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Have they made alimentum taste any better? My daughter had CMPA and good god that stuff was rancid. She refused to take more than a couple sips. We had to get some overseas formula to find hydrolyzed formula that tasted ok.
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Jan 20, 2024 15:29
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It definitely still smells like off brand fish food. Milk is going to blow my youngest’s mind in comparison.
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Jan 20, 2024 15:42
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Now is a great time to start practicing attitudes around eating (for the parent!!) so when they’re bigger you have it on lock. A healthy baby won’t starve themselves, and their appetites come and go as they grow and or/learn. It’s the same with toddlers and children. If they’re not hungry, don’t push it. Offer it again at the next feeding time. If they start dropping percentiles or you think something is genuinely off, see your pediatrician. But if baby is otherwise on track but just less hungry than usual, trust that they know what their stomach wants.
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Jan 20, 2024 16:45
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Bi-la kaifa posted:Hey thread! Just became a dad last Sunday, looking for ways to support my wife through breastfeeding and I guess reassurance that we're doing ok at it. Milk came in yesterday and the kid has been cluster feeding the last two days. I'm making sure wife is getting enough sleep/food/water/emotional support but she's falling into bouts of hopelessness that things will not improve, we'll be feeding every 15 minutes forever, and the boob is the only way to have her stop fussing. We went 100% breast milk, but we very quickly moved to 100% pumping. From our standpoint the big thing that we were focusing on was getting the milk in the kid, so whether it came from breast or a bottle was kind of a moot point. This was originally out of necessity because she was a few weeks premature and was having trouble latching. Even after she got older, though, we stayed 100% bottle for a couple of big reasons: 1) it let us know how much she was eating, which as important because she had to pack on weight. 2) mom wasn't having to sit and nurse all day long. I was able to pick up a lot of that slack, especially when it came to the middle of the night feedings. 3) the pump was a hell of a lot more gentle on mom's nipples. No chapping or chafing, plus our daughter is apparently part piranha and ends up chewing extra holes in the nipples. With no teeth. Real enthusiastic about chomping the hell out of that nipple to increase flow. Which really doesn't seem like it would be fun on a person. edit: oh and 4) it's cheaper. This is kiiiiiinda a wash when you factor in pumping supplies and freezer bags etc but holy cow formula can get expensive where we are. and 5) we're lucky enough that mom produces a ton so the supply is regular. We were looking around going  when that big formula shortage happened a while ago. It feels dumb to say that you won't have to worry about getting mugged buying formula off a sketchy scalper in a parking lot but lol here we are. I'm 100% on team milk if it's possible for mom and baby, but don't listen to people who try to insist it has to be actual breast feeding. There are tons of opportunities for everyone to bond with the kid. Rasputin on the Ritz fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jan 20, 2024 |
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Jan 20, 2024 16:59
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Bi-la kaifa posted:and if we supplement to start it'll be a slippery slope but I'm not sure if that's entirely rational. I think I've told this story before, but when we we in postpartum with our first the nurse asked if we planned to breastfeed, which, "yes", and so they gave a very brief tutorial on what to do and left us on our own. Of course, things didn't go great the first two nights, so we were able to get a lactation consult the next day right before discharge, and the consultant said "oh you should try supplementing" which we didn't even know was an option! Once we asked, they brought us free bottles of ready mix which was great, but we were discharged like an hour later. With our next two we knew to ask for supplementation immediately so we got a train of free ready mix as long as we were in the hospital. In hindsight though, I wish that supplementation was just presented as more of an option. You don't have to exclusively breastfeed to get the benefits of breastfeeding, and you definitely don't have to exclusively breastfeed during the crucial first week, especially if you have a pump and are planning to pump as well.
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Jan 20, 2024 22:44
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ExcessBLarg! posted:With all three of ours we supplemented during the first week while mom was getting her supply up, and then exclusively breastfeed/pumped for at least six months after. Honestly I'm not really sure how you would do it otherwise, babies are obviously hungry during the first three days of life and they're--not getting fed. Our hospital offered donor milk during that period. They even sent us home with some (iirc it was $60 for 20oz or something like that - basically two or three day's worth for a newborn) although we didn't end up needing it because mom's milk came fully online right when we got home.
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Jan 20, 2024 23:00
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With #1 we were worried because she seemed dehydrated and when we called the on call pediatrician they were like, give her formula you dummies. With #2 idk if my boobs were just primed or what but nursing was pretty easy from the get go. Babies are weird and always different.
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Jan 20, 2024 23:07
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If you're gonna do a toddler birthday party can you please do everyone a favor and tie like, a balloon, a ribbon, stuffed animal whatever to your mailbox or doorknob or whatever Thanks for attending my Ted talk
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Jan 20, 2024 23:12
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After meeting with the midwife this morning we're going to supplement with formula. I think that bit of validation as well as assurance that there's nothing wrong with the kid or her supply. She's put on about 65g per day since the last visit so the kid is just a hungry hungry hippo. I think our plan now is to use formula for some uninterrupted sleep and see if we can incorporate pumping as I transition back to work. Wife feels better about it now that she's gonna sleep a few hours a night so hopefully we've left that particular hell behind and will be entering a new kind soon.
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Jan 20, 2024 23:22
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Parenting thread: hopefully we've left that particular hell behind and will be entering a new kind soon
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Jan 20, 2024 23:23
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Me miserable! Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven. (The last bit of your post made me think of that. But seriously, a bit of sleep can make all the difference.)
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Jan 20, 2024 23:29
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Bi-la kaifa posted:After meeting with the midwife this morning we're going to supplement with formula. I think that bit of validation as well as assurance that there's nothing wrong with the kid or her supply. She's put on about 65g per day since the last visit so the kid is just a hungry hungry hippo. If it makes you feel any better, we are mostly breastfeeding a 9 day old and mom’s milk supply is a little scant especially in the evening. Baby gets pumped milk plus formula from dad for the two night time feeds which gives mom a break and makes them a bit quicker and more efficient. We wanted to fully breastfeed but it doesn’t necessarily work out for various reasons and popping a little formula in the little guy has helped him be less hungry in the wee hours of the morning.
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Jan 21, 2024 01:48
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My wife's milk supply never showed up. We rented the hospital pump and everything, but she'd only get a few ml out every time, so we had to just give up.
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Jan 21, 2024 01:51
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we are 100% breast but transitioning to 1 bottle a day to start prepping for daycare, what worked for us was getting a lactation consultant covered through the lactation network - she literally came to our house and helped us through several feeds and did a weighted feeding (with her ghostbusters proton pack scale) to figure out how it went we are rounding on 7 weeks now and it's been fine but it just happened to work for us, my wife really wanted to do it because supposedly breastfeeding helps with postpartum recovery and she did recover super fast
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Jan 21, 2024 02:01
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Eeyo posted:My wife's milk supply never showed up. We rented the hospital pump and everything, but she'd only get a few ml out every time, so we had to just give up. I think at max my wife had 4 oz a day, so he was getting formula day 1. At 2 1/2 he's still gets toddler formula because he's such a picky eater we want to make sure he's getting enough actual vitamins.
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Jan 21, 2024 05:09
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My kid’s CMPA both showed up right when everyone was really taking off with breastfeeding. Frustrating, but the diagnosis and weaning process meant my wife was able to save up a ton of milk to donate. Something like 40+ lbs each time.
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Jan 21, 2024 06:15
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I was able to 100% breast feed my first, actually had oversupply and ended up giving a few hundred ounces to some friends. My second was 50/50 breast and formula because my supply sucked due to stress. That was also during the huge formula shortage, so sometimes I had to drive to 3 or 4 different stores to find some in stock that was covered by WIC. Once, a store only had one can of formula left, I brought it to the register to see if it would be covered by some miracle, and it wasn’t, so I left without buying it. A woman ran after me in the parking lot and gave me the formula because she bought it for me, and there I was, sobbing and hugging a stranger. Anyway, do what it takes to get your baby’s tummy full, it doesn’t matter if it’s straight from the boob, pumping, bottle, formula, whatever. And don’t beat yourself up off it’s not what you pictured.
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Jan 21, 2024 18:40
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Bi-la kaifa posted:Hey thread! Just became a dad last Sunday, looking for ways to support my wife through breastfeeding and I guess reassurance that we're doing ok at it. Milk came in yesterday and the kid has been cluster feeding the last two days. I'm making sure wife is getting enough sleep/food/water/emotional support but she's falling into bouts of hopelessness that things will not improve, we'll be feeding every 15 minutes forever, and the boob is the only way to have her stop fussing. Does your baby let go of the breast when he/she falls asleep? Our first didn’t, despite assurances from the lactation nurse that she would. She also wouldn’t sleep more than 15 minutes at a time, just like yours. Our conclusion was that the baby needs to suckle in order to stay asleep, which just doesn’t work because you get nipple sores that way. What helped for us? A pacifier. Judiciously applied, when you are reasonably confident the baby is not hungry, it might be the solution to all your problems. Try it, it’s much cheaper than formula! If pacifier doesn’t work, baby might actually just not be getting enough from the boob, in which case you could for example supplement with a small bottle in the evening. (Prepare for the best sleep you’ve had in weeks.)
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Jan 21, 2024 19:41
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Our conclusion was that the baby needs to suckle in order to stay asleep, which just doesn’t work because you get nipple sores that way. We went formula but yeah our kiddo absolutely would not sleep without a pacifier. To the point that we'd position her so when she fell asleep the pacifier wouldn't fall out of her mouth. When we transitioned her to the crib we made sure to get mam glow in the dark pacifiers and "charge" them on the lamp before bed so we could find them at night And yeah formula supplement at night makes sense, allows them to fully top off before sleeping for 6+ hours Again, we were on formula, but I think a big massive feeding before bed helped a lot with sleeping through the night. It always surprises me when boob feeding people talk about worrying about them getting enough milk because that was never once a problem with formula Hadlock fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jan 21, 2024 |
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Jan 21, 2024 20:43
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You can tell exactly how much you’re feeding with formula or pumped milk, but if they’re on the boob you have no idea.
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Jan 22, 2024 00:10
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I took my 3 year old to a birthday party today at an indoor playground. His favorite was the ball pit. On the way home he tells me, "I'm all covered in ball sweat!"
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Jan 22, 2024 00:50
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:You can tell exactly how much you’re feeding with formula or pumped milk, but if they’re on the boob you have no idea. Yeah it's just something I never thought about. I logged all formula consumption to the 5ml and was doing daily consumption totals, rolling average and trends etc.  I should put that in a spreadsheet With the boob you just... I guess sit there until one of you gets bored or run out of milk or full, and then weigh the kid every week or so
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Jan 22, 2024 02:28
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Yeah I tracked our boy’s formula feedings. TBH it was mostly for us, nobody ever asked us for a spreadsheet, just roughly how much he was eating.
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Jan 22, 2024 02:55
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Surprised they haven’t made opaque bottles with no markings for the 100% boob experience. Just pour some poo poo in and see what happens
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Jan 22, 2024 02:59
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A few scattered thoughts: - Thanks for the tips about how to work on frustration with my 2 year old. She’s definitely recognizing those situations better and gives me a better framework for taking a time out and talking with her about it. (She’s amazingly perceptive) - Nara App for tracking feedings and sleep has been great. Keeps it in sync for me, mom, and grandma to all stay on the same page. - Snoo was great, we got it at a discount. Really helped those first 4 months, but will echo that it also made sense that we were planning on two kiddos. Even took it with us on a trip when she was 3 months old; worth it. She eventually aged out and was fine; we used a Hatch to make sure she still had white noise. Will sell it after the second one ages out so it ends up being around 75-100 bucks a month, depending on what we get? - To the person wondering about day care First Week; we went through similar. They deviated from our planned schedule a lot. Nice teachers but they needed to adjust to her as much as our daughter needed to adjust to the center. Talked it over with the director and that helped a lot in getting everyone on the same page. That said… we still left about 5 months later when the better teacher got a nanny gig, and then they kept missing naps or feedings and barely doing anything like reading or playing with her. Went to another center that was better setup (Early Infant and Late Infant split class, rather than having walking infants in the same class as infants that weren’t even crawling) - Another thing that helped with surviving the first daycare was that I was working for a west coast company and remote in the east coast, so I’d let her get that early nap before taking her to school. Less chance of a missed/short nap. - When evaluating daycares, see if your state has a registry where you can look up inspections. You can get a really good sense of the good daycares from the stuff they get caught - One bad daycare I toured turned out they were also negligent and not locking away dangerous chemicals. Pretty good correlation of “i’ve got bad vibes about this” and incidents like that in my touring of about 10-15 places.
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Jan 22, 2024 03:31
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If it makes you feel any better, we are mostly breastfeeding a 9 day old and mom’s milk supply is a little scant especially in the evening. Baby gets pumped milk plus formula from dad for the two night time feeds which gives mom a break and makes them a bit quicker and more efficient. We wanted to fully breastfeed but it doesn’t necessarily work out for various reasons and popping a little formula in the little guy has helped him be less hungry in the wee hours of the morning. We switched to combo on day 5 of his life after he had lost more weight than expected and the pediatrician recommended it. I hadn't been committed to fully breastfeeding before the birth, but the lactation consultant in the hospital was pushing breastfeeding only at first and I didn't really know much about either method. I hemorrhaged at birth and my milk didn't come in for a little while, then it was never in these dramatic quantities everyone else seemed to achieve. There were too many pump parts to clean in between pumping, and it was hard to find the time and energy to set it up just to get a paltry amount out. Controversial, but unless you can pump a lot of milk, I think supplementing is better. Every time I saw someone in my due date groups who was extremely exhausted and stressed out, and doing almost all of the newborn care, they were usually exclusively breastfeeding with little to no bottle usage. It seems like if you supplement, you're supposed to be deeply apologetic about it and also exhaust yourself trying to fix make it work through intensive pumping and other strategies. My son weaned himself at 8 months, 8 months ago, and I do miss parts of breastfeeding (before he had teeth) but the amount of stress to exclusively breastfeed just seemed unnecessary. Our pediatrician said any amount of breastfeeding has benefits, so that made it easier to just accept what he could get from me. You can determine how much milk they're taking in from breastfeeding, but it involves weighing them before and after on a baby scale. Lactation consultants will work with you on that if you ever have concerns on how much they're getting. For apps: we relied religiously on Huckleberry. I'm mostly the only one using it at this point, but it's free and tracks a lot of different baby-related activities...mostly helpful for sleep, diapers, and feedings. Mistaken Frisbee fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 03:59
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Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:12
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I have no idea why it took me years to get dishwashing gloves but they’re the best thing I received for Christmas.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:14
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So after an (adult) birthday party that had our 3yo grazing on high-sugar baked goods for three hours, we were home and sitting on the kitchen floor. He pointed to a box of baby spinach on the counter and said "I'm gonna eat everything in that box!" Over the next half-hour, I fed him a quarter pound of baby spinach, one leaf at a time. We even checked in a few times, but nope he was adamant that he was eating the whole box. It was like the Very Hungry Caterpillar or something.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:35
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Well keep us posted if he makes a cocoon, this should get interesting.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:37
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nachos posted:Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears. I’m constantly frustrated since a lot of advice is pretty mixed. It just feels like I’m in the middle of the baby holy wars and nobody actually knows anything. That said back to sleep is fine, it really took no effort on our part to put him down facing up. It was just a bit more anxiety than anything. Easy to execute but now you have to worry about how the little baby is sleeping.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:41
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Our second kid has made me realize what a cheat code it is to have a kid that sleeps on their back without issue and also how unreasonable it is to assume all kids can sleep that way. Our first just would not sleep on her back due to CMPA and a generally anxious disposition that made it near impossible for her to settle or sleep for any length of time like that. We didn’t do anything different, except one kid came out at 37 weeks and one came out at 39.9 and lo and behold the 39 week kid sleeps on his back without much issue at all.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:47
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nachos posted:Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears. Strong agree The argument for "breast milk helps with immunity" argument is so weak it's more accurate to just call it a lie. If anything the breastfeeding movement has helped raise the struggles of motherhood in the modern workforce and we have lactation stations in offices and airports now.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:52
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Do what works for you. I exclusively breastfed both of mine and it was fine and easy for us. My second didn’t even take bottles because pumping was an annoying hassle for me and I just worked from home by then. Some of my friends exclusively pumped. Some went to formula and never looked back. All our babies grew up to be active elementary kids who are within acceptable tolerances of normal!
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Jan 22, 2024 05:15
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Hadlock posted:Strong agree I do believe there's good evidence for it actually and it's linked to a bunch of positive long term health outcomes (at least for the first 6 months to a year)...but I agree that it's deeply deeply pushed way too hard. Our kid had formula from day 1 and had a little bit of it in the mix throughout the first year. There are reasons that I won't go into, but there's an attitude out there like you have to justify that when the only outcome that anyone should be laser focused on is "fed baby, best baby."
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Jan 22, 2024 06:09
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nachos posted:Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears. Sleeping on their backs itself is good, but it is a lot how much it seems like every year, anything that makes it even slightly easier to put your baby to sleep turns out to be dangerous for your baby, and most places where your baby will naturally fall asleep (carseat) are dangerous for baby sleep. Even stuff people used a decade ago seems to be condemned as a SIDS risk now. I met someone who ran a breastfeeding advocacy organization, and she was surprisingly very positive and chill. Had probably been in the field for decades. Any breastfeeding attempts were a success in her book, and she said her group was really frustrated by the AAP's recommendation for 2 years of breastfeeding because it's extremely difficult to even get people to 1 year. And even getting folks to get their babies to sleep on their backs, even if it wasn't in the ideal crib setup, was a big positive improvement to her. That all made me feel pretty good after all of the intensity you get around babycare guidance. El Mero Mero posted:Our kid had formula from day 1 and had a little bit of it in the mix throughout the first year. There are reasons that I won't go into, but there's an attitude out there like you have to justify that when the only outcome that anyone should be laser focused on is "fed baby, best baby." I always feel like even "fed is best" has a bit of a consolation tone to it. Like, you can only fail at breastfeeding, not be failed by it. Mistaken Frisbee fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 06:40
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Hadlock posted:Strong agree The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a policy statement backed up by an extensive technical report going over the benefits of breastfeeding: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/1/e2022057989/188348/Technical-Report-Breastfeeding-and-the-Use-of
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Jan 22, 2024 07:35
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Muir posted:The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a policy statement backed up by an extensive technical report going over the benefits of breastfeeding: I'll review this tomorrow, about to head to bed but at a cursory glance there appear to be a number of glaring asteriks on the report linked. cailleask posted:Do what works for you. I do agree with this
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Jan 22, 2024 07:43
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One of my biggest regrets in life is not telling the random lady in target who started formula shaming that my wife died in labor. My problem with breast feeding is the absolutely insane culture of mandatory self harm surrounding it and the shaming that occurs when you choose to not partake. It's bad enough that there's an extremely crunchy subset of moms out there who think C-Sections don't count as giving birth and are just the easy way out. OOOoooOOOoOOooooh but it's so unnatural it's better to do things the natural way. You know what else is natural? Dying in childbirth. No thanks I quite like my family and prefer them to be alive. (not to mention that there's nothing easy about a C-Section, that poo poo is traumatic as hell) nachos posted:Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears. I'm excited to find out what the stupid baby advice is when my kids have kids. We're at a point where I can't think of of any ways to make it any harder than it is already. There's already an anti-swaddle movement going around and I feel like that's the only tool we have left. It doesn't help that my wife has ingested every piece of SIDS related information in existence because of her job so now it's become a point of unhealthy obsession with her to the point that she's put an embargo on white noise machines. I'm not spending elevendy gazillion dollars on a Snoo anyway but her professional opinion is that it's a baby death machine and in 2 years we're going to see widespread recalls just like every popular baby product in existence because we're not allowed to have nice things. Then she wonders why she can't get any sleep at night. Renegret fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 12:56
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nachos posted:Every generation has its stupid baby advice in hindsight and my hot take is that we’ve done the opposite of boomers and made it as hard as loving possible to raise kids between the insistence on breastfeeding and “back to sleep” because of SIDS fears. I’ve convinced myself that SIDS is a late-stage capitalism ‘disorder’ that largely affects poor people. Digging into the stats seems to support that impression, but it’s not like I have time to run models. It’s never been a topic in Europe when we still lived there, and I’m kind of curious to see if it has changed. But that impression has just reinforced my take that SIDS happens to overworked and overstressed folk who medicate / take drugs. Similarly, I don’t get having kids sleep in their own bed at a young age. It feels profoundly off “anthropologically” if that makes sense? But then, lots of things that humans did for (tens of) thousands of years were. I’ve been unable to find good research on this topic, but it feels like we as a society could be causing systemic psychological harm to our children. On a more upbeat note, the malleability of children doesn’t cease to amaze me. Our daughter got a random unicorn plushie for her 4th birthday that happens to look like a character in a series of Polish children’s books that deal with emotions. I grabbed one of the books that happened to deal with anger, and we read about how that unicorn sometimes feels angry, and how they deal with anger - basically by doing a breathing exercise. That evening, she gets upset at her younger brother, and I remind her of her unicorn friend. We do the breathing exercise, and she goes “much better now”.
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Jan 22, 2024 13:09
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