Thursday, January 15, 2009

Formula Woes

Today has been a good day, but it's only 3:45pm...so there are a few more hours that I'm stuck here alone with Emma & Robin...so a meltdown could occur at any moment. I think their meltdowns are definitely related to the formula, so we're trying a new one at the moment. I was feeding them breast milk until a few weeks ago, but I was DONE with being hooked up to a pump 8x/day. My breasts were killing me and I was so miserable. The switch from booby juice to formula was easy, but that's when the "fussiness" started. I guess with one kid you can call it being "fussy"...with two screaming babies, I would call it "hell in stereo". Crying every waking minute wasn't fun (for them or me), and NOTHING I did would make them feel better. Robin was a little worse than Emma...there were definitely moments I wished I left them in the hospital.
Luckily, our pediatrician listened to my cries of "this just isn't right" and had me try a "hypo-allergenic" formula, which has lessened the cries to only a few hours a day. Unfortunately, the switch was excruciating...for them and me! Being a new mom I didn't have experience with changing their food, but I guess I should have used my experience as a pet owner and done it gradually. The first night was pretty shitty...our neighbors probably thought someone was being murdered in the house...screaming babies and a crying mommy. Emma would take a sip, scream at the top of her lungs for 30 seconds, take another sip, spit it out and then scream some more. It took about 1.5 hours to get her to eat 1.5 ounces and then I gave up with her...she'd be hungry soon and then eat. Jeremy didn't have much luck with Robin either, and we put them to bed whimpering (them and us). Our next feeding wasn't much better, but they were hungry and reluctantly took their bottles (crying with each sip and spitting much of it out). Jeremy then had a wonderful idea...mix a little of the new formula with the old formula (he's so smahhht). Once we did that they took the bottles and I've gradually increased the amount of the hypo-allergenic formula daily.
Speaking of formula, I have to complain about:
  1. The smell of formula - the old stuff was very metallic smelling (I'm assuming from the iron); the new stuff smells very glutenous (if that is a word)...I can't stand either...my booby juice was very sweet smelling.
  2. The poops are DISGUSTING - granted they were having poop issues when we first switched (which is part of the reason we're on the "special" formula), but going from "pretzel" smelling poops to downright nasty sewage poops was gross...we need to disinfect the entire bathroom when I'm done changing them...STINKY!

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that things get better with the formula and poops! I'm also going to hope that insurance will cover the prescription for the formula, since it's over $27/can and we go through 1 can/day...babies are VERY expensive!

2 comments:

  1. Yes, babies are expensive and they don't get cheaper when they eat normal food either since more than 1/2 will be on the floor...nature of the job I guess.

    I think when Hayden went to formula his poop was stinky and it didn't get better. It was just stinky, but that's another thing that doesn't change as they start eating real food. The good news is you just stop noticing. Give it some time and you'll get used to it. Aahh, the little joys of being a mother :)

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