My picky eater

Gwen has always been a good eater.  That is what enabled her to triple her weight during her first 6 months of life (for reference: babies are supposed to double their weight by 6 months and triple by 1 year).  Of course, part of why she ate so much is that she had reflux.  I have always said that Gwen eats her feelings because she wants to eat every time she is upset (once again, due to reflux - it calmed the pain that was causing her to cry...but she learned that it was a good coping mechanism so then she wanted to eat every time she was upset).

When I started to introduce solid foods, she would eat anything, except for apples.  I would introduce new baby foods every few days and she would eat whatever I offered her.  A couple of weeks ago, however, she started refusing jarred baby foods.  This didn't really bother me.  I had planned all along to make all of her baby food.  I hadn't started making it because of our move, but as soon as I got the kitchen unpacked in our new house, I started several batches of baby food.  However, after making several different foods with minimal texture, I discovered that Gwen would only eat foods with no texture.  Because of this, Keith and I are working our way through eating sweet potato and strawberry ice cubes (the strawberry ones are good in milkshakes and smoothies).

I made a second batch of all of her baby foods, pureed nice and smooth.  She did well with those for a few days.  Where she was usually eating about 3 ice cubes worth of baby food when she was 5 months old, now she will only eat one ice cube at a meal.  I think she is full, take her out of her high chair, and go to play with her.  Within 3 minutes she is usually tugging on my shirt because she wants to nurse.  I think she put together recently that if she ate more solid food she got less milk, and I think she is rebelling against that notion.  I am not going to force feed her (that wouldn't work anyway since she just spits food out that she doesn't want), so I am not really sure how to get her to eat more than milk.  I think Gwen and I are at a stale mate.

Pavlov's Toilet

Gwen has developed an interesting new habit.  Now, each and every time we go anywhere in the car, she poops.  And she doesn't just poop once.  If we get in and out of the car a couple of times, she will poop each trip.

This has created some difficult diaper changes.  This was particularly difficult last week: while moving, we decided to forego cloth diapering for disposables.  Washing cloth diapers would have been too cumbersome during the 2 weeks that we were "homeless." I, however, misjudged our diapering needs when I made the disposable diaper and wipe purchase.  For a few days we were low on diapers and out of wipes.  Thankfully, I had hand and face wipes in the diaper bag, and did my best to clean her bum with these small, thin wipes.  I am now quite adept at changing her diaper in the back of our car (I am thankful, for this reason, that we purchased a hatchback).

Another problem that this has created is that, while she is happy sitting in a poopy diaper all day long if she is comfortable in all other ways, she is cranky sitting in a poopy diaper if she is experiencing any other discomforts.  This is a new character trait.  She used to never mind sitting in a poopy diaper.  I don't know if that was a blessing or a curse when she was only a few months old; while it did contribute to her nearly 4 months of continuous diaper rash, it would have been miserable for her to get cranky 12 times a day (this is about how many times she used to poop in a day).  Now, however, if she has pooped and is overheated she gets cranky.  If she poops and is bored she gets cranky.  If she poops and is sleepy she gets really cranky.  This has taken some getting used to.  When we were driving from Ohio to Pennsylvania during our move, I put her in the car nice and sleepy.  I had been rewarded during several car rides over the previous couple of weeks with a happy, napping baby, and was sure that this trip would provide the same.  About 15 minutes into the drive, however, Gwen got mad.  She got super mad.  She wouldn't sleep and I had no idea why.  That is, until we got to our temporary apartment, I took her out of her car seat, and I managed to stick my hand in the poop that had squished out of her diaper and onto her leg.  Learning from this experience, I knew when I heard her grunting in her car seat before we left for a party (for which we hoped she would sleep during the trip there to give us maximum party attending time) that a diaper change was in order.  I felt proud of myself for correctly interpreting her signals.  We hopped into the car and were on our way.  That is, until 3 minutes later when we heard Gwen grunting again.  Apparently we had jumped the gun on the diaper change.  We had to pull over for diaper change number 2, but when we got back on the road she was out like a light.

I'm not sure why she has created an association between pooping and riding in the car.  I have, however, chosen to look at this cloud's silver lining.  1.) if she ever becomes constipated, I just have to take her for a quick ride in the car. 2.) Potty training made easy: just put the potty in the back of the car and drive slowly around an empty parking lot.

Storing Milk: A tale of organization

I am not a super organized person.  I have stacks.  I know, in general, what stack I have items in.  But my stacks look disheveled and are not run by a system.  I might have a prescription, an old receipt, a thing that I have to return to a store, a skein of yarn, and sunglasses in one bag.  They have nothing to do with each other, but I know they are there and that is usually all that matters.

But when I started pumping and storing breastmilk, I knew I would need a good system of organization.  Breastmilk does expire.  If you are storing it in a freezer that you open on a regular basis, you need to use it within 3-4 months.  When I got home from the hospital, I only had a few bottles of milk to freeze.  As the weeks passed, I froze more and more, and I eventually had a jumbled mess of bags and bottles of frozen milk in the bottom of the freezer.  Whenever I would go to thaw a bottle or bag of milk to feed Gwen, I would dig through a large bin trying to find the oldest milk.  I would usually get pretty close to the oldest bottle.  But when Gwen was 3 months old I found a bottle of colostrum that she got as a special, tasty treat for dinner one night that I had somehow overlooked for over a month.  The bright yellow color should have been a giveaway, but since I was constantly digging through bottles and bags, one bottle managed to slip through the cracks.

During this same time, I was babysitting a friend's baby.  My friend had gone back to work and had a much bigger stash of milk to keep track of.  One day, she brought what she called a "pancake" of milk to put in my freezer in case I used up all of the fresh milk she had brought for the day.  The pancake was brilliant!  First, you could thaw it in about 1-2 minutes in a bowl of hot water.  Second, each pancake was exactly 2 ounces, so if baby is just a little hungry, just thaw one!  Third, by freezing milk into flat discs, you can stack them in an orderly fashion and can clearly see how much milk you have and how old it is.

In order to freeze milk into "pancakes," you just take a breastmilk storage bag and pour 2 ounces of milk into it.  Then you lay it flat so the milk spreads out as thin as possible.  This allows for quick freezing, quick thawing, and easy stacking.  I had been using a mixture of 2.8 ounce Medela bottles and 5 ounce Medela milk storage bags.  While I initially liked the reusability of the bottles, they did not stack well.  They did not thaw well.  And if I froze them when they were too full, they would crack from the expanding milk, and then leak the milk upon thawing.  The problem with the bags is that if you freeze 5 ounces of milk in them, they get really wide at the base and skinny at the top, resembling triangles.  How the heck are you supposed to stack tons of triangles?  Also, even though Gwen is 7 months old, she still doesn't eat 5 ounces at most meals.  I was trying to fit as much milk as possible into the bags because I was being cheap and I didn't want to only put 2 ounces of milk into a $0.40 bag when 5 ounces would fit.  After seeing the pancake trick, I realized that breastmilk is worth its weight in gold, and if my original system of freezing milk into 5 ounce bags was going to cause me to lose milk until it was no longer good, then I needed a new system.

Here is what I do:

First, I measure the milk into a 2.8 ounce medela bottle.  You can pour straight from a wider bottle, but as a good little chemist, I remember that the most accurate measuring tool is the smallest, skinniest bottle that will do the job.  I pour in 2 and 1/8 ounces.  Why the extra 1/8th?  You will lose some milk on the side of the bag and will end up with less than a 2 ounce portion if you only pour in 2 ounces.  This is just me being particular.  Do I really think Gwen will notice if she only gets 1 and 7/8 ounces of milk instead of 2?  No.  But I do like to end up with 2 ounces in the final bottle that I feed to her, thus my extra 1/8.

Next step: pour it into the bag.  Don't spill.  As I saw in a comic recently, those who say don't cry over spilled milk never pumped.

Make sure you label your bags!  You don't want to put milk in the freezer only to discover that you don't know how old it is and that you have to throw it away!  You may notice that I labeled these with the date and the number of ounces in the bag.  Why would I label it when I put 2 ounces in each bag?  Sometimes I have an extra half ounce or so because I don't pump exactly 2 ounces every time.  Some of my bags have 1.5 ounces, others 2.5 ounces.  I just aim to do 2 ounce bags.

Next I stack my bags for freezing.  Make sure they are flat so they freeze into nice little pancakes.

After freezing flat, I stand the bags upright in a new bin in date order.  I used to use Medela bags.  When I did that I could fit 24 bags, or 48 ounces, into a bin.  I can fit some more with the Lasinoh bags, but haven't completely filled a bin with them yet, so I don't know how much a bin holds.  So far, 50 ounces with room to spare.  This way I can just count my bins and I know how much milk I have.

Notice 2 types of bags?  I used to use Medela.  But last time I went to the store, they didn't have Medela, and I really needed the bags right then, so I bought Lasinoh.  I will never buy medela again.  The medela bags were over $20 for 50.  The Lasinoh are $9 for 60.  I can fit more Lasinoh bags into a bin.  They are much easier to seal the double zipper, and don't leak as much.  Also, you see that hole in the top of the medela bag (surrounded by yellow)?  That is so you can hook the bag straight to your pump (a reason I originally got the medela bags).  It's poorly designed though.  If you don't hold really still while pumping, you will spill milk out of the top of the bag since it is wide open.  Plus, when you pour milk into the bag or from the bag, if you pour too fast it comes out of the hole.  Notice that the lasinoh bag does not have a hole.  Also, the lasinoh bag has those cut-out areas on the side for easy pouring.  Cheaper and more functional - I think we have a winner.

This is my freezer.  The short, pink basket has my milk that is freezing into pancakes.  The blue bins each have 48 ounces of milk in medela bags.  The green bin has the lasinoh bags.

When I need milk now, I just go to the oldest bin, grab the bag in the front, and easily grab the oldest 2 ounces of milk in the freezer, and I don't have to sort through all 200 ounces.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.