Mama Really Does Know Best

Last week the teachers at Clara's daycare asked me to talk with the pediatrician to up her bottles from 4oz of formula to 6oz since she seems to be "hungry" all the time. Anyway, Clara and I have had some issues breastfeeding lately (she's on a bit of strike I'd say) and because my production has gone down (due to a nasty cold and the return of my not so wonderful cycle) I've had to really start to supplement her at daycare with formula (not really by choice mind you, by necessity). She's taken to the formula okay but she does tend to spit-up a lot more when she eats it. Now, I am not sure if it's the formula (probably not) or the fact that she cannot control herself when she gets her cute little mouth around the bottle nipple. Either way- disaster almost always strikes within moments of a feeding if she is not burped right away.

The thing is, I believe the teachers have mistaken her "I am so full" cry for "I want more" cry. So this weekend I tried a little experiement. Since Clara is still on strike with my boobies (I pump to retain any semblance of supply- ask me how that's going :/) I gave her formula and then pumped (the amount I pump is not enough to use at the next feeding so I just keep it in the fridge and continue to add to it until I have enough for a bottle-very sad). This past Sunday morning I gave her 6 oz like the teachers at daycare suggested. She gulped it down and then without missing a beat promptly, without even so much as me lifting her up after feeding, spit up half of it. Ahhh, I thought to myself she is WAAAY overfed. Next feeding I gave her only 5 oz and when she was done she cried like she was still hungry but instead of making another oz or two of formula I let her cry and burped her through it. Wouldn't you know it, she burped up a really good burp followed by two smaller ones, she sorta cried after that, I gave her the pacifier and she went right to sleep. SOOOOO- what that tells me is that she would eat as much as I put her little mouth even if she isn't hungry enough to eat it. She still only needs maybe an extra ounce of formula/breastmilk and one really good burp followed by some extra sucking time (like she usually does when she breastfeeds) in order to keep most of her food down.

I repeated this experiment the next feeding and, same thing. She cried after the feeding, I burped her until she let one out and then she calmed down a little, gave her the pacifier and she went right to sleep. I had a feeling that upping her to 6oz was going to be too much. The girl is only 11lbs at the most, technically she only needs 28oz of food each day in order to gain weight. If I gave her 6, 6oz bottles she is being WAAAY overfed. Even 6, 5oz bottles is more than she really needs but I feel more comfortable with 2 extra ouces than I do with 8 extra ounces that she spits up anyway.

Needless to say, today when I went into daycare I told them about our weekend and explained to them what they need to do in order to make sure she is getting all the food to stay in and at the same time sending home with me less bibs with spit up on them (now granted she does tend to droll a lot). PLUS I was noticing with the more formula she was drinking the more constipated she was getting. Also a sign she was getting way more than her body could handle.

Mommy 1, Daycare 0. And reason #12,342,302,935,982,349,283,749,823 I need to find a way to be a SAHM. *sigh*