Starting Solids!

Well, the time has come. We started giving Nathan rice cereal. To be perfectly honest though, we hadn’t planned on starting him on anything besides breastmilk until Nathan was at least 6 months. I just wasn’t in any hurry to start him on solids and he seemed to be just fine nursing.

Turns out he wasn’t just fine. Not exactly.

At his 4 month appointment, we found out that Nathan had only gained 7oz in the last 2 months. And that he was barely around 11lbs. At 4 months. And while his pediatrician said that he normally didn’t push solids at this age, he said we might want to consider it because Nathan wasn’t gaining enough weight. So I didn’t just consider it. I agonized over it. I’m the mom. It’s what I do. ;)

I was also concerned about my milk supply. When I sat down and thought about it, Nathan had been really fussy every time I tried to nurse him for the last couple of weeks. I didn’t really think much of it because he was still filling his diapers and did not appear to be dehydrated or anything like that. I even thought he was getting heaver. He certainly felt heavier. But it was possible that my supply had dwindled and Nathan was fussing because he wasn’t getting enough when he tried to eat.

I met with a lactation consultant and after talking several things over with her, we concluded that my worries were correct. My supply had gone down. She gave me a few suggestions on what I could do to get it back up and we would weigh Nathan in a week to see if it had made any difference. I started taking an herbal supplement called fenugreek with every meal and I started pumping after Nathan nursed, to send the message to my brain that I needed to make more milk. I also weaned Nathan off the shield I had been using since he was born. After a week of all of that, I weighed him at the Dr.’s office and he had only gained 1.5oz. Not enough. And Nathan had been really crabby for several days and I just got the impression that he wasn’t getting enough to eat and that he was still hungry. So it was time to consider supplementing to get him the amount of calories he needed to be happy and to gain weight.

So after a couple of days of more agonizing over it, stressing out and probably driving John and my mom crazy, we decided to give him rice cereal. And Nathan tried it for the first time this morning! I don’t think he really likes it yet, but I suppose it will take some getting used to ;)

And really, he ended up with most of it on his face. And on his bib. And down his shirt.
He still pushes at the spoon with his tongue (a newborn reflex, it will go away in time) but he was very good at opening his mouth when the spoon came his way.
The finished mess!

So we will work on rice cereal twice a day and I’m going to pump and nurse like crazy to keep getting my milk supply back up and we’ll see how it goes! Hope to get the little man nice and chunky soon! Wish us luck!