Paging all "die-hard" BF-ers...

[calebsmama03]

When did you start solids on a regular basis? We've been experimenting with some solids but I want to go back to EBF. I went to my LLL group today and am REALLY wanting to exclusively breast feed for a lot longer than is typical - like till a year. A lot of the moms in my group have done that without any problems, but they are all SAHMs. I work 3 days per week so DS is with a sitter, who is a friend and does not do "daycare" for anyone else. I pump 3x/day at work and send all I pump (usually around 16-17oz divided into 3 bottles around 5 1/2 to 6oz each).

DS is 7 1/2 mos and does just fine on BM when home with me (and just single sided feedings, at that), but the sitter insists that he is "starving". (FYI - DS is on the small side, 15lb 6oz at 7 mos doctor apt and 25 1/2 inches so he's 10th % but growing steadily - been 10th % since birth - and thriving) I made the mistake of giving her much of my freezer stash to use for emergencies and she used it all up adding 1-2 oz to every bottle or an extra half bottle. (She is old school - maybe in her late 50's -and pretty much thinks that whenever he cries and she can't see an immediate reason he must be hungry). She and our families have been pressuring me into feeding him, so we started but just small amounts (no more than a tbsp or 2 once daily). Last week I let her start giving him fresh mashed bananas and told her how much to give. When I picked him up she told me she fed him a rice cereal cube plus about 3/4 of a banana in the AM and about 1/2 a banana in the PM, along with some licks of a fudgesickle! I about died (and DS didn't poop for 4 days!) DS didn't nurse his normal 2 sessions that evening then was fussy and nursed poorly all weekend. I told her no solids this week and she complied but every day insisted that he was just starving when I came to get him. I suppose maybe I'll just have to start pumping on my days off and sending bigger bottles?

I guess this has turned into more of a vent session (spurred by the fact the AF returned today!) but I would really like to know if anyone here exclusively BFed until closer to a year and how you managed it (social pressures, ensuring baby was still getting enough, etc) especially if you were working. Am I crazy to think I can make it work?
Lynne
Mommy to Caleb 3/3/03

[lisams]

I think if you visit the mothering.com breastfeeding message board you would find a lot of women who do this. I don't have any advice personally since we started solids at 6 1/2 months. Sorry I couldn't help much!

Lisa

[stillplayswithbarbies]

This link will be useful to you:
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/delay-solids.html

Logan is 7 months old, and I am thinking about letting her play around with some banana this weekend. I want her nutrition to come from breastmilk, the solids are just for practice.

How much EBM is he drinking in a day? My babysitter says that when babies are draining the last drop out of a bottle for three days in a row, it is time to add another ounce to the bottle. (she's been doing in home day care for 20 years.) I send a total of 28 ounces for the 10 hours that she is there. Three bottles are 6 ounces and one bottle is 4 ounces. Sometimes she drinks them all and sometimes the 4 oz one is left at the end of the day. When the babysitter feeds her, she always stops when there is still a little milk in the nipple. She says that is how you know they are not still hungry. If baby fusses for more and drains that last drop, it may be time for a bigger bottle.

What worries me as I read your post is that your babysitter is not following your wishes. She works for you. It's your baby, and you get to decide what your baby eats. I don't know what your situation is, but if I were you I would be finding a new babysitter. If a babysitter fed my baby something against my wishes, not only would I leave, but I would report her to the licensing agency or whatever agency governs such things.

I just thought of something else . . . do you use a pacifier? If baby just wants to suck, a pacifier might take care of it and she won't be trying to give a bottle everytime he fusses.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03

[lizajane]

i am right with you. i am excited about solids, but ds can't tolerate solids. he can have 1 tsp of homemade pears in the am without any reaction. ANYTHING else he eats, he wakes up at night with painful gas. so i called the ped and he said definitely stop the solids. he said it is FINE to wait until 9 mos to try again, and he even said i may need to consider extended bf if he continues to have digestive trouble at 9 mos. (which isn't going to work for me, but we will probably go past 12 mos, which is when i intended to guide him toward weaning and try to guide me to a second pregnancy!)

so do what is best for you and caleb! if he starts losing weight or not gaining, maybe you will reconsider. but if he is happy and growing on bm, and your ped is happy with his health, then tell those folks that you are taking care of him and you are not interested in their advice.

i am not working, so i can't offer advice there. but if i were you, i probably would try to feed him larger quantities of bm. schuyler is 7 months today and 20 lbs. (29 inches, so tall and skinny) he eats 4 times a day, with a bedtime snack. his 4 feedings are 7.5 oz (as recently proved by a full day with daddy, with the exception of the first am feeding, which is probably a few more ounces.)

and i hate to butt in... but that babysitter is getting PAID to do what YOU tell her to do! caleb is NOT her child and she does NOT get to make any decisions!!

[nohomama]

I don't know if I qualify as "die-hard" but I'm very pro BF and I did nurse Lola until about a month ago, just after she turned two. From what I know it's entirely possible to exclusively breast feed a baby to one year but I would tell you to take your cues from Caleb. If he's interested in food my inclination would be to slowly introduce solids. We began introducing solids to Lola when she was 7 months. We went slowly introducing new foods in small amounts about every 7 days. Honestly, it was great fun.

I wouldn't completely discount your sitter's intuition that Caleb is hungry but I also think it's completely inappropriate for her or anyone else to pressure you into starting solids. If you want to make a go of exclusely BFing Caleb for a longer period of time I'd tell you to start taking fenugreek and start pumping like mad, both at home and at work, so that you can build up your freezer stash again and provide your sitter with more EBM. You are most definitely not crazy for thinking you can do this!!!!

I'm interested in hearing what you're motivation is for doing this? Is it Caleb himself? Like I said, I'm inclined to take my cues from the child. If Caleb's not interested in food then clearly this isn't an appropriate time to begin introducing solids. There are certainly plenty of compelling reasons to delay the introduction of solid food. If he is interested in solids though, why wait? I'm asking because I'm interested in your answer not because I'm questioning your parenting.

Good luck,

[Momof3Labs]

We started solids at 6 months or so. Colin would get one small solid meal a day up until about 7.5 months, then we added a second small meal. Honestly, though, I felt like he wanted more solids. He just preferred solids to nursing. So we kept on increasing the amounts and now, at just over a year, he gets three solid meals (plus maybe one snack) a day, plus nurses three times a day. But if his interest was more in nursing than eating, I would have nursed him more exclusively to a year.

Now that you have my viewpoint, I would suggest that you might have a hard time holding off on solids for another 4.5 months if Caleb is that interested in them (I'm assuming that he is since he ate so much at the sitter's house). But it is your right to decide when and how much he gets.

I do agree that no one has any business pressuring you into anything. And you might not consider this problem big enough to change sitters, but I can imagine that you will be confronting her more and more about this and other issues as Caleb gets into toddlerhood. She's not Caleb's mother - you are! Now might be a good time to start looking around.

Plus, all that banana plus rice cereal would plug up any baby - not just one that isn't accustomed to solids!

[August Mom]

We pretty much exclusively breastfed for 1 year. DS has never had formula and refused all babyfood, both homemade and jar food. However, we tried introducing cereal at around 6 months and other foods around 7.5 months. DS just wouldn't eat them. DS wasn't interested in anything until finger foods. He then liked some of the carb snacks like Gerber crackers, Wagon Wheels and puffed rice. But, he never ate regular meals until he was around 1. He had some snacks now and then and we occasionally introduced other finger foods. Almost all of his nutrition came from BFing, though. My ped was really supportive and told me more than once that, nutritionally, a baby doesn't need anything other than breastmilk for the first year. The other foods are for experimenting with texture, not for nutrition. My DS also has been in the 5-10th percentile. I was really stressed about his refusal of babyfood, but he is healthy and strong. I've even thought if I had another child that I might skip trying to introduce babyfood completely. However, I do agree with others that you should watch your child's cues. In my case, my baby wasn't really interested in eating but was very interested in nursing. He nursed pretty much every 2 hours during the day until around 11 months.

I have no advice on pumping or how much to feed in a bottle at a sitting because I'm a SAHM and pumped only occasionally (and DS refused a bottle). Best of luck.

[August Mom]

Oh. And, you might find Ellyn Satter's book "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense" helpful as a guide to feeding questions (although not necessarily exclusively breastfeeding). Her main mantra is that the parent decides what foods to serve and when and the child decides what and how much to eat.

[stillplayswithbarbies]

Ellyn Satter is not exactly pro breastfeeding. All through the book she mentions it, but then she keeps talking about the formula you mix with the solids and how they should still get formula.

As a "die hard breast feeder", I found it frustrating to read.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03

[egoldber]

Karen, being a huge Satter fan, I'm curious which parts you find frustrating?

While she's not likely to be a LLL Leader any time soon, I think she goes about far as you possibly can in a mainstream book to saying that breastfeeding is a far superior option. But she is writing a book about feeding for all parents, and the reality is that the majority of babies in this country at 6 months are getting at least some formula, so she does need to address that issue.

Edited upon reflection. :)

[nathansmom]

Lynne-
I'm sending you an email.

[August Mom]

Admitedly, I was not reading Ms. Satter's book when deciding whether to BF or formula feed. I had already decided to exclusively BF and was dealing with DS's feeding issues, namely rejecting solids. However, I do not find her book to be against breastfeeding. She has a chapter for formula feeding and a chapter for breastfeeding. I didn't read the chapter on formula feeding because it wasn't an issue. But, in the chapters regarding solids, I didn't find anything offensive to BFing mothers or any push to use formula instead.

This book isn't directly dealing with the issue in the original post, but I did find it helpful in general regarding the feeding of a child and things to think about. I also found it very comforting in dealing with outside pressures from those you know who constantly tell you how they think you should be feeding your child.

[lizajane]

i forgot to say- don't forget that he can get a lot more milk from the breast than the pump can get. so if he is a-ok when you are home with him, it may be because he is getting all he needs when HE gets the milk. but if you only give him what you pump when he is with the sitter, he may be looking for more.

the most i have pumped in recent weeks is 6 oz. ds DEFINITELY needs at least 7.5 oz.

to find out what he really needs, fill a bottle to say, 8 oz, and see how much is left when he becomes disinterested in eating. there should be a little left in the bottle when he is finished eating, to show that he stopped eating because he filled his tummy, not because he emptied the bottle.

sorry if that sounds know-it-all. you probably have done all that, but i wanted to mention it just in case! i think you had the right idea about adding a few pumping sessions to build some extra milk. i pump every night after ds has gone to bed. i was only able to get 2-3 oz when i started doing this, now i can get as much as 5 oz.

[stillplayswithbarbies]

I don't mean to knock the whole book, it did have some very good information in it, especially the parts about letting the child decide how much to eat etc. I agree with that totally. I think her views are very child centered and that is a good thing.

But I felt that her book gave a nod to breastfeeding, just because she felt that she had to. Sort of like the way formula ads are required to say "breastmilk is best for your baby".

I can go look up some quotes if you want me to. But mostly what frustrated me was that, other than in the chapter about breastfeeding, it was hardly mentioned, or at least not mentioned as often and with as much importance as formula. She talks about mixing cereal with formula. She could have said "with breastmilk or formula". She talks about whether to give solids before or after the bottle. Should have said "breast or bottle". Stuff like that.

It got amusing to me, the farther I read into the book, the less she mentioned breastfeeding and the more she mentioned formula/bottles.

Now maybe it is because she wants to sell books and as you said in this country the majority of people are formula feeding by the time they are into solids, (a very sad statistic in my opinion), so she is writing to her audience. But as a "die hard breastfeeder", I felt that she was not speaking to me, and that my choices were not respected.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03

[calebsmama03]

Thanks to all for the replies and encouragement. As I reread my original post I realized that I wasn't making a whole lot of sense - I was very cranky and crampy at the time! ;) I suppose my actual intention is more in line with what Karen stated. I feel extremely strongly about continuing to nurse - and about Caleb getting his nutritional needs mets through BM - until he is 1. I do not mind (and actually have already been) introducing solids for fun and experimentation with different tastes and textures (and to supplement if it becomes necessary), I just don't want solid "meals" to replace any nursing sessions until he's a year old. Caleb's response to solids has been mixed at best, which is why I was floored by the amount he supposedly ate last week. (I think my sitter comes from a "clean your plate" family) While he does like and enthusiastically eats bananas, that's it. We've tried various other cereals, fruits and veggies and he will eagerly open his mouth for maybe 2 bites, will tentatively take another 2 bites or so, then he's done. This has been going on for about a month. I was feeding him about an hour before his final nursing session most nights and it did not disrupt his nursing in any way. After that day last week his nursing was really disrupted - first by his overly full tummy then by the gas and constipation. I noticed a dip in my milk supply and got my period back yesterday so I was panicked that this was signaling the end up nursing. I started looking for guidance on how to offer some solids without having them replace nursing sessions and all I found was pretty much divided into 2 camps - you start solids and slowly add on servings to replace nursing sessions (as in Super Baby Foods) or you just BF without solids until a year (my LLL moms). I suppose some of my motivation is selfish - I am as attached to nursing as my son and am not ready to give it up...

The issue with my sitter is a tough and complicated one. She is not a licensed daycare. She is a friend I met through work and have known for about 4 years. She has kind of acted like an aunt to me, as I live so far away from my family and in-laws, and this is part of the problem - I know she absolutely loves Caleb like a grandson (and he loves her), but she is acting more like an overbearing MIL than a paid sitter (which she is). She would be just devastated if I took him "away" and I don't necessarily want to do that. (Also I only work 3 days and around here daycare is in short supply so you pay for FT care for infants no matter how much you use, so I really couldn't afford to just switch) I need to figure out how to get through on this subject. This is why I thought that going back to exclusive BF would help. I could still play with solids when we want to at home, but not start relying on them for nutrition and giving them while at daycare.

With regard to filliwng the bottles to see how much he will take, I've tried doing that but run up against some problems. Caleb is a high sucking need child. He will go for an hour on my breast if I let him. After about 10 minutes of "nutritive" sucking and swallowing he will switch to this fluttery sucking without swallowing which continues as long as I let him. With the breast little to no milk comes out with the flutter sucking but with the bottle, milk continues to come out, so he continues to eat - then proceeds to throw it all back up! When my mom was here last month I asked her to experiment with his bottle amounts. With 6oz bottles there was consistently a little left - she would switch him to a pacifier when he stopped actively sucking. I will just keep playing with amounts (and pumping more) until I find an amount that works.

I have not read Satter yet, I bought SBF and was disappointed by how much emphasis is placed on solids and weaning from the breast. I will see if my library has it.

Anyway, this has gotten way too long now. Thanks for indulging me :) I suppose a better question would really be - how do you manage to offer solids for practice/fun without replacing nursing sessions? Maybe the answer is - just DO it, huh??
Thanks again!

Lynne
Mommy to Caleb 3/3/03

[egoldber]

Well I will admit that I went back and re-read a few chapters last night. And I guess it just goes to show you how two people can read the same book and come away with two totally different impressions!

Personally, I think her book is very pro-breastfeeding, but in a non-threatening way. Her book is about how to appropriately feed a baby, and she covers all the various ways that parents can do that, which includes formula feeding. She is a pediatric dietitan, not an LC. But she outright states: "I will tell you right away that I think breastmilk is best." I think she gives the case for that in a very non-judgmental way. And I know at least one person who formula fed her first baby and is now going to give beastfeeding a shot with her second because of this book.

Sorry you didn't enjoy the book!

[COElizabeth]

Lynne,

I think you're right to keep experimenting with bottle amounts to figure out what works best for Caleb. Will the babysitter use the pacifier to satisfy some of his sucking needs like your mom did?

As for solids, I agree with the others that she should give him only what foods you want, but I understand how it would be difficult to criticize her about the quantity when she thinks she is doing the right thing for the baby. I would make sure she knows of the bad reaction Caleb had when she fed him so much so that she understands why you don't want him to have a whole banana right now! Maybe you could just do solids at home right now and then have her start giving them later on when you have a better idea of how much he wants and can tolerate well and when he is up to two solids feedings a day. If he's just at one solids meal a day, it's reasonable to say you want you or your DH to have that fun!

As far as avoiding replacing nursing with solids, I wouldn't worry too much. I didn't really notice any decrease in nursing until James was about 9 months and started eating a lot more solids a couple of times a day. He got constipated, so I cut back a little bit on the solids and then gradually worked back up to that amount. He did probably cut down on the number of nursing sessions a day, but I saw this as a good thing since he was nursing about 12 times a day before that. He still seemed to be getting most of his nutrition from the breast and some days still does. I wouldn't say that solids were exclusively for learning during the whole year, because in the last 3 months or so, he probably did get a fair amount of nutrition from them, but they still did not provide the majority of his nutrients, as far as I can tell.

If Caleb is already on a more regular schedule with just a few feedings per day, this advice might be worthless to you, but for me, cutting out a few feedings wasn't a big deal. If you feel like the solids are starting to really impact how much he nurses, just slow down and offer less until he's a little older.

Best wishes!

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9-20-02

[sntm]

Karen, I agree. I think her chapter on breastfeeding is excellent and I like her theories on how to feed with solids, but I have been noticing how she tends to refer to formula more often. Also, I was concerned about her emphasis on weaning off the breast (and bottle) so early. She definitely seems to advocate solids over breastmilk or formula starting at around 8 months, and even states (I'm paraphrasing) that if baby doesn't get off the breast/bottle by a year old, that they won't ever want to give it up, or something along those lines.

Yet another great book that has to be taken with a shakerful of salt.




shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03