calling all the moms!

[Judy]

Quote:
Mine was overdue by a month, and underweight at birth; he had obviously lost weight the last part of the pregnancy; all his skin peeled after birth, which is a sign of this. (Never mind why this happened; that's another story.) But he was HUNGRY. Breast feeding was a futile effort. I did it for several weeks, but he would literally have starved if I hadn't done more. I did try adding a little cereal to a bottle at first, but switched to a spoon pretty quickly. Cute little tiny vinyl coated thing.

 

[kagedgoddess]

Quote:

Says a lot....

I took my son off the bottle when he threw one out the car window. He couldn't hold a cup upright, but he could drink from it just fine. No sippy cups back then.

LOL my sister lost her bottle when she bit the nipple off and dumped the contents on my head and said HA HA. 25years ago (i cant exactly rememeber how old she is now) or more and i Still remember how shocked I was!!

 

[sweet tweets]

I have to say I am totally against adding the cereal to the bottle. In fact, I had really not heard of that. Yes, when I thought the babies maybe needed "a little bit more" I gave them some cereal using it mixed with formula and with a spoon. But not as an infant that could not even sit up or hold a bottle.
Kids are 16, 20, and 23 now, I don't worry about how they sleep or what they drink....except the youngest....

 

[briana1975]

All three of my kids were diffrent. My step sons mom wanted him to sleep through the night and started cereal about 2 weeks in and ended up with a VERY constipated and colicy[sp] baby who wouldn't sleep and cried alot.
My first son was a pain in the butt at nursing and would nurse every hour a little at a time. We started him on baby oatmeal[ hoping to avoid the constipation] at 3 months. It did help at night. I wasn't up every hour, only every 3 to 4 hours. I thought that was better.
My last baby was a pig. He would nurse and nurse spit up, and 3 hours later he was back at it. I waited till closer to the 6 month mark because he did eat so well and slept better than my first.
Good luck with whatever you decide. If it is just a sleeping thing have you tried swaddling. It worked wonders for my cousins baby. She was a terrible sleeper and it was like a whole new baby after they started to swaddle her for bedtime.

 

[mrbstephens]

Quote:
I'm not a mom yet (pregnant) but i plan to BF for a very long time and offer solids when my baby is individually ready for them. I also plan to BF as long as my baby needs to. They say doing that omits issues of needing to mash up food and all that stuff. I personally just want to be as natural as possible

Good for you! I hope you will contact a La Leche League Leader or attend one of their meetings. They are so fabulous and it's also nice to meet other moms who raise their babies on breastmilk as well as attachment parenting moms! I've been BFing non stop for the past (almost) 6 years. I'm dreading the day my darling 3 year old daughter weans. We won't be having anymore children which means this would be the end of this wonderful part of my life.

Feeding babies any type of solid food before their digestive system is able to handle it is a bad idea. Not only will they suffer from painful gas, constipation, diarhea, but they are also more likely to develop food allergies, skin rashes and even asthma.

The Academy of Pediatrics says to look for signs that a baby is ready for solids. Sitting up, the pincers grasp and being able to bring food to their mouth on their own.

 

[debilorrah]

Since my son was going through 10 eight ounce bottles of formula during daylight hours at 4 weeks old, we started giving him cereal in his formula at that time. He didn't get overweight, he didn't get sick. What he got was HAPPY! AND he slept 6 hours straight at night!

 

[Judy]

Quote:

Says a lot, too.

Kids really do tell us what they need.

 

[gritsar]

I didn't have time to read thru all the responses, so I'll just add my experience.
I breast fed both my kids. I didn't start them on solid foods until they were nine months old. Up to that point they were gaining weight fine on breast milk alone and my ped. said I didn't need to start the solids until they failed to gain less than 2 lbs. a month; which was at nine months for both of them.
I had a ton of breast milk. My son went from 7 lb. 14 oz. at birth to 10 lbs. 13 oz. at TWO weeks old. I didn't know you weren't suppose to feed them every time they cried, so he opened his mouth I stuck a nipple in it.

My daughter weighed 8 lb. 6 oz. at birth and was 18 lbs. at 4 months old. She looked like a baby hippo.
Okay, back on topic. I started solids at 9 months and they never had commercially prepared baby food. Their first foods were cheerios and bananas. They never had a bottle, just went straight to the cup. I continued to nurse until my son was 2 years old and my daughter was 16 months.

 

[FrenchHen]

I tried the cereal thing, and it backfired for us. My oldest was Ok with it at 4 months, but my youngest wasn't ready until 6 months. when I tried to encourage the younger, he got really upset. So I backed off.

I started both on oats, not rice.

 

[Judy]

The OP is evidently not having problems with the baby sleeping, but I agree, swaddling is a great thing to try for this problem. I suspect the confinement simulates the womb, which obviously works well for some babies. Seems to have worked well for all those women who have squatted in a field to deliver, placed the child in a carrier on their back, and continued with their rice planting, or whatever. Depends why a baby is not sleeping, I think.

I really feel that their digestive systems develop at different rates, and that is the base cause for all these differences in what is best to feed, and when. In the end, it is a matter of observing the child and going with what works. And I think our instincts are really pretty good at guessing what might work best, if we don't get them too clouded with any set-in-stone beliefs we may have.

For the OP, frankly, my feeling is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. This child is sleeping longer at two weeks than mine did before 6 months. (Colic is no fun.)