Monday, May 21, 2012

When parenting on the run comes back to bite you

Took Rowan for his 6 month check up and vaccinations last week to discover that his weight gain has slowed fairly dramatically. He gained only 350 grams in just over two months. The average gain is something like 500g a month. Anyway, it wasn't much. He'd dropped back a percentile band on the growth charts and the GP started talking about formula supplements if he doesn't gain another 500g in the next month or so. We only started solids a couple of weeks ago, but I think the gains have been slow for a month or so longer than that.

I think that in the busyness of life, work, managing the other kids, church stuff etc etc, my milk supply has dropped off without me noticing. Perhaps I've been a bit too casual about not bothering with weighing him because he's the fourth child and I thought I knew what I was doing. And Rowan hasn't complained, although he certainly was very excited about the solids starting and has already been gobbling up huge amounts in the relatively short time since we started them.

So it was back to the lactation consultant for some advice. I'm now drinking a fairly yukky tasting herbal mixture that's supposed to increase supply. Eating lots of porridge for breakfast (oats are good for milk supply too). Expressing after the morning feed when there's a bit more milk.  Trying to convince Rowan to take extra feeds during the day. He's not particularly convinced. I think he might have gotten used to me saying "just let me do this one more thing, and then I'll feed you" so he's not sure why he's getting all these extra offers.

Debating whether to go and get a prescription for some more Motillium. I used this with Rosie to keep my supply up in the early days when she wasn't feeding well and stayed on it for months until solids were going well, which meant I really didn't have to think about milk supply at all with her. I have about four days worth of that left but I'll need more to keep going with since you can't just stop taking it cold turkey.

Determined to avoid formula if I possibly can. I've never had to give it to any of the other kids and I'm not keen to start now.

Trying to stay calm about it (not easy, but I had a good expressing session this morning which made me feel a bit better about things). We have a quiet week coming up. The silver bus is back at the repair shop after my latest crash in it so we won't be going far from home. Plenty of time to sort things out.

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