Feeding good!

It's been nearly a week since we figured out our little Abigail was not eating enough or gaining enough weight. We converted our feedings into a breast/bottle combo and the result today when we went back in for a weight check was a 2 ounce a day weight gain. (They usually hope they are gaining 1 ounce a day.) We are so happy about this. This means that what we are doing right now is working.

A few of you have asked about Baby Wise and "failure to thrive" which is what the term is for what Abigail was doing with eating. I wanted to explain that JB and I do a "modified" Baby Wise. We follow the schedule of Baby Wise which is eat/wake/sleep. We also attempt to get baby on a 3 hour schedule and allow the child to "cry it out" once we are sure they have had enough to eat. (In other words, find the ability to sleep and comfort without requiring food or a parent to do that for them.) However, we do not follow Baby Wise in the strict sense, and we definitely don't follow it until we are sure that baby is gaining good weight. It worked fantastic with a bottle-fed Isaac. However, I don't think you can really use it for breast feeding until you are sure everything is coming together properly.

Speaking of coming together properly, it is getting there at our house. I was sure that having Abigail would be easier than having Elijah. What I mean by that is that I thought having her would not be as difficult as having two babies eight months apart.

I was wrong.

JB and I both agree that adding a third child so closely to the previous two is more difficult than adding Elijah was over two years ago. We think this is because, well, there are three of them. We also think this is because the boys are now mentally challenging us. When Elijah was born, we were physically daunted by the task of two boys and a giant puppy. But we weren't dealing with all the discipline and interpersonal drama that is currently filling our home. The boys are now fighting, talking back, and engaging in personal battles.

For instance, when Elijah was born, Isaac was not old enough to hold the following conversations with me:

Isaac: "Mommy, do you still have a boo boo on your belly?"

Me: "Yes, but it is almost all better."

Isaac: Stops and contemplates this and then says, "Okay. Good. That means you can do Rockababy with us at bedtime now?" (Veronica or Daddy had to do this toward the end of my pregnancy as I couldn't lift the boys anymore.)

Or a conversation like this:

Me: "Elijah, do you think you are ready to not sleep with a pacifier anymore?" (We only allow them in his bed but we haven't taken the final step of removing them from sleep time yet.)

Elijah: "No."

Me: "But you are a big boy now."

Elijah: "No. I'm still a little boy. I'm a baby."

Me: "But you have two pacifiers," I say, holding both of them up as he gets ready to go to sleep. "We can give these to baby Abigail."

Elijah: Grabs one pacifier. "Give this to baby Abigail. I keep other one."

And Elijah got me the other day too when I started working with him on saying Luke instead of Loop for his middle name. I asked him to say the "ck" sound at the end of the word. He did. But when I asked him to say "Elijah Loo-ck" he said, "I am "Ewijah Loop Kitsteiner Lion. I not ck."

That is true.

So it's conversations like those above that keep us on our toes all day. We do have Veronica. Big change. Although I remembered that with both of my previous babies, I had someone there with me for six weeks following their births. We are still in our six-week window. I think I will really benefit from the difference of having a person around as we get out of that six-week window.

Either way, things are hectic. We are figuring it out. We are taking one day at a time.

And we are enjoying seeing Abigail's big chunk cheeks as she starts to plump up. You go girl!