Finding Formula – Part One
I’ll be the first to admit, when I realized I would not be able to breastfeed I was filled with so many different emotions. It was a loss that I would have to grieve, a connection that I would not be able to create with my sweet baby boy. But on the other hand, there was also relief. Relief that my body would finally be my own again and that I would not have the sole burden of feeding my child. And if I’m honest (which is why I’m here, right?) I also felt a significant amount of relief for the simple fact that breastfeeding was difficult. I knew going into it that it would be a lot of work, dedication and a ridiculous learning curve but what I could not have prepared myself for was the unexpected. On top of Dawson being premature and having a shallow latch, we also discovered that he had a tongue tie that would need to be cut in order for him to be able to effectively breastfeed.
Something else I was completely unprepared for was formula feeding and I realized that there have to be so many other moms out there going through the same thing or at least similar. To date we’ve been through about nine different formulas and even recently switched to yet another last week. I know that every formula is going to work differently for every baby but I also thought it could be beneficial to document our formula journey, so I’ll start from the very beginning.
Formula 1: Since Dawson was premature the hospital advised us that we would need to supplement with formula until my milk came in due to the fact that we could not allow him to drop too much weight. This was successful and I am thankful that it worked out this way. Dawson was born 6 pounds 11 ounces and had made it back up to 6 pounds 7 ounces before we were discharged. I truly believe that if I’d tried to exclusively breastfeed at the time that Dawson would have lost too much weight and possibly would have required a NICU stay. At this time he was put on Similac Neosure, which has added calories for premature babies and helped him to gain weight quickly. After about two weeks we discovered that Neosure had begun to make him constipated. Since he was steadily gaining weight his pediatrician was fine with us switching. So Neosure was good while it lasted but like others to come, it did not last for long.
Formula 2: Dawson’s pediatrician gave us a few samples to try out. The first was Similac For Supplementation. At the time I was still breastfeeding but still not producing enough milk to do so exclusively. This formula was designed especially for breastfeeding moms who choose to introduce formula. We were excited because it is marketed as Similac’s closest formula to breastmilk and that somehow made me feel better about giving it to baby. This formula worked out well for maybe about two weeks. I’m not sure exactly how long but it was definitely long enough for us to finish up the samples and buy some on our own. In the end it didn’t matter how much we wanted to like it, the formula didn’t work for Dawson. He had trouble pooping on the formula even though he was not constipated.
It was also at this point that Dawson was diagnosed with Infant Dyschezia. Which basically means he doesn’t quite know how to poop yet. He loosens and tightens the wrong muscles at the wrong times which makes it difficult for him to poop and thus to our dismay, it also causes him to scream out in pain…sometimes for hours… until he has a bowel movement. To make matters worse sometimes he screams for hours and still won’t have a bowel movement, it is pretty difficult to watch him go through and I can’t even imagine how he must feel. I won’t get too much into Dyschezia now because it is definitely enough for a post all on its own but is also a very important factor of our formula feeding journey.
The Dyschezia diagnosis was interesting news. We researched the diagnosis and thought we understood all there was to know but we were wrong. It would have a major impact on many things to come.
