The advantage of having four babies in five years is that you can experiment.
Having one baby after the other (and the other, and the other) allowed me the chance to observe what worked and what didn’t and try again (conveniently, the next year) to see if the pattern would repeat. Now, I like to think of myself as a sort of scientist (think Sid the Science Kid, not NASA).
Before I continue, it’s important to note that I’m not really a science gal. I’m not a doctor and my Master’s degree in public policy only helps me know that I could land in jail if I was truly trying to provide health-related baby advice.
But, here’s what I know: watching the patterns between what I ate and my breastfeeding baby’s behavior proved telling. Every single time. Experience counts for something, right?
My hypothesis: The key to a happy baby almost always boils down to digestion and sleep. When there were problems with the latter it was normally because of the former (i.e. if baby wasn’t sleeping it was a digestive problem.). I use the word “almost” to allow for teething and sickness — which have been the only identifiable exceptions to my happiness formula. Granted, my sample group only includes four kids — from the same family. My data won’t pass as a clinical trial or be publishable for a medical journal. But, my husband will verify it. (He has no science background either, sorry.)
I started my experimentation with baby one. He was high maintenance. He had to be held, standing up, all the time. If you tried to sit down while holding him, he would scream. He did not want to sleep much and spit up. A lot. We are talking volumes of spit up and 11 outfit changes a day (Sidenote: that was when I thought babies had to stay in clean clothing.) Since the actual spitting up didn’t make him scream with pain, doctors classified it as a “laundry problem” and we were to just hope he’d outgrow it.
One day when he was four months old I made a connection. I realized that when I had cereal and milk for breakfast, we had a ROUGH morning: a no nap, screaming, having to be walked around, kind of morning. On days when I made eggs or toast – he’d be happy and take a good nap. I tested my theory over a few days and, by George, it was solid.
I went to the web to see if anyone else had made a similar discovery. Sure enough, Internet research backed me up: dairy and breastfeeding doesn’t mix for some infants. I figured that out the hard way.
Dairy was banned from our house or at least my mouth. So, why was he still fussy sometimes? The research must continue.
Enter clinical trial participant 2. She would have a charmed, dairy-free life. According to my calculations, all would be smooth. For the most part it was. Except, she still spit up. A lot. She was a better sleeper and happier most of the time, but still had moments where she was obviously uncomfortable. I was stumped. Until…
Trial participant number 3 came along. In an attempt to not wake him during feedings I realized he was only emptying one breast at a time and, amazingly, not spitting up much. He slept all the time, like a dream. Then it hit me. I’ve been overfeeding. I blame that stupid Babywise book – I was so focused on making their bellies full I was inadvertently over-stuffing my children. Genius! That was an easy one.
Now, I had the formula. Fussy-free child-rearing here we come.
But, then numero 3 got colicky on me. Back to the lab.
Through months of trial and error I found that he was good with everything non-dairy except: tomatoes, pineapples, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, kiwi, certain melons, and don’t even get me started on mango or broccoli. Healthy alternatives for some, yes, but key ingredients in the recipe for trouble to this breastfeeding mom. I observed a correlation between smelly, acid reflux breath and any of the aforementioned fruits, coffee, anything with too much corn syrup (think Twizzlers), or chocolate. Sadly. My beloved treat accounted for some digestive difficulties and electric green poop. Science doesn’t always give you the answers you want.
Now, with trial participant number four, my eight-month-old, I’m fairly quick to correlate “poor” food choices with a spell of fussiness. If I watch it, he is a happy baby who loves a good nap and rarely spits up. But, I’m not perfect. In fact, today I’m paying for yesterday’s trip to the Cheesecake Factory. (He’s fussy and spitting up. Poor guy. But, it was realllllly good.)
I don’t have all the answers. Your baby’s fussy spells might have nothing to do with food. Whatever your issue, I write to encourage you to investigate, explore, and discover what works for your family. Find your own formulas and put them into action. Parenting’s not rocket science.
Hmmm. Then again, maybe there are some similarities.
Great advice! It was crazy to realize that what I ate and drank had such a huge effect on my production as well. I relied on IPA beer and oatmeal cookies to help produce enough milk. Not too much of either, of course. But without it my production would definitely go down.
Great post, Heather!! And, that picture of them at the end, priceless.