Breastfeeding and intolerances : when it doesn't always feel like breast is best

It was breastfeeding awareness week last week (I'm running a bit late on this post) and I read some great posts both on breastfeeding and also on bottle feeding and wanted to write about the unique challenges of my experiences.

My mother breastfed my sister and I longer than most. I was over two when I was weaned and my sister was just under two I believe. As a result, it was a natural assumption for me that I would nurse my children - it never occurred to me to do otherwise. That being said, I never had an aversion to the idea of using some formula, as long as it wasn't compromising nursing.

My first son was 10 days old when my mother suggested that perhaps a reason he was up all night every night screaming was a dairy intolerance. My father had been hospitalized as an infant for cow's milk protein intolerance so there was no harm in trying. I stopped eating cheese, stopped drinking milk, and there was an immediate improvement. Kiernan was obviously also milk protein intolerant. But as time went on, things got progressively worse and worse - by three months old he was up every half an hour all night long and Eric and I were on the verge of losing it. A few specialists later and we discovered that A) He was not only cow's milk protein intolerant but also soy protein intolerant and B) Cutting out milk and cheese wasn't enough, I needed to start reading the ingredients on everything I ate if I wanted to cut out what was hurting his tummy. I don't know if you realize how much food has either soy or milk protein in it, but let me tell you, it's a lot more than I knew before I started this process. C) He also suffered from acid reflux and started taking prevacid.

Kiernan started sleeping better after I cut these foods out, but it was never perfect. I often made mistakes, and sometimes he just seemed in distress when I was sure I hadn't eaten anything offending.

I knew that when I had any subsequent children I would cut out dairy and soy from the start to make sure that we reverse introduced any possible problematic foods. I stopped eating all dairy and soy about 5 weeks before the twins were born in order to make sure it was all out of my system.

I think part of my problem is that I have babies with sensitive tummies. All three of them have had reflux, all three of them wake up a lot more than most babies I know. And now, with twins, I have double the wakings and double the guilt. Every time they are overly gassy, or wake up more in the night I immediately wonder what I've eaten that has set it off.

These are the things that weigh on me:

* Am I doing them more harm than good. I was in a wedding on the weekend and so the babies had a LOT more formula than usual. They slept a lot better. Is it because I need to be cutting more out of my diet, or is it because I had a glass of wine both evenings? ;)
* I keep wondering if I should be cutting out more and if I can handle cutting out more. Plus, we never proved dairy and soy are actually an issue (although I believe they are). The thought of trying to figure it out makes me even more weary than I already am, I don't know if I can do it.
* I cannot seem to stay awake when I'm nursing in the night. As hard as I try, I fall asleep. I think this leads to innefficient feeds because the babies also fall asleep and I can't coax them to continue, and then they wake up again far sooner than they would have because they didn't have a full feed. Even when Eric sets his alarm to keep coming in and getting me waking me up, we don't have improvement, and the time we tried to have eric stay with me to keep me awake and efficient, it also woke the babies up completely and then they wouldn't go back down for a couple of hours. This means I almost never sleep in a bed but instead sitting up. I describe how I feel on most mornings as feeling like I have been kicked in the head repeatedly all night. It sucks.
* I just keep asking myself if they would be better off on formula. Part of me wouldn't want to do it because nursing is so much cheaper and, it seems to me, less of a hassle. Would they feel better? Or do they not even care that they wake up a lot. They DO seem less fussy than they were before they went on the nexium for their reflux.

And I haven't even touched on the fact that I'm almost exclusively nursing TWINS. With REFLUX. I'm really tired ;)