Parenthood=Detective work

For those of you who have kids know what I am talking about without even reading further. For those of you that do not have kids, well let me just tell you that you should end up with a certification in private investigating just by becoming a parent. This is what I feel as I am learning Caleb and all his "quirks". Let me just recap, first 2 weeks-lots of crying, some throwing up, great weight gain. Nothing out of the ordinary. Weeks 2-6- throwing up increases, crying increases, sleep decreases. Solution= acid reflux, zantac, cut out all dairy from my diet. Weeks 6-9- throwing up decreases, sleep increases, not so good weight gain. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Doctor says to try introducing dairy back into my diet. So here we are at week 10.5 and we have a baby that is doing a lot of crying, sleep decreasing. Solution= feed Caleb from a bottle because he is not eating enough. (I only know this because after feeding him, letting him cry in bed for what seemed like hours on end, i made him a 7oz bottle of formula. He drank down the entire thing, looked at me with the most pathetic, tired look and slept for 3.5 hours.) So we decided that we would be thawing out my massive collection of frozen breast milk and giving him it in a bottle for each feeding except the middle of the night. He will still nurse from me then. After a day of this, I noticed that my child is the laziest eater on the planet. It was taking him 30-35 minutes to finish a 4oz bottle. HOLY CRAP! So that brings us to today. I have gotten him a different kind of bottle (seems to do better with the different shaped nipple) and we have been continuing to give him just breast milk. Now the throwing up has increased and the sleeping during the day is almost nonexsistent, SOOOOOOOO I am going to pump and store my milk and we are going to give him just formula for the next three days or so for every feed, including the night time. This is going to rule out the dairy allergy, hopefully.

So that is why I say that being a parent is much like being a private investigator. You have to keep looking for more clues to help your child. Are they hungry, sleepy, dirty, bored, overstimulated....etc. I feel like I haven't gotten anything right since he has been born and the only one that is suffering is Caleb. Hopefully, we will be able to figure out what he needs so that he is happy and healthy. I will keep you all up-to-date on his progress after the weekend. Wish me luck!