I think I may have determined that milk is causing baby girl's fussiness. If you read my last post I wanted my last resort to be eliminating dairy from my diet because I really enjoy it. However, last night before bed I ate a bowl of cereal. I got the baby asleep and in her bed by 11:45. She slept until 3:30 and then was awake either eating or crying until 9am. I finally got her to fall asleep enough that I could lay her down at that point and we both slept until noon. I really wanted to make the most of today since it was going to be our first sunny day all week, but at that point sleep was my first priority. Now, we also had broccoli with dinner last night which could be a contributor. But I'm still convinced that the milk is playing a part because she has had these fussy episodes prior to last night. So as of today, I'm staying away from dairy. I'm not sure how far to take it (do I dare eliminate things like chocolate which are made with milk??), but I'm starting with the obvious milk, cheese, yogurt, things that I might eat somewhat regularly.
I'm hoping this makes a difference for her. I hate to think that something I'm doing is causing her pain or discomfort. I guess I will also need to look into supplementing my calcium. Have any of you had to do this when nursing your babies? I'd love to hear someone's story/advice.
While I'm at it, I recently became aware of vitamin D drops. No one made mention that I should be giving my baby vitamin D. I've never heard of doing this, but there were vitamin D drops included in a nursing starter kit that the pediatrician gave me. It was one of those free give-away things with some samples and goodies, but it included vitamin D drops. Did I completely miss some key info??
Now, I'm not a doctor or anything, but I'd venture to say that the Vitamin D drops are because the baby isn't getting any sun and you may be somewhat vitamin D deficient like most women are so your breast milk probably doesn't have a whole lot in it either. Especially coming out of the winter time where you didn't get much sun, and now being inside with the baby continuing to not get sun, you probably don't get nearly enough just in your diet. I'm sure the prenatal vitamins contain vitamin D, it just might not be quite enough to supplement you AND the baby, and I don't know how much of it makes it into your milk to begin with. Vitamin D is sort of an exploding field of research and they're finding out that it does a lot more than we used to think and that it's more developmentally important than we thought, so they're probably just starting to supplement babies as a precaution. Particularly in little ones, being deficient in the early years can predispose them to developing diabetes young, for example. Anyway, just some thoughts. They're probably not a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteDr. Chang suggested giving the baby Vitamin D drops 1-2 times a week...We haven't started them yet.
ReplyDelete