Which makes mommy very very sad. Babies still had blood in their stool, after I was off dairy for about 3 months, and soy for 3 weeks. So the pediatric gastroenterologist wanted me to start them on this special formula called Elecare (it contains pre-digested proteins, the amino acids are easier to digest) for 6 weeks, and then we can try breastfeeding again. If the blood is still there, they will have to stay on the formula. I've cried a lot over this whole thing, I REALLY wanted to exclusively breastfeed the girls for about a year. It makes me sad that they can't digest my milk properly, and it was damaging their intestines. I've decided to eliminate the top 8 food allergens from my diet (dairy, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts), to see if it helps them digest my milk later on when we try breastfeeding again. This makes eating VERY difficult and tricky. It's not like I have tons of free time to go shopping for special ingredients, plan my meals and then cook them! But breastfeeding is very important to me, and I want to try everything I can to make it possible again.
So the formula adventure started a few days ago.. the babies HATE this new formula. I first tried giving it to them on its own, but they refused to drink it, they screamed and cried and wanted nothing to do with it. So then I mixed in a little breastmilk, didn't work. I basically had to give them a full bottle of breastmilk with a dash of formula in it to make them drink it. I kept trying to increase the amount of formula, but they really hated it. I tasted it myself to see if it really was that horrible, and I have to admit it tastes pretty bad, it has a bitter taste to it. So after reading about experiences with this formula online, we decided to try adding a little maple syrup to it, and VOILA, they took right to it! We've already reduced the amount of syrup by almost half, and it's only been a few days, so I'm pretty sure we will be able to wean them off the syrup until they are drinking only the pure formula.
I thought I was busy before... but now I have to make bottles, we have to constantly clean a whole bunch of bottles, not to mention finding the time to pump regularly everyday, if I want to keep my milk supply up. It's definitely been a big pain in the butt, but now that they are at least drinking the stuff pretty easily, it makes feeding them a little less stressful. Ok, a LOT less stressful. At one point, I'm not sure who was crying more, the babies, or me! Boy do I miss the ease of just lifting up my shirt to feed them, not to mention the poops! Compared to these formula poops, their breastmilk poops smelled like roses! They made mustard before, now we've moved on to pesto! YUCK!
No comments:
Post a Comment