Monday, October 8, 2007

Mmmmmm!

I often wonder why God made it so we needed to eat three (sometimes more) times a day. It seems like He could have let eat once a week or even once a day. Much of my time as a stay at home mom is spent getting/preparing/cleaning up food for my family.

My best theory on the subject is He did it for the sake of fellowship. So we can eat meals together and relax. On Friday night, that is what we did. We ate with our friends Brad and Kathleen and their son Jake. (And the soon to be born daughter Cara!)

Here is a picture of Cole enjoying the pie. Mmmmmm! Don't you want to go eat now...

This picture is slightly deceiving, however, because both of my boys are having food issues right now. Cole doesn't really like to eat. Unless it is cheese, he can take it or leave it. He likes sweets pretty well, but doesn't get to have them unless he eats some dinner first. Dinner time is a constant struggle.

Logan, on the other hand, loves to eat. This is a problem lately because I have not had enough milk for him. I had to start supplementing with formula. I am not La Leche league (or even close--although I have been invited to a meeting once when I was nursing at a restaurant), but I enjoy nursing and personally I really want to nurse my kids for a year. That did not happen with Cole. My milk went away at six months, and although I tried everything but medicine, it would not come back.

For Logan, my milk went away at three months. He woke up one morning and his diaper was not wet at all (and I had put it on thirteen hours earlier!). My normally happy baby became fussy and uncomfortable and couldn't sleep. So after supplements for him and all kinds of good things for me (including, but not limited to pumping after every feeding, increasing calories, drinking a crazy amount of water, fenugreek...) the lactation consultant, doctor and I decided that taking medicine was the only way to bring it back. So I am taking what they commonly take in Canada and Europe for nursing problems. It is called domeperidon. It has some controversy--in the past it may have been harmful to very sick patients that took it in very large doses in the form of an IV, but it is now considered to be safe for the baby and for the mom--and it has worked very well in amping up the milk production.

So we have been able to stop supplementing for now, Logan is sleeping better and my wonderful, happy baby is back and he has stopped losing weight. We have another week before we start trying to ween off the medicine and we see if I can keep the milk production up on my own. For now, I am less stressed since the medicine is working and enjoying the conscious increase in calories. In fact, I had better end this entry because I am currently feeling that I need to help Logan out by eating another bowl of ice cream!

3 comments:

Kelly said...

Lauren- I agree keeping babies fed is a stressful thing-especially with the nursing. We've been having supply and demand issues as well for several months now. I am proud of you for being so proactive about things! Way to go! I hope everything continues to work out.
Kelly

MacFadyen Clan said...

thanks for your post on this topic! yes, one meal a day would be fantastic. I too get frustrated with having to come up with what to serve my toddler to entice him to eat. I had milk supply issues with quade at 3 months and i'm hoping i don't have the same problems this time...but i'm sure i will since i'm a lot busier this time around. good to know there are medical options! miss ya!

Christy@pipandsqueak said...

I will pray for you and your milk supply. I know it is so frustrating when you want to nurse so badly and you are struggling.

I am also having struggles with Katherine. I feel like she eats the same 3 or 4 foods every day. She is such a skinny thing that often I feel like a failure for not getting her to eat. I guess we are all there with these toddlers.