I need some advice please?

[FaerieDreamer]

So I've just started taking care of my friend's son Riley during the week. I've taken care of him before, but this is the first time we've done an actual every day, day care type of situation with him. So I've really only had him for 3 days now,


but I need some advice on how to make sure Riley is eating enough. Honestly, I don't think the poor kid is eating enough at all when he's here. I have him from 8 to 3:30-4, during the week, and without fail, by around 2, he's completely fussy and crying because he's so hungry.

His mom is trying to wean him off breastmilk and onto formula during the days because she's not producing enough when she pumps to give to me for him. The three days he's been here this week, she's given me 3 oz two days, and 6 oz yesterday. This is not enough. At all. She said her ped. told her he would be fine with only about 6 oz during the time period he's with me, but he's not even getting that much. And I dunno, when my own son Xavier was 8 months, he was getting anywhere between 32-40 oz a day of formula. So I can't imagine that only getting 6 oz of BM in an 8 hour time period is enough at all. And remember, he's not getting that much anyway. He's not drinking the formula at all. He'll take a few sips and then push it away, absolutely refuses it. He threw a fit today and actually made himself get sick, because he didn't want any formula.


Plus, he just doesn't eat very much in the way of baby food or table foods either. For example, today for breakfast he had maybe 3 spoonfuls of rice cereal, and half a tub of step 2 apricots. For lunch he ate *maybe* 2 pieces of sweet potato, 3 peas, and a tiny handful of sticky rice. Since he wasn't eating the table food, I tried a jar of baby food, he only ate about 3 spoonfuls of that too. Nothing else. It's been similar the other days he's been here as well.


I've told his mom all of this, but she doesn't seem very concerned. With the formula, she's just like, "Well he has to get used to it, because that's all he has. If he doesn't want it, then he's going to have to wait until we get home."


I'm trying to remember how long it took us when we transitioned Xavier from breastmilk to formula, and I don't remember it taking more than a week. But at the same time, he didn't fight it as much as Riley does either though. Our biggest problem was getting him used to drinking out of a bottle. But Riley knows how to do that, he's just refusing what's IN the bottle.


I just don't know what to do...if I should even do anything. I just feel so bad for him, and really...don't want him to go hungry on my watch. Maybe I should just wait it out a while longer?

[frozenframe]

Does Riley's mom give him abottle of breast milk completely seperate from the formula? When I transitioned Jack from bm to formula our ped. told me I could slowly add the formula to the bm an ounce at a time. We did an ounce more of formula a week for 5 weeks and the transition was complete. It gave Jack time to get used to the difference in taste and he didn't fight it at all.

As for the table foods and baby foods, doe he have favorites that your aware of? If he does you can give him those while he's with you. He may be eating the same thing all the time but at least he'll be eating.

I don't know how any one could say only 6 ounces of bm in almost 8 hours is ok at all! That's shocking to me!

[Clementine]

i'll just copy and paste what i wrote for you in wellsprings :)

i can only imagine how hard it is for you to think the poor baby is hungry!
i'm afraid i don't have an easy answer for you though, as it involves tellin ghis mom that she really needs to pump more to get her supply up. that's the only way to solve the problem, and give riley what he needs. her supply WILL increase if she pumps at every possible opportunity, and pumps either while she's next to riley, holding a picture of him, or smelling his clothes, or hearing him cry (or any other baby for that matter.)
i know it's hard to give moms advice (especially when they're your friend). it's really the best thing she could do for her baby, though. SHE needs to solve this by getting her supply up. see if she'll try fenugreek and Mother's Milk tea. maybe she just needs to be reminded of why it's so important for her to continue to give riley breast milk.

good luck, hun!

[supernova]

Your friend really should be pumping more than 3oz per day until he has switched over to formula if at all possible. When I was pumping for my son, I pumped twice a day everyday. That gave about 8-10 oz for the hours he was at dayare (10am-4:30pm or so). I know that will be a difficult conversation to have though.

Drinking water really helped keep my milk supply up. I could right away when I started pumping whether I had had enough water that morning. The only times my milk production was down was being sick with flu or not drinking enough.

I agree that you might want to talk about mixing breastmilk with formula to help the transition. The sweetness of breastmilk is what the babies like, and the formula might not be as sweet. If there's some breastmilk in there, he might go for it.

Not all kids eat the same amount anyway. If you think he's hungry, of course you should talk to the mom. However I've noticed that even though your son is younger, when you've occasionally posted his diet on here, he eats and drinks about twice what my son does! So keep in mind that he may never match with what you are used to completely.

[FaerieDreamer]

hehehe I know my son is a little piggy. *laugh* I don't know where he puts it all, since he's still only 25% on weight for his age group. And I know all kids are different, and I don't expect Riley to be eating the same things or same amounts that Xavier does. I just can tell that Riley is just really hungry and wanting to have his milk during the afternoons. He's even tried to find my boob a couple times. heh


I've talked to my friend about when she pumps, and she can only pump in the mornings before work. She teaches high school and doesn't get a chance to pump during the day. And she had said that she had this problem last year with her supply, but that it had come back during vacations. But this time, even after nursing him during the summer, it just never fully came back.

I will mention mixing the bm and formula to her on Tuesday, and try that out to see if that works at all.

[Clementine]

hehehe I know my son is a little piggy. *laugh* I don't know where he puts it all, since he's still only 25% on weight for his age group. And I know all kids are different, and I don't expect Riley to be eating the same things or same amounts that Xavier does. I just can tell that Riley is just really hungry and wanting to have his milk during the afternoons. He's even tried to find my boob a couple times. heh


I've talked to my friend about when she pumps, and she can only pump in the mornings before work. She teaches high school and doesn't get a chance to pump during the day. And she had said that she had this problem last year with her supply, but that it had come back during vacations. But this time, even after nursing him during the summer, it just never fully came back.

I will mention mixing the bm and formula to her on Tuesday, and try that out to see if that works at all.
night pumping works wonders.
if she were to pump in the evening and then before bed, her supply would jump right back up. also, her supply could be down because of the extreme summer heat of california! she needs to be drinking LOADS of water. it just sounds like she's dehydrated. i'd imagine it's quite scary for him, being in a new environment and having his food changed. the baby wants his boob juice!
that's it. i'm done. ;)

[Circusgirl]

To me this is an example of how it is sometimes NOT appropriate for everyone to breastfeed. It is a huge commitment and this baby is suffering because of your friend's lack of understanding of how much fluid her baby needs during the day. If he doesn't like the formula it is hot "his problem" it's "her problem"...and she should be doing more to make sure that he gets what he needs. My peanut daughter took 3 to 4 8 oz. bottles a day at that age..food was just for practice NOT nutrition at that point and many of my friends have had big babies who drank much more than that daily. He could actually be partly dehydrated....how wet are his diapers?

[glittergirl816]

this is just a thought, but maybe he doesn't like the kind of bottle she is using for him. my son will ONLY take the playtex nurser (with the plastic liner) with the natural latch LATEX nipple. the silicone nipples on somes bottles are hard, unnatural feeling and not like the breast at all. i know all babies are different, but a lot of breastfed babies are very particular about what kind of bottle they will take, if they will even take one at all.

BTW, i don't think this is an example of how breastfeeding isn't appropriate for all people/babies etc. This mother just needs to figure out what she can do to help her child transition from breast to bottle during the day. not every baby does this effortlessly.

emily

[FaerieDreamer]

an update: :)

Riley is on mostly formula now. It's been a rough transition, but he's getting there. He gets formula from me, and from his Dad, and still gets BM from his Mom at home. So naturally, he still prefers the BM. He'll drink the formula, but it's a struggle.


However, we think that he may be allergic to the regular formula we've been giving him. He's had the nastiest diaper rash for going on 2 weeks now (since he started the formula). They've tried taking him to the dr for it, but their medical facility likes to do everything over the phone (Kaiser), instead of actual dr. visits. Their ped. is insisting it's a yeast infection, but it's just really bad. I've never seen a diaper rash this ugly and irritated before. It hurts ME just looking at it. It hurts him so much that as soon as his diaper is opened he'll reach down to his bottom and just start rubbing and scratching himself raw. Screaming bloody murder the whole time. And then today when I was trying to give him his afternoon bottle, he only drank about 2 oz. of it, then refused anymore. He was screaming and crying, so he was red faced, but I also noticed he had red splotches on his face, just like Xavier had when we gave him eggs and realized he was allergic to them. So that's when it hit me that he could very well be allergic to the formula.

I talked to his Mom when she picked him up, and she said that's what they had been thinking as well, because she's lactose intolerant, and was allergic to milk as a baby. As was her dad and grandpa. So it does run in her family. But they were going on what their ped. had said about the rash being a yeast infection and were trying to take care of it that way. We talked about it and pretty much decided that his ped is wrong, especially since she hasn't even seen him yet. And then I remembered that I still had a couple cans of ISOMIL that my sister in law had given me when Xavier was born just in case. So, I checked the exp. dates, still good, and we're going to start giving him the soy formula to see if that will be better for him.

Hopefully the little guy will start feeling better and will take to this easier than the regular formula has been.

[FaerieDreamer]

What a difference a day makes.

He totally took to the Isomil with no problems at all. He drank 12 oz today, when usually it's been a struggle to get him to drink 8. It was like he even felt it tasted better than the other formula. He was totally happy all day, hardly any fussiness at all. And it's definitely cleaning out his system as well. He had FIVE, count them FIVE, poopy diapers today. So, this seems to be the right thing to have done for him.

[psyck]

that is great faeriedreamer. after reading the post about his diaper rash (ouch!!), i was getting really worried :a

[glittergirl816]

i'm glad you figured it out! poor guy! :)

[FaerieDreamer]

yeah, it went even better today. The rash is already starting to clear up too. He still has some of the sores down there, but his whole bottom isn't red and covered with them, and it doesn't seem to be irritating him either. He didn't reach down to scratch at all when I was changing him. So it definitely looks like he was allergic to the milk based formula.

[frozenframe]

That is so great!!! I can't believe I didn't mention the soy formula! That's what we put Jack on when we were transitioning. He was fussy and very gassy on the regular formula so we switched to soy. Within a day he was perfectly fine. Now he's on regular soy milk and loves it. I'm so glad you discussed this with his mother. You've done a great thing for that little boy! Good for You! :)