We've been weaning. Kate and I. We're down to two feedings, morning and night. I am happy with the decision, life has been less stressful because of it, and she was ready. Until...
Until we needed to give her formula. We tried to give her a bottle of it -- twice -- last week, and she refused. Missed both feedings because of it. My husband tells me we should use up our store of breastmilk and then when we're out, we're out and she'll have to deal.
Why, why did I listen? I mean, the man is a rocket scientist, but has he ever spent all day with a baby? Nope. All day with a hungry baby? Double nope.
Right, so yesterday, here's the picture... We are out of breastmilk. No option there. Daddy P had just turned in his dissertation draft to his adviser after pulling an all-nighter and was strung out on caffeine and sleep-deprivation. Meanwhile, Kate nurses at 6am, as normal, and goes back to sleep. Then the 9am refusal to eat. Not happy about the formula, not happy about having to nap hungry, but so tired she eventually conks out after some complaining. She gets her normal solid food at lunch, then again refuses her after-lunch bottle of formula.
The fussiness ramps up a step. Manage to get her down for her nap (praise the gods) and when she wakes she is not normal-chipper-happy-go-lucky Kate. She is ravenous, why-are-you-holding-out-on-me Kate. I decide I have to leave. This house is too small for such hunger. Paul gets home and I pack up the family for a trip to Ikea to walk around in air conditioning (oh, did I mention our AC is broken as of Saturday?) and try not to spend money (ha!). Cried on the way up, enjoyed looking at all the pretties in the store, cried all the way home.
At this point, Daddy P is zonked, my nerves are fried, and he (deservedly) heads up for a nap. I take Kate outside to hang out and try (haha silly mom) to give her her afternoon bottle. She spends the next hour trying to claw her way into my shirt. Seriously. It almost made me cry.
Dinnertime. I finally taste the stuff we're trying to make her drink and gag. It tastes like blood. I kid you not. The Enfamil Gentle-something or other is so packed with iron you'd think that I'm raising my very own vampire. Bleck.
So, I pull out trusty formula #2, a soy-free, dairy-free, hippy-brand we bought thinking it would be good for her tummy. I taste. Iron! So nasty! What are they doing to these babies? Trying to create a race of cannibals?!
Thank heavens for all those annoying samples you get at the hospital. I pull out Nestle's big green formula can. Now this is promising, right? Nestle! They make chocolate! I love chocolate! And Kate should love it too since I ate pounds of it while she was in utero! The genetic factor is doubled since both my mother-in-law and myself have a chocolate tooth that no pliers could remove.
I mix up a batch. In between servings of finger food she sucks down a half ounce... then another... then another... finally she got two ounces in her. I rejoiced! She will not pass out from dehydration! My baby will live!
Then my brilliant doc friend, Jenn, suggests mixing some with breastmilk. Which, thankfully, I could still pull off. Reluctantly, I pulled the pump out one...more...time... (Figures that yesterday I actually put all the parts away in storage.) And after dinner she sucked that bottle down without a problem.
Lesson learned: if they can make chocolate, they can make baby food.
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