The place where my mom's group meets has a baby scale. I've been tempted to weigh Elias before and after eating just to see how much he's actually getting, breastfeeding being a total mystery in that regard, but I've restrained myself over the past few weeks to just a simple weigh-in to tide me over each week until our next scheduled pediatrician appointment. I wonder, though, how many new parents break down and buy the insanely priced scales in order to keep a closer eye on their baby's weight.
Anyway, this morning Elias weighed in somewhere between 9 pounds 10 1/2 and 12 1/2 ounces. He was a bit fussy and squirmy so it never settled on a number. So I'd say he's gained around 9 ounces in the past week, give or take. I have noticed he really seems to be filling out in the cheeks and thighs in particular over the past few days. He certainly feels heavier. And his wardrobe is constantly expanding to include more and more of his 0-3 month clothes.
It's funny how you obsess over your baby's weight. Is it just the first few months or does this continue into the teenage years? Why do people coo over downright fat babies? Several women mentioned today how he really seemed to be filling out, whereas last week I continued to get comments on how tiny he was. I guess if your baby came into this world between 9 and 10 pounds he would seem tiny. It does seem like it's the gargantuan babies in my mom's group who get a lot of attention. There's one baby in the group who's just a week or so older than Elias and he weighs 15 pounds. 15 pounds!
Speaking of which, I have to admit I'm not enjoying the mom's group as much as I hoped I would. I think part of the problem is most of the babies in the group were 6-8 weeks old to begin with (Elias wasn't even 3 weeks old when we first met), even though they recommend beginning the group when your baby is between 2 and 6 weeks old. There's a big difference between a 3 week old and a 6-8 week old and I feel like the conversations continue to revolve around developments in the older babies' lives each week, the facilitator of the group looking to the two or three of us moms with younger babies and assuring us that we shouldn't necessarily expect our babies to be doing a given thing or acting a certain way just yet. Which is helpful for the future, I guess, assuming I can retain all this information. And Elias did pretty well this morning but most weeks he's been either eating, sleeping, or fussing, while many of the other babies seem content to lay propped up on their boppy pillows, doing very little or being used as a model for infant massage. Since Elias was fairly content this morning I had more time than usual to observe the other moms and babies and I noticed that today at least, the girl babies were laying around like content little blobs while it was primarily the little boys in the group who were active, squirmy, and most likely to be fussing at any given moment. Coincidence?
In other news, the baby Zantac does seem to be helping...a little bit. I think I noticed the most improvement over the weekend, but this week he's continued to have bouts of some pretty impressive spit-up, accompanied by the much less desirable fussing. For the most part, it does seem like he's less irritated by the spitting up, but I don't think the drugs are necessarily the perfect answer to our problems. We have a follow-up tomorrow morning so I'm eager to discuss options with our pedi. One thing I discovered in researching reflux, however, is that many of the symptoms are also associated with a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. After nursing on just one side per feeding for a couple of weeks, I started "offering" the second breast a couple of weeks ago. I forget exactly why or what changed, but I began sort of arbitrarily switching after about 15 minutes. So it's very likely that Elias has been getting a lot of the foremilk and less of the fattier, more filling hindmilk. In other words, a higher volume, lower calorie meal, meaning more volume control is needed (i.e. spit-up) and less satisfaction gained between feedings. In addition to the symptoms being similar, the main thing that clued me into this possibility is that his poopy diapers were occasionally mustard yellow in color but more often a bit green, indicating the milk might be going through his system a bit quicker than if he were getting more hindmilk. Granted, some people say you can read too much into the whole foremilk/hindmilk relationship, but hey, I'm willing to give anything a try to keep the boy content (happy baby equals happy mama, after all). So he's back to being a one breast baby, for now at least. The first "finish the first breast" feeding took over 30 minutes but he seems to be getting a little more efficient in the past couple of days since I made the switch. Also, I notice he's popping himself off more instead of lingering there, using me as a human pacifier, something he rarely did when he dined on both breasts in one feeding. It's obviously a lot easier to tell he's satisfied if he's the one to call it quits. And his poopy diapers have been more yellow than green, which is pretty pleasing, let me tell you. Anyway, it's nice when you start to figure things out, but it just goes to show you, breastfeeding really hasn't gotten any easier, even approaching the magical 6-week mark. Sure, he's latching on and I've got positioning down, but there are so many nuances to this method of feeding. There have been moments during the past week or so, dealing with this reflux issue, where I've secretly hoped the problem would turn out to be a milk allergy so we could just switch to soy formula. More time between feedings, more likely to sleep longer during the night, no wrestling the wild animal that is a hungry, squirmy little baby (why this happens with the breast and not the bottle is beyond me), no more annoying nursing bras, no nudity during feeding (unless you want to be naked), no worries about that margarita Mama would really like to have...But don't go calling La Leche League. Especially after all this hard work and meeting with a lactation consultant, calling friends of friends to share experiences, I'm sticking with it, unless I have good reason not to. But it's like one of the pediatrician's at our doctor's office said, everyone wants you to breastfeed, but nobody wants to do it for you. All I'm saying is the pressure to breastfeed is intense.
But ending on a positive note, we began giving Elias one bottle of liquid gold each day, in preparation for the fall, when breast and baby will be apart for about a day and a half each week. Taking a bottle doesn't seem to be an issue for Elias, I guess because he had those bottle supplements early on. So Neal now administers the first meal of the day (not the middle of the night feeding(s); I still handle those) while I pump and take a shower, something that seems impossible to accomplish once the day gets going. Starting off the day clean sure is nice, and the bottle feeding gives the day some semblance of a routine, at least starting off.
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