At Peace Now...

Ethan Update:

Ok so as you can probably imagine - Thursday was not a good day. I cried about 3 hours straight - probably a combination of hormones being crazy and Ethan refusing to eat - but overall, he had about 10 oz of formula by the time Ryan got home and I was just spent. I went to WalMart to do some grocery shopping and have some quiet time (ha! You know it's bad when your quiet time is going to walmart!)... but I came back with a clear head and a peace about this whole situation. I prayed a lot - which will always make it very clear when things seem very fuzzy. I made a decision about what to do. As a mom, you just get instincts about your child - and that's what I was ignoring. I was just trying to "figure it out" instead of just listening to what my baby was trying to relay to me.


Straight up: the soy formula does NOT work for my child. He hates and I cannot blame him whatsoever. It smells disgusting and I tasted it and almost gagged myself. I think people who think kids can't tell the difference haven't seen my child at work. Case in point: I fed him as much as I could of it - because the doc said to give it a shot (again) - and he immediately tried to spit it all out of his mouth. Each time I tried, he would take a sip and refuse to take anymore. By the end of the day yesterday, he barely had eaten and was starving but super stubborn. At his last bottle, I threw away the soy, made him the regular similac sensitive and he saw the bottle and started crying - just LOOKING AT IT, he cried. So I knew he thought it was the soy again but I wanted to him to try it so he could see it wasn't... finally he took a sip, still crying and fighting. Realizing it was not the soy, his eyes opened big and he opened his mouth wide and took 4.5 oz without stopping! Poor baby was starving!!!

So here's where I finally came to peace with all this: Ethan will usually eat the similac sensitive and even though he will fight the bottle occasionally, I can still get about 18-20 oz a day on most days and he's obviously satisfied with that because he sleeps all night most nights! So what the heck am I stressing about!? I decided he's probably rejecting it after an oz or two because he's not that hungry - after all, each bottle has cereal in it so it's naturally making him more full. So I thought about it and - what do I do if I'm not that hungry and it's lunchtime? I wait an hour or so and usually I'm hungry by then!! DING DING!!! So I decided that instead of feeding him every 2.5 hours, I'm going to offer him a bottle every 3.5 hours. Everything I've read has said that babies w/ reflux need to eat more often - which is what's been throwing me off. So I need to stop reading crap and just listen to ETHAN!!! So he's now on a more "chill" schedule and the last 2 days has eaten SO MUCH BETTER! He loves it and he's napping great!!! As far as the gas, even though it doesn't seem to bother him, it still can't be comfortable so I think I'm going to try oatmeal in his bottle instead of rice cereal and see if that helps. If so, awesome. If not, I'm going to wait a month or two and see if the gas thing goes away on it's own like it did with Jackson.

I'm still going through with the upper GI because I will feel so much relief knowing he's ok internally but I think I am just overall feeling at peace with all of this now. God is ultimately in control of everything and I just need to chill it out and follow Ethan's lead. He is happy with the Similac Sensitive and eats well when he's not being forced to eat when he's obviously not hungry yet. So what I've learned from this: follow your child's lead.... stop reading so much crap... and when you get stressed, pray. :)

Praise the Lord that I have a healthy baby boy. Everything else will fall into place.