heartache of a nursing mom

i've been nursing claire for more than one year yet today, i relented and allow hb gave her a bottle of FM. today, i broke down and cried continuously - all because she has not been eating well. those who meet us regularly never fail to 'comment' that claire is 'not growing' and i believe many pple think that i'm starving her!

for the record, she is growing - her height and weight has been increasing steadily since birth (albeit slowly) - there was only 2 periods that she lost weight: when we went to thailand during CNY coz she was too busy looking around to eat and NOW - she fell sick for the 1st time on Thursday - her temperature went up to 39.3 degrees celsius on friday midnight/sat morning but by sat afternoon, she was well again. unfortunately with the fever, her appetite that stopped by to visit us when she turned 10 months took off. and if you know how active this bb is, you can probably understand how hard it is for her to put on weight coz in order to put on weight - calorie consumed must be > than calorie utilised right?

friends who nurse their bbs tell me that 'breastmilk is too delicious and its hard to get these nurslings to take solid food' yet i do know of bbs who are breastfed and yet have a ferocious appetite for food. it brings me back to claire. i absolutely have no clue how to get this bb to eat and i reached my breaking point today - that's why i relented and allowed hb to give her formula milk. she refused all of these today:

- cereal mixed with applesauce
- yoghurt
- mashed potato
- chicken porridge

hb 'syringe-fed' her about 100ml of milk and after which, she regurgitated out everything. was it a wrong decision? the only 'food' that seems to stay in her stomach is breastmilk but since she turned one, i'm terribly worried that she's not getting enough nutrients and that's my heartache - to see my bb SCREAM and CRY at the top of her voice when i put a bowl of food in front of her, then claming her mouth TIGHTLY when i bring a spoon near her mouth even though she's clearly hungry - which mother in her right mind would starve her own child? So please, before you make an 'inconsiderate remarks about claire's growth', put yourselves in my shoes.

Comments

iloveshoes said…
hey...don't worry so much about C not eating, I know its tough. R is the same as well, she totally skipped the puree stage and I basically worried at every meal till one day, my dad took us to Westin and order fresh mushroom soup for her...and she took! From that day on, everyday was fresh mushroom soup...and she was over 1 year old then. Friends then told me to be patient, and that they will somehow grow. As long as PD thinks she's healthy i.e. active and sleeps ok, then everything is alright.

Don't worry about those nay sayers :) and surround yourself with more people who think positive.

Big hugs!!
Keira Ang said…
hey,

dun worry too much. Claire is a happy and responsive child. so despite not eating much, she is still doing well!

cheer up :)
Jane said…
hi michele,

can totally identify with your feeding woes. i personally think that BM is more palatable to our picky babies than solid food. i used to wonder whether kaizer was a strange baby who just didnt like to eat -- until i read a couple of threads in the local LLL forum and found out that quite a lot of breastfed babies started taking an interest to solid food only when they are 13-14 mths old and are able to self feed. that gave me some consolation cos he was actually born at 90+ percentile, but fell to abt 10+ percentile in jan/feb and i did get a lot of questions about why he was so small sized, esp from "well-meaning" relatives.

was very affected then, but learnt to take it in stride now. on weekdays, kaizer is eating porridge quite like a normal baby since last 2 weeks when i cut down on his BM supply (but weekends when he's with me, i'm not too successful yet). i hope that our picky babies will learn to come to love eating someday very very soon...

on a sidenote, claire's little tummy may be unaccustomed to 100ml of FM at one go. when i used to intro maybe 5-30ml of cows and goat's milk per feed during the desperate period before leaving for cairo, kaizer just puked everything out too.

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