The Beginning

On May 7th our lives were infinitely blessed by the addition of our second little boy, Samuel Arthur.  Within twenty minutes of his shockingly quick birth (story here) he was nursing like a champ!  He did not slow down.. ever.  Before his two week check-up his baby acne got REALLY bad, it looked tremendously painful and a friend mentioned a connection to dairy.  I did some research and while I didn't see any evidence that said there was a connection I read many testimonies of mommies who had tried it.  I figured cutting out some dairy could be a good experiment.  Before that my dairy consumption looked something like this:

Breakfast:  Yogurt AND cereal with milk
Snack:  Cheese with crackers or apple
Lunch:  Deli meat with cheese or pita with hummus and feta...
Snack:  Protein shake or something with Nutella
Dinner:  Pasta with cheese, or a cheese burger etc.
Snack:  More cereal with milk...

On top of that there was the iced coffee, the occasional glass of chocolate milk, or ice cream.  There was A LOT of dairy in my life, so cutting down was not difficult!  What was difficult was eliminating it, so I just didn't do that.

At his two week appointment I mentioned all this to Sam's doctor who assured me that dairy had no effect on a baby's skin, the only reason to cut it out would be gas...  My husband and I declared that he was still plenty gassy!  With that I went back to my regular diet.  Within a couple days Sam's gas got so bad that we were holding him ALL night as he squirmed and grunted and screamed...  He was by no means colicky, he was perfectly consolable and was not upset as long as he wasn't actively passing gas but we were getting NO sleep, and with a toddler, that just wasn't a good option!  After the second night of constant holding I put it together that things were getting worse the longer I kept up my dairy habits and resolved to cut it out completely... which was AWFUL!  Within a week though he was sleeping (quite peacefully!) for no less than four hours and up to six every night!  With all that sleep under my belt I decided

I CAN DO THIS!!

It's been very difficult.  I won't use soy because of estrogen concerns and being a dairy connoisseur, the almond milks and ice creams are absolutely not satisfying.  The second week was incredibly depressing when, during research into lactose-free items I figured out the problem is NOT lactose, it is a protein.  My doubt was quenched the night I had a dairy-free steak dinner...  Poor Sammy responded just as if I had had a bowl of yogurt.

I've spent the last two months unsatisfied, depleted, and hungry (although I've lost almost all my baby weight!)...  But every now and then I find something that makes me feel better, something that makes me feel satisfied one way or another and gives me the will to do this (terribly important) task.  That's why I'm writing.  I want to help any mommies out there who are in the same position and feel as strongly about keeping up with the nursing as long as they can.  I hope I can be a light to someone out there!