Discussion Board

Jeff,

We were at the March 10 Day. Since coming home my husband, Dan continues it improve! He was the bearded one! Anyway we have made a huge impact on our 8 children and they are taking notice of this way of eating!
My daughter's 6 month old baby is just under 12 lbs. he started out small under 6lbs and had eating problems that eventually surgery to repair two inguinal hernias. At his Dr's visit yesterday my daughter got an earful on him being underweight. Of course they recommended all the wrong things. She has in the past month tried to introduce solids along with nursing but he seems to be uncomfortable and cries. Also he nurses too often not lasting more than 2 hours sometimes every hour!
I have recommended that she increase the good fats in her diet to make sure her milk has a good amount in her milk. She is not very good about eating well, she smokes and drinks coffee! Here I what I recommended and bought for her and baby.

First to try plain mashed potatoes for him.
She should add;
Avocados
Nuts
Potatoes
Rice
Beans
Whole Soybeans

Before we began the McDougall program, if my daughters didn't nurse we would make our own goats formula. She is contemplating supplementing with that!

Any advice or articles would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Judy Carreon

BTW he is normal in all areas except his size and weight!

One of my six children did not eat solid food until he was eight months old, but exclusively nursed. In those days La Leche League advised to start the babies on banana as their first solid food. I tried and tried but he refused to eat. Then when he was eight months old and sitting in his stroller while we were eating dinner, I tossed a chicken liver onto the stroller tray and he gobbled it up and waved his arms and demanded more. He ate all our chicken livers. Evidently, I am not the brightest bulb in the lamp because I finally realized that he wasn't rejecting solid food--just bananas. He just had his forty first birthday and he still will not eat bananas.

If there is nothing wrong with your grandchild's digestive system which I assume you had checked out, then he just might not like what is being offered. Maybe you could start with a little bit of cooked cereal to which your daughter adds lots of expressed breast milk. Also, if she does not try to feed him but puts some mashed up food in different piles on his high chair tray, maybe he will select something that he does like. Children just naturally pick stuff up and put it into their mouths. Alternatively, you could put the food on the floor and let him find it. For some reason, though they will not eat what is offered to them on the high chair tray, they seem to find stuff they find on the floor delectable (just kidding).

If he is a small baby naturally he will want to nurse very very frequently. He knows he needs to gain weight. If he is crying soon after nursing then he is overfull and collicky and does not need to nurse so frequently. But if nursing so much does not present this problem then he is doing just what he needs to do. Don't forget, breast fed babies will nurse more frequently because breast milk is digested faster, unlike cows milk formula whose main protein is casein which sits in a lump in the baby's stomach and takes longer to digest, thereby giving him a sensation of fullness for a longer period of time. If she can manage it, she should keep the baby in some kind of wrap held close to her as much as possible. Is she in touch with a la leche league nursing mom who has been trained to answer questions and solve some nursing problems?

Didi

Thanks, Didi.
I have nursed 8 babies and she is on her fifth. We have a lot of nursing experience and need some advice on how to fatten him up. He may have some residual problems from the hernias, which involved his intestines and also he may just be a little guy and high strung to boot!
I still think his mommy needs to fatten up her milk by increasing the good fats in her diet and then to try the best and easiest to digest foods for him!
Kaiser is like the gistapo of insurance companies! They have their charts, graphs and guidelines that all babies are supposed to follow! Sometimes they are a little heavy handed in how they deliver the message. It sort of upset my daughter! One comment being a 6 month old baby should not be only on breast milk! I wonder how they think mother's fed their babies all through history!
Appreciate your imput! Thank you!

Hi there. I think the place to start is with a call to a kaiser lactation specialist. A simple feeding observation with a pre and post weight can help find out how much milk baby is transferring. Another idea would be for mom to rent a baby scale and do her own pre/post weights for 24 hours.