FEED ME!

So, I gave in and gave our little guy something with some substance. I really wanted to wait as long as possible before supplementing his food in any way... with solids or formula.

Remember my clinically large baby in the womb? Well, I don't know if you would call it clinically large, but he's a "tank" as my older brother referred to him. I've never known of another baby to weigh as much as him at his age. At his two month appointment he was 16.5 lbs (95%), and according to the scale in our bathroom I am 18 lbs heavier when I'm holding him.

Lately, he just hasn't been happy when I'm nursing him. He eats for a minute and then starts crying, then I switch sides and he's fine again for a minute and then starts crying again. I attributed this to teething pain... but I now I think that he's just not getting enough to eat.

I have pumped a few times at the same time he would have eaten, and I've only gotten 3oz. Now, I'm not sure how much a baby his age / weight is supposed to get, but I think that a 4 month old 18 pound baby should be getting more than 3oz of milk before bed. This would explain why he's back to his newborn habit of waking up every 3-4 hours to eat.

So, we decided to start him on Rice cereal!!! On one hand I was super excited about this, and on the other I was terribly disappointed. I wanted to wait six months... but as his mom, I just felt like he needed something more.

Last night when I pumped his bedtime bottle so that I could add a little rice cereal (and this is when I discovered that I only produced 3 oz.) Begrudgingly, I added some formula to it and some rice cereal, for a total of 6 oz and a little over a tablespoon of rice cereal. He chugged it! When I took it away to burp him, he cried like he does when I'm nursing him. My poor baby has been hungry... so sad. He finished every last drop of that bottle, and didn't seem satisfied still, so we have him another ounce of formula. I laid him down in his bed and he was ALL smiles. Lately, after he eats he is not a happy camper (now I know why), but he just wouldn't stop looking at me and smiling SO big. This lasted for a few minutes. I think he was just so happy to be full. While I wasn't thrilled about not being able to satisfy my baby's hunger alone, I was so happy to see him so satisfied.

Spoon feeding him rice cereal was fun. He did VERY well, most of it actually did make it in his belly to my surprise. We still did need a bath afterward though!

He ended the session looking like this: