When I stopped teaching the IBS symptoms abated. That isn't to say everything was great right away from having a VBAC. Far from it. And nursing...shudder! I made myself stick with it for 6 months but this baby had colic. My poor neighbors would hear me walking him around outside when I got so distraught that I would try ANYTHING to help soothe him.
Unfortunately that ended up with me having to eat bland foods and only one glass of milk per day. And you know the weird thing? Dominoes pizza affected him but not other kinds. Yeah, it was a REALLY long 6 months for me.
I had my first run in with my pediatrician soon after I stopped nursing. Alan was odd in that he would not put anything in his mouth...other than his fingers and toes. He did not want a bottle, too bad little boy! He finally got used to that and I introduced him to solid foods quickly because he hated the bottle so much.
He would grab toys and/or candy from his sister but never put them in his mouth. I would set Cheerios in front of him. He would grab them and then cry because he couldn't/wouldn't eat them. He just didn't figure out how to actually insert food from the hands for a long long time. Weird but totally nice when I didn't have to worry about him choking. (Let's count the blessings, right?)
Back to the pediatrician run in...no I didn't forget. So I noticed that he didn't seem to be gaining much weight. He was kind of slower than normal on some of the physical mile stones, too. I brought it up at his 9 month visit and the doc picked him up and said, looking at baby Alan, "These new mommies. They always have to have something to worry about, don't they?"
So I didn't think much about it. Until I noticed he wasn't even crawling by 12 months and he was scrawny. At his year check up I found my voice. I told the front desk and the doc I would not leave until he addressed his weight. The doctor admitted he did seem on the small side. No, that was not good enough. I was adamant that I would not leave until he showed me Alan's weight progression on the chart. You know the one, where they chart it on an average growth wave showing what is normal.
It was then and only then that he realized my baby hadn't gained any weight from 6-12 months! NOW he was concerned and sent us in for testing. I made sure to get my records from him and his office because I told him I wouldn't be coming back. HE should have been telling ME I needed to be concerned.
After testing we realized that by not nursing and not giving him enough formula...too much big people food...he was not getting enough fat and/or calories in his diet. Yeah, chalk one up for a big time Mommy Fail! He had to start drinking 4 cans of PediaSure every day. He put on a pound in the next week and started crawling.
That stuff is really expensive and I couldn't afford to buy it. So you know what we did instead that worked? We gave him a bottle of 50% whole milk and 50% half and half along with table food. We just made sure he got the equivalent of 4 cans of PediaSure and it worked just fine at a fraction of the cost. And he was soon into a sippy cup.
But you know, be careful what you wish for. ;) That little guy was soon into everything and he was not nearly as angelic acting as he looked! Phew, that guy would scream and throw tantrums like his older sister NEVER did. So much for me knowing what I was doing as a parent.
But I kept babysitting, parenting, and plugging along. Until Dave decided that two was so much better than one that we should have another. And this time I wasn't quite ready for the next pregnancy!
To be continued...
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