and save you right when you are thinking "oh, I CANT do this!" :]
First of all, glad things are better with your child. Some kids are just ravenously hungry. You should hear the stories my aunts tell. Apparently my younger brother was put on pablum before he even got home from the hospital. Yes, that was many years ago and wouldn't be done now, but he has turned out just fine.
One mild pet peeve I have is when I do something a certain way and I get all the stories of "when my kids were babies we used to..." or "it doesn't matter, they keep changing what they say is right...". I want to shout, "BECAUSE WHEN YOUR KIDS WERE BABIES, THERE WAS NO RESEARCH -- PEOPLE JUST MADE STUFF UP IN THEIR HEADS!!!" HOWEVER, it is also my pet peeve when people are religiously fanatic that things MUST be done a certain way or woe unto you and your child for the consequences of your terrible neglect and abuse.
Here's what I think, three kids in. Do the best that you can, and don't worry if you are not perfect. Unless there is some reason to believe that your child is fragile, you can make mistakes and your child will still be fine. While in theory I agree that breast is best, I am NOT going to criticize someone who chooses formula. Well, for one thing, I imagine that for some people with terrible diets or intake of unhealthy substances, breast is probably not best. But besides that, breastfeeding is NOT easy. I mean, it is for some people, but for other people it is hard hard work, and for some people it is torture. It was literally torture for me for the first week after my son was born because I had cracked nipples and the nurses were not helpful (they tried to be, but they weren't). I was actually about to quit when the public health nurse from my area called and came out immediately and helped me. It was a miracle. But up until then, every time I nursed it was like being repeatedly stabbed with needles in my nipples. And he nursed often. And my milk took a long time to come in, so of course I had the added guilt/worry about starving my baby, relatives coming over and saying 15 times an hour "he's so hungry", and not knowing that I could give him an ounce or two of formula as a supplement. I nursed my first until he was just over a year old, but my second and third I stopped around 8 or 9 months. No doubt some of you will be horrified. But guess what? My kids all got teeth at 7 months, and although I have read all the stuff and tried all the stuff about how you can just each your child not to bite, IT DID NOT WORK FOR ME! That kid would chomp down and then slide off my boob with teeth clenched. This went on for MONTHS. I went through it for the first, and that was enough. There's something to be said for having a mother who is not so stressed out that she is ready to shake the baby or throw it across the room. I'll tell you, after I had kids, I still thought shaken baby syndrome was a horrible thing, but I could certainly see how you could get there.
As for the cereal thing -- I tried to hold out for 6 months with my first, but he was just so hungry and tried to grab everything we ate, so he got cereal at 5 months. My next two exclusively breastfed babies both pooped constantly. I mean maybe one out of ten diaper changes did not involve poop. So at 4 months, number two got cereal, and low and behold, he loved it and that also cleared up the constant poop. Number 3 got cereal at 3 months. Same result. No allergies or intolerances. Again, it will no doubt horrify some people that I risked the health and well being just because of some poop, but guess what, you are the same people who told me that if I exclusivey breastfed they woudl only poop once every 3 or 4 days! And my kids are all very healthy, so I don't believe there was any risk for them. They were probably the babies who could have been eating pablum at 3 days without any consequences. If you want to err on the side of caution, by all means wait. But if starting cereal early is what works for you, then you probably have the kid who can take it. I don't disagree with all the new recommendations (and they have changed in the mere 7 years since I had my first kid), but I believe that they are made with the more delicate children in mind, and if you have a more robust child, then you don't have to feel as bound to as strict a standard.
That's my 2 cents. I think it's great that there are parents who can follow every recommendation and are up on the latest research and set the bar of parenthood as high as it can possibly be set (they are also a handy source of information if you don't have time to read up on everything yourself). However, if you are not that parent, it can feel an awful lot like you are being judged, even if you aren't, and I truly believe that there is more than enough guilt and worry for parents as it is without the added stress of feeling judged for the choices that work for you.
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