The Evil of Dairy and Soy

Two things that I truly love in life are chocolate and cheese. Unfortunately both of those foods have dairy in them. Here's the story to why that's important

Starting at about 5 weeks of age I noticed that Kenzie was increasingly fussy (despite taking Zantac for her reflux), spitting up more and her poop consistency had changed. When I took her into her appointment at 20 days I explained her "fussiness" to her doctor and he told me at that time he thought it was reflux, and to start her on Zantac and see how she does. She was still having "normal" breastfed baby poop with no blood or mucous in it. I gave her the Zantac religiously and never really noticed any changes. She was becoming more and more fussy so, in desperation, I took her back to the doctor. He said that since she had gained weight her Zantac was no longer a therapeutic dose and increased it. He said that if I noticed blood in her poop or this didn't work we needed to consider food sensitivities/allergies. I went home and continued to give her the Zantac, but never really saw a change for the better. Instead, she seemed to get more fussy, and her poop went from a little mucous to mostly mucous and diarrhea. Off to the internet I went, googling like a mad woman. I discovered something called a milk soy protein intolerance. Kenzie had every symptom except weight loss. I decided 3 weeks ago to eliminate all soy and dairy from my diet. Unfortunately it takes anywhere from 10 days - 3 weeks for it all to be our of my system, but after a week I started to notice a difference. She was becoming the happy baby that she was at first. Then I decided to experiment and allowed myself some cheese. That afternoon the diarrhea and fussy attitude returned. That sealed the deal for me.

Being a new mom is hard enough, but adding the strict diet changes has made it feel almost impossible at times. I now read labels like  you wouldn't believe. Reed and I are shocked by how many things have soy in them. We have started to get more creative with our meals, but as an added bonus is that since so many things have soy and/or dairy in them we have been forced to have a very healthy diet. Sure there are many things that would taste better if we had some cheese with it, but it's not worth it for me.

I am seriously amazed by how much changing my diet effected my baby girl. She went for almost a month where she was never happy. She was literally screaming 90% of the time that she was awake. Now, she's full of smiles and seems close to laughing/giggling. Sure she still has her fussy moments, but overall she's much better. I even have taken her off the Zantac and she seems to be doing great without it. It's so nice not having to give my baby medicine even though she took her medicine like a champ.

Here's our beautiful, happy baby girl at almost 11 weeks old.

2 months

I can't believe that little miss Kenzie had her 2 month birthday on Sunday! Where has the time gone? Unfortunately I have to go back to work in a month and am starting to get some anxiety about that. Initially I wanted to have her in a licensed daycare facility. I had put her on the waiting list on post when I was approximately 10 weeks pregnant. I would have to call every month and let them know that we still needed daycare for her and every month they would tell me that we wouldn't have a problem. That's until I called in August. When I called the week before Kenz was born they informed me that the secondary center they were counting on opening in August wasn't going to open and we were looking at a 6 month minimum wait. I asked what number she was on the wait list and they told me that they didn't know but that there were 147 infants on the waiting list. Are you kidding me?!? So they gave me the number for the childcare referral center who gave the info on about 30 licensed daycares and group home facilities. Of those 30, 2 didn't answer or call me back after leaving a message, 6 had hours that wouldn't work with our work schedules, and 20 were not accepting any child under 30 months. We went and visited one of the two that were accepting babies and I was less than impressed. She charged $820 or so per month and expected us to pay the full monthly amount from the time we turned in the paperwork for Kenz to go to her. That mean that for 12 weeks plus however long I had until I delivered (which ended up only being a week) we would be paying her to do absolutely nothing. I couldn't believe that she expected us to pay her over $2400 just to hold a spot for our daughter. There were several things I didn't like about her, but that was the biggest one. The other place I had set up an appointment to meet with her the next Wednesday, but turned out that little miss was born on Tuesday and we needed to reschedule since we both wanted to be there. I called her twice, once while I was in the hospital room waiting to go to the OR and the next time right before we were discharged and she never called me back. I was really starting to panic. What was I going to do? We need my income, but I couldn't take her with me to work and no one was taking babies. Then I saw a post on one of the many pages for the military spouses/families in the area about a woman who has 5 kids and is wanting to start doing some childcare because her children are in school. Despite it not being what I wanted I was desperate and contacted her. We went and met with her and it turned out great. She is such a sweet woman and is super flexible with our schedules. She totally understands the military life and that when Reed has 3 and 4 day weekends and block leave little miss will stay home with him. The other lady didn't get that. I'm very comfortable with where she'll be while I'm at work, but it's causing me tons of anxiety. She is technically 9 weeks old today and I have not been away from her for more than an hour since she was born.

I knew that motherhood was going to be challenging, but this is way more than I expected. Little miss isn't what I would call an easy baby. She is very fussy and wants to be held at all times. We were told that she had acid reflux at 3 weeks and she was started on medication for that. I hated the idea of giving my baby medication, but was desperate for something that might help ease her fussiness. It helps a little, but not much. After doing some research on the ever handy internet and watching her reactions to what I was eating I discovered that she may have a problem with milk & dairy. I clearly remember having something very cheesy for dinner one night and after nursing the next morning she had bad diarrhea for about 2 hours. I know 2 hours doesn't seem like much, but for a little baby that's a lot of poop and a lot of fluid to loose. Thankfully it stopped and she didn't show any signs of dehydration. I have since cut out dairy and upon further ready discovered that if your baby has a problem with milk/dairy then you should cut out soy as well. I have cut out both, but it has definitely been a challenge. I have never read food labels as much as I do now. I'm actually shocked at the amount of foods that have soy in them. While it's an added bonus that we are having to eat very healthy and almost no processed foods it's also challenging because there isn't much that I can grab and make one handed. I feel like I'm constantly hungry with no real snacks I can grab. I know that I'll figure things out slowly, but I can tell you that I'm craving pizza and chocolate like crazy. You never know how much you truly enjoy something until you can't have it. While the diet changes are proving to be very challenging one look at my daughter I know that it's so very worth it. I'm hoping that once all the milk and soy proteins are out of my system (which could take anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks) that she will go back to being the happy baby that she was for the first 3 weeks.

At the suggestion of her doctor today we have also started self soothing with her. I was telling him how every night now we give her a bath and then I feed her and she falls asleep. Due to her reflux I normally hold her for another 20-30 minutes and then put her to bed. She used to stay asleep when I put her to bed, but now she's waking up almost immediately after I put her down. He said that's normal and that the sooner we teach her to self soothe and put herself to sleep in her bed the better life will be for all 3 of us. Tonight was our first night and it has been pure hell so far. As of right now it's 1:15 am and I have yet to be asleep. She has finally stopped screaming/crying, but I'm pretty sure she's still awake. I'm hoping that she goes to sleep soon so I can go to sleep. I'm also hoping that she will sleep a good 4-5 hours so that I can get enough sleep to be able to make it through the day. We shall see though.

I meant to put a picture of her in my last post, but due to internet problems and not being able to use my own computer I wasn't able to. Here's a picture of her from today.