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Feeding this weekend was so haywire. The last three times I have tried to nurse her anywhere besides at home, she has thrown a huge fit and won't eat until I give her a bottle of formula.

Yesterday morning I had a record breaking pumping session...SEVEN ounces. That is almost double what I've ever pumped before. So, knowing that there is obviously plenty of milk in there for her, it is so frustrating that she won't nurse. I guess she is used to taking bottles during the day at daycare. Luckily this morning she had a good nursing session (probably because she was half asleep). Hope we get another good one tonight!

I might just plan on pumping on weekends if I know we are going to be out and about so that she can get breastmilk from a bottle instead of all formula. It must just be too stimulating for her or something and she can't focus or get comfortable.

I so wish she did a better job emptying me than my pump does. But that is just not the case for us. Pumping is the only thing that helps/maintains/increases my supply. But real nursing is important to me (swapping antibodies and exposure and cuddling) so we'll solider on and I'll keep trying...

@kodybear: we started on purees a couple weeks ago (she was 5.5 mos old), but haven't been consistent. we had her try some pumpkin (i was making pumpkin bread), carrot from a pouch and sweet potato that we steamed (not all on the same day) she made a face the first two times we put it in her mouth, but then she kept opening it for more and got really excited. we just have a spoon and she sits in her bouncer. then last night i stuck a small piece of chicken in her mouth and she sucked on it like crazy. i also tried bread and some acorn squash. i think my mom gave her a taste of yogurt today too...i've probably been a little too aggressive with introducing stuff and haven't really been following the rules. she doesn't know how to swallow too well just yet though. but she seems to really like eating so far!

@wildcardinside: CUUUUTE! And I love that little feeder - the mesh always made me wonder how it got clean, too.

We started solids this weekend! LO is just over 5.5 months and I wanted to start before her 6 month appt. so that we can go over any questions that might pop up before then.
Her first food was a mix of brown rice cereal, mama milk and sweet potato puree. She opens her mouth and eats off the spoon, but most of it gets spit out still Some of it does in fact make it down and she seems to really be enjoying it.
Right now we're just doing this little bit of solids after her 'dinner' feeding. Once she gets a better hang of things and more food is swallowed than spit back out we will probably start sending some food to daycare for snacks.

Is anyone else having a difficult time with nursing recently? The roof of his mouth is more rough (no upper teeth yet, only two on the bottom), he's been doing more pulling and twisting while latched on (clamped down), and a lot of latching on and off because the milk isn't instantly flowing like a bottle. It is so painful all of a sudden and not enjoyable for either of us. I hope this phase passes quickly for us.

@highwire: aww, that sounds like a good idea... I want to try giving her some avocado! @ChelseaRose: my LO constantly pops off... So frustrating.

@mrsjyw: Have fun!

C is VERY interested in anything I'm eating or drinking lately. And she almost always starts getting fussy if she sees me eating and wants to nurse right then. She also always tries to grab my water bottle while I'm drinking it thinking it is a bottle for her.

We started solids this past weekend to get a couple weeks under our belt so I could have my arsenal of questions ready for E’s 6m checkup. I was torn on whether or not to start with cereal because of all of the conflicting things you hear nowadays, but ended up going with cereal (Earth’s Best) per my ped’s reco and would then move to purees pretty quickly. (We’ll be doing the three days per new food.)

She seemed to like it just fine (I was expecting more of a reaction) and would open her mouth when I brought the spoon to her mouth. But it did seem like she was perhaps a little more interested in the spoon itself! She kept grabbing for it and trying to stick it in there herself and the couple times she was able to sneak in and do it, she ended up gagging herself a bit. We fed her just a little bit and I’m not sure how much actually got in her mouth.

Anyways, we started on Saturday evening and all was well that first night. She pooped twice the next day and although she was kind of moaning/grunting off and on throughout the day like perhaps she was trying to go, she didn’t seem to be uncomfortable. But after last night’s feeding, she did not have a good night at all. I fed her the cereal (again just a small amount) around 5pm and she went down for the night around 8, a little later the norm because she fussier than usual. She ended up waking up 6x throughout the night, sometimes just after getting her back to sleep. Each time she woke up, she was WAILING. Rocking her wasn’t working, so I ended up nursing her three or four times last night. Poor girl. I don’t really know what the issue was. My only guess is that maybe it gave her a tummy ache or maybe it’s already made her constipated? Now I don’t know if I should go ahead with the 3rd day of cereal or just move on to oatmeal or fruit/veggies. Ugh, this is hard!!! The boob is so much easier.

@mrsjyw: I’m actually looking forward to the poop change, ha! Little Miss Blowout is making outings soooo much harder. We had to leave our playdate early on Saturday because she went 3x within an hour and she ruined BOTH of her outfits. She did this the last two times we went out to dinner too! She saves it for the most inopportune times!! And she seems to come home from daycare in a different outfit at least 2-3 days out of the week. I’ve heard that, although stinky, it’s so much easier to clean and keep ‘contained’.

@kodybear: Daycare said that she seemed fine yesterday and she had a couple BM's there (even another explosion, yikes!), so I don't know if constipation was the issue. So we ended up trying the cereal again last night, but she wasn't into it at all. I'm not sure how much actually made it into her tummy. It only took a few tries before she made it clear that she didn't want any.

It ended up being another terrible night sleep, even worse than the night before. She was up and crying constantly and didn't even want to nurse back to sleep. We wound up holding her for most the night (just like our first couple nights with her home from the hospital). It was the same deal as the night before, so I'm clueless as to what it could be. I don't know if she could have had enough yesterday to even give her a tummy ache.

Needless to say, we are skipping the cereal tonight to see if she goes back to normal.

@SLR: aww poor thing ....maybe she's teething?

We started oatmeal cereal and she really seems to like it. She honestly doesn't care for anything else lol- we've tried sweet potatoes, bananas, squash, and she makes a weird face with each of those. I think because the cereal is so bland, she likes it. She's starting to get the hang of it which is exciting! Still taking it slowly and doing it every few days...

@highwire: We are starting over memorial day weekend. I think we'll do oatmeal first, and then move on to avocado and then sweet potato. I'm nervous and excited at the same time! My LO loooooves to eat so I think she'll do well. I plan on just doing one service of solids a day for a least a month since they really are just for fun at this point. That serving will probably be dinner so she gets used to eating at the table while we eat.

@highwire: yeah I definitely won't be having day care give her solids for a little while yet. I'm mostly concerned about pumping enough extra milk to mix in with her solids since it doesn't actually replace a meal! I guess we'll just have to dive into the freezer stay.

I miss you girls and the camaraderie of having babies the sane age! Work is kicking my butt and I have almost zero free time. Boo!

Anyway, we're still EBF at almost 6 months. Still using the nipple shield which LO loves to rip off while nursing. He gets distracted so easily, so most of the time I nurse in a dark room. We tried some BLW with 4 days of banana and 2 days of avocado. The boy loves bananas, but is ambivalent about the avocado. We haven't keep it up the last couple of weeks because he gets sooo frustrated trying to get the food into his moth that he has a meltdown. It's also crazy messy!! I think we'll skip the rice cereal and try some homemade purees over the next few days. My Ped did say that I'll need to use Vit D drops with added iron if we were skipping the cereal and not using formula.

Did anyone else try BLW?

@Mrs. Tricycle: When we gave LO a taste of avocado she was very not into it! I think it's because avocado doesn't actually have that much of a flavor? Sweet potatoes, carrots and bananas are all slightly sweet like breastmilk so we started her with those.

I want to do more BLW, too but for right now it's just easier to do purees and rice cereal both mixed with milk. Like a yummy smoothie that has more nutrition than just rice cereal but still gives her the iron she should have from it. We did give her frozen peach slices in a mesh feeder like @wildcardinside and she loves that. She also has started to guide the spoon to her mouth on her own so I think she will transition just fine when we want to move to her picking food up by herself. I tried to give her a big hunk of roasted sweet potato to nom on and she just mashed it in her little fist and spread it all over her tray. Not one bit got in her mouth, but when we use a spoon she's like a little bird wanting more.

@highwire: We also don't do it more than once a day with 'dinner' and switched up our after work/evening routine to fit it in. Instead of nursing right when she got home and then again before bed we just do her dinner right when she gets home and so far it's working out great. I know she didn't nutritionally need that much milk in the evening and it hasn't affected her night wakings/bedtime (actually it got better) so we're sticking with it for now. My only advice is to have bath right after solids - it gets messy even with purees and a spoon

@travelgirl1: I was worries about the gag reflex too, but even though he gagged himself once or twice, it wasn't so scary - DH was really relaxed about it, so I guess that helped.

@lindseykaye: yeah, maybe that's why avocado wasn't a hit. We randomly let him lick a wede of lime the other day and he loved it. Was thinkingn about mixing a little lime with the avocado but somehow that seemed wrong? I feel like there are all these rules
- but it's just food, so why so complicated?

@lindseykaye: @kml636: I'll need to try the frozen peach too. It would be nice to have her occupied while we eat dinner at night. This has been difficult lately.