Audrey and Nathan Clements

One day at my mother in law's house, I decided I wanted baby pictures of Nathan. I was curious about what he looked like as a baby and who looks like him the most. I found a picture of him trying to stand up with only a diaper on. Later on, I found Hailey and I in the same position.

So here we are all around 8 months.

So, I've had a very difficult week and a half. It all started at my WIC appointment when I was told my baby fell of his growth curve. Robert weighed 18 lbs and I was happy about that. It took Hailey 15 or 16 months to get to that weight. The WIC lady told me I need to add another meal to our schedule and that I shouldn't cut back on nursing him.

(*Quick Side Note: For this semester we have a sweet little girl, Chloe coming to our house after school for two hours everyday. She is in second grade and we love having her over. However, this still makes my afternoons busy so I stopped nursing Robert in the afternoon. Really it's only a three hour span and that's a normal schedule for babies. This is also supposed to help him eat a dinner and drink juice from a bottle. Also after Christmas he got his two front teeth and they hurt me while nursing.*)

I was a bit bummed because feeding my kids solids is a pain and if they won't eat they won't eat. The only thing that Robert would eat well is yogurt, up to this point. So I went to the store got him more finger food and PediSure. For the next day or two I tried really hard to offer him more food and I think a good portion actually went in.

We continued our pattern about feeding him dinner, having both kids take a bath, and then I nurse Robert to sleep. Wednesday night Robert was just throwing a fit so I tried to nurse him to help calm him down and he wouldn't eat. So I ran down stairs got him PediSure and he guzzled that down. I thought maybe since he's happier he'll nurse now but he wouldn't. I cried for an hour after because I was not sure what to do. Nursing was the main way I could interact with him. He nursed about 8 times a day for the past ten months. I didn't know what else to do with him. The way Nathan looks at how I felt was that it is like hating your job but still trying your best, and then being fired all of a sudden. I knew we were going to quit soon but I was the one who was supposed to say when.

Here's my big dilemma: Robert is 10 months old. He is not supposed to drink whole milk or PediSure until he is a year old. Also I don't want him to get stuck on formula when we have to change it again in two months. Also with formula he would need a bottle since we have to measure out the water amount. He is doing a good job with his sippy cups I don't want to get him stuck on a bottle.

Decision: We'll do PediSure and whole milk.

Robert reaction: He only likes PediSure.

The next night he started crying an hour after we put him down for bed. He doesn't do that. When I checked on him, he had a very harsh chest cough and was burning up. I raised his crib on a slant, put the humidifier on, and gave him meds. The next few days all he did was cry and sleep a lot. More sleeping then crying thank goodness. And of course he had diarrhea (I think it might have been from the whole milk), and so I had to change sheets a lot.

I think it was on Tuesday we I noticed that three teeth popped through. So now he has three teeth on top and four on bottom. I definitely don't want to nurse him with that many teeth.

Wednesday I was sick of the house and Robert seemed better so we all went to the mall's play area. Robert threw up once just a little. Hailey just found a friend there so we stayed a little longer. Then Robert really started throwing up. (About 4 times (all over me) before we could get Hailey's coat and shoes on.) Then Thursday afternoon Robert cried for two hours in my arms while Hailey was trying to take her nap. I had Nate come home at 4:00pm to help after that. Then Friday morning again he cried for two hours. I thought he was getting better because he was less congested. But I was done with this so we went to the doctor's. Robert has an ear infection. Also I checked his weight and he lost about 8 oz in less then 2 weeks. I asked the doctor about my milk/formula age dilemma and he told me to do formula.

Follow up: That night we gave him one dose of his prescription and he has been happy since. We are giving him formula now but he won't take it unless it has a little bit of PediSure with it. We have a follow up appointment with the doctor in two weeks. I hope he'll weigh more by then.

Also all my hormones levels are back to normal and I can go back to the gym on Tuesday. I'm excited about these changes but it was a tough transition.