Back on the breast!

Haven't written in a while... it's difficult for me to remember to post things here! Sorry about that. Good news, I've started breastfeeding again! Not completely full time yet, but am now at 4 feedings a day, with 2 bottles of formula. So far, so good, no bloody stools! The babies have been eating solids too, which has changed our whole routine. They finally seem to enjoy the purees, of course, I usually have to add fruit to anything they eat. We first started with bananas which they liked, after I tried butternut squash which they hated, then avocado... not a big fan of that either. So I started adding bananas to their vegetables, they liked it, but it caused them to strain really hard for their bowel movements! They were making little hard poops, they would cry and scream and it seemed really painful. That's when I read that bananas can cause constipation! So I started giving them apple sauce, pears, and pureed prunes, which has helped a lot. They are a little picky and don't like everything they taste, especially vegetables. And when they don't like something, they gag and even vomit! So I've been adding fruit to pretty much everything they eat, at least they like it that way.

6 month old pictures

Photos des filles a 6 mois

Chaya

Anjali

Mommy and Anjali

Chaya and Bessie (licking some spit-up)

Chaya in the laundry basket

Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Anjali and her buddy Bessie

Mommy and Anjali napping

Chaya (left) and Anjali (right)

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Anjali loving on Bessie

We can both sit up (for a little bit)!

Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

Ready for a walk... Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Chaya (left), Anjali (right)

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

Chaya

Anjali

Cute videos of the girls (5 m.o)

Here are a few videos we took recently of the girls, 5 months old.

 

Anjali can sit up!

I was talking to Prosanta about our friend's twins (who are a bit younger than ours), and one of their babies can already sit up.. then I tried with Anjali and she did it! She sat up for only a few seconds before falling back or to the side, but still, it was a BIG improvement since the last times I had practiced sitting her up! I then tried it with Chaya, but she didn't want to do it. We've been practicing with both girls every day, also putting them on their bellies to see if they'll start to crawl.. no crawling or even trying to crawl yet. Here are a few photos of Anjali!

Five month old photos

Here are some recent photos of the girls.

Anjali (left), Chaya (right)

"How do you like my hair?"

Little old ladies telling each other stories

Chaya rolls over onto her stomach ALL THE TIME lately!

Mommy and Chaya

Anjali

Chaya

Chaya

Anjali wants to chew on Chaya's ear just a little..

Chaya (left) and Anjali (right)

Anjali

Chaya (left) and Anjali (right)

Anjali (left) and Chaya (right)

Eating solids on 6 month old "birthday"!

The girls turned 6 months old today, and we decided to celebrate this with banana puree! We had tried brown rice puree a few weeks ago, but then decided to wait until they were at least 6 months old. They have been REALLY looking at what we eat lately, staring at us. We've cheated and let them suck on a banana from time to time, they seemed to like it, we even gave them tiny little pieces a few times. So I thought bananas would be a good start since they had consumed a little already and seemed to be ok with it. We want to avoid grains for now because of all the allergy and food sensitivities issues. Here are videos of each girl trying banana puree for the first time. As you can see, Chaya was a lot more receptive to the whole idea than Anjali! ;)

No more breastfeeding.. for now

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!