As They Grow Up

If any of you have tried to get a breastfed baby to drink formula then you know how difficult it can be. Babies like what they are used to and don't much like change. I first gave Kanga some soy formula in her cereal about 3 weeks ago. A while later she was projectile vomiting! Having given her soy formula in a bottle for her to try some and get her used to it in case I didn't have enough milk ready for her daycare days, I thought the can had likely gone bad and felt awful to giving a spoiled formula to her!

Well, on Friday I officially found out that I have a bladder infection and am now taking medicine for it. The write up from the pharmacist said that it passes into breastmilk, so I called the pharmacist and asked what it could do, if it's safe for her, and such. He asked if my Dr. knew I'm nursing and I said yes (he's her Dr too). Then he said that most mom's give their babies formula when they're on this medicine, but that they also prescribe it to babies if they're sick. So what's the answer? Is it safe or not?

I decided I'd try to get Kanga to take formula while I'm on the medicine just in case (and hope that it was only for the 10 days and I didn't need an extra round!). I mixed some of the powdered soy formula I'd picked up (after all she hadn't reacted when I'd been testing formulas before!) and gave her a bit in her cereal so she could get a taste for it. That night (it was in her supper) we had vomiting again. She had a 3rd of an ounce in her cereal and of that ate 2 or 3 bites. She barely even got any of the soy and she reacted like that!

Okay, she can't have soy. I guess I'll try some milk based formula. I hadn't wanted to do this as Monkey had a raw dairy intolerance. I wanted to wait until she was about 2 before she had any dairy. As it turned out, I was right to wish so. Kanga drank a 3rd of an ounce last night and had diarrhea this morning. I hadn't put the two together so I mixed her cereal with the milk based formula to give her a taste for it. She ate about 3 bites again and has had diarrhea all day.

On top of this, Kanga has a horrible cold right now that she picked up from one of her teachers at daycare. When I saw her teacher last week while picking her up I was shocked that she hadn't been sent home. I now have the cold too and I called in to volunteering so not to pass it on! I feel bad enough that Monkey has been in the same room with Kanga and I for the last 4 days with the vaporizer going, coughing, sneezing and all! It's inevitable that he'll get it.

So now I know that my sick baby can't have formula. I can only hope that I can nurse her until she's old enough to sustain life without it! If I ever needed surgery or needed a medicine that she couldn't have through my milk then I hope, I hope, I hope that she'd be old enough that through her meals she'd be okay!