Let me back up. As I'd mentioned, I had been trying to get Noah to start taking bottles during the daytime in order to prepare him for day care. I had originally planned to pump bottles for him, but pumping has yielded little return, and to be honest, my time is too valuable to be spending 20 minutes hooked up to a pump to only get one ounce. For this reason, we tried formula bottles and my plan was to just nurse in the morning and at night.
I had limited success with sending him to my mom's- the first overnight he did okay taking bottles, but the most recent time he more or less went on strike, only drinking 3 oz. in a 27 hour time period. I tried giving him bottles too, but he had largely refused these and on one particular occasion vomited the entire bottle onto me immediately after drinking it. A week later, when he repeated this performance after eating some homemade yogurt/granola/banana smoothie, I began to suspect that I was seeing a pattern. I definitely wanted to get things figured out before he starts day care- I was scared that he would throw up there while he was in his crib and no one would see it happen, among other things. I called the doctor the next morning and believe it or not, they squeezed me in just an hour after my call (with my favorite doctor, too!). The doctor listened very carefully to all of the details (the vomiting had happened only three times in his life, but I just had a mother's intuition) and my strong family history of allergies. She advised me to use Nutramigen formula (free sample, thank goodness!), which is hypoallergenic, and gave me lab orders. The doctor also expressed some concern at his progress on the growth curve- he had fallen off yet again, I believe down to the 10th or 5th percentile. She said that sometimes this happens as they begin to crawl, but suggested that we cut back on solids to encourage more nursing. He LOVES solids and was readily eating 8 oz. per meal, so little wonder that he didn't do much nursing.
It so happened that I already had a lab appointment that same day to do my drug test for school, so I just added a second appointment for Noah. Sadly, taking blood from an infant is far more difficult than when you or I get our blood drawn, as their veins are buried under a nice padding of pudge. They had to stick both arms and do a lot of digging. :( He cried so much that he broke out in hives all over his face (he does this when he cries a lot).
On Wednesday, we finally got the call from the nurse with the results, and my (and my mom's) feeling that he was allergic to something was confirmed. He is highly allergic to dairy, and moderately allergic to dog dander (Jason is in serious denial about this part). We could continue with the Nutramigen, but I thought since it smelled nasty, it probably tasted nasty too, so we might have better success with soy. After two days of trying to decide what would best serve our collective needs (and having a massive battle of the wills with Noah), I decided that it would be less confusing to Noah to just do bottles 100% of the time. In addition to the allergy issue, his lack of weight gain had me thinking more seriously about whether he was getting enough milk while nursing. He's so laid back that he rarely acts hungry so maybe he hasn't been getting enough all along. Going to bottles will allow me to measure his intake and maybe gradually increase it as well.
At first, he would only accept the bottle while sleeping. Oh, and let's not mention the amount of money I've spent on every. single. kind. of bottle and nipple out there. I actually ended up ordering from Amazon the nipples that look like his pacis. They arrived, and lo and behold, they are a proprietary size that didn't fit any of our other bottles. I ended up having to ask a BabiesRus employee to test a bottle (of course the most expensive bottle known to man) with water from the water fountain and the paci-nipple.
Anyways, today was better and he took 3 solid bottle feedings plus a little more. I noticed immediately that his diapers have been WAY heavier, which may be an indication that he was indeed getting shorted at the breast. Now I have to stop eating whatever I want, since I won't have the calorie burn of breastfeeding, but I've also heard that quitting will cause your body to let go of a few "emergency storage" pounds, so we'll hope for that.
Lucky for me (unlucky for my dad and brother), I was raised in a household with VERY allergic people, so I know the drill. Jason will learn the drill (as he started to today when I made him completely wipe his hands and the steering wheel in my car down after eating nuts). We just can't take any chances.Allergies often occur together, and the blood test can have false negatives. So it will be touch and go for a little while. His next appointment is May 8th for his 9 month visit, so hopefully we can figure out next steps and check his weight gain at that time.
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