You might have noticed my posts have been a little thin on the ground over the last couple of weeks. That’s because my three-month-old son stopped growing at five weeks of age and I’ve been working hard to get him to put on weight.
I’d been breast feeding my baby since birth and all seemed to go well, until my health visitor noticed he wasn’t putting on any weight. She suggested we keep an eye on things and weigh him again in a couple of weeks. A week later my baby was colicky, developing eczema and losing interest in feeding so I took him to our doctor, who referred him to our local hospital the same day.
It turned out that my son is very sensitive to cows milk – so sensitive that the cows milk protein he was getting from my breast milk was stopping him from growing and making his eczema worse on an almost hourly basis.
I’ve spent quite a few hours in hospital over the last few weeks, waiting for doctors, blood test and having my baby observed. My baby wasn’t even ill as such, so having a child who is really sick must take over your life completely. While I was waiting, I overheard the parents of a toddler talking about how long they’d spent at hospital trying to get blood tests done and how they were trying to combine a few tests into one visit because they’d missed so much time at work.
Of course your child’s health is your priority, but the bills still need to be paid there’s only so much time off an employer can accommodate. Not putting in the hours at work brings tension, and that tension brings stress at a time that you don’t need it. It reminded me of how the worlds of nine-to-five employment and the worlds of small children don’t fit together well at all.
Yet again I found myself thinking there has to be a better way of combining family and working life.It’s no surprise that so many mums are starting their own businesses with the hope they can fit their work around their family.
After a couple of weeks of both breast and ‘top up’ bottle feeding (a special cows milk free formula) he’s well on his way to being a normal weight and he’s a different baby entirely. The colic has gone, he’s contented, alert and he’s sleeping really well.
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I’m glad to hear you got the help you needed and your son is now putting on weight.x
Thanks Sandy, he’s a different baby now (and a much bigger one!).
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