Finally an update on Vincent, and a BF type question

[aleatha5]

I have been so incommunicado since Vince's birth. He and I have been snugging, bfing, and generally bonding.

We had the two month appt. he is up to 11 lbs 2 oz (from 5 lbs 13 oz) and 24 inches. He's bigger than I was at two months and I was full term. He's doing really well now, we had some bfing issues to start, we had to use a nipple shield because he was so little and couldn't get a good latch going on. Luckily, we transitioned really smoothly to latching directly on the nipple at 6 weeks or so.

Everything is just so amazing. I didn't know how much I would love being a mom, but I told my dh I could see having 4 kids...he said, we'll see, let's go one at a time

Finally, the question. Does anyone use the Vitamin D drops if you are exclusively bfing? I haven't to this point, b/c we would go outside to get vitamin D. But now, I'm on the fence. I live in a place where we don't get enough vit. d from the sun from now through april. What do you all think?

[2boyzmama]

Wow, he's already DOUBLED birth weight!!! It took Ian 7 months to double and took Connor 10 months (then he lost weight, and didn't re-double again until just before 12 months).

Way to go mama milk!!! I'd say your breastfeeding is going just fine

Vit D...sigh...there's SO MUCH contradictory information out there!! I *think* what I'm going to do is wait on supplementing. At least as long as Gavin has a virgin gut. If his gut gets compromised by something else (antibiotics, some other supplementation) then I'll probably start supplementing Vit D then.

I've never had a fall/winter baby before, Ian and Connor were born in March, so they got a full summer's worth of Vit D exposure before their first winters. So I actually never supplemented either one of them until recently when I started giving them both Omegas and Vit D.

My other concern, besides compromising a virgin gut, is that our bodies are designed to absorb it through the skin, not through the digestive tract, so I wonder what effects that has on us?? I HATE HATE HATE giving my kids anything artificial, and if I do have to give them something artificial, I search around and find a version that is as close to the real thing as possible. Like with iron, I go to the health foods store and buy the iron supplement that is made from food instead of artificial. So to buy Vit D and then to eat it just feels wrong, you know? But I can't find any research to back my worries on that, it's just a gut feeling.

I did hear recently from a friend that Dr Mercola sells Vit D lamps (expensive!) as well as a skin spray, I want to research that more. I'd be more inclined to do one of those I think.

I'm very interested what others think...

[aleatha5]

Vitamin D lamps...I like the sound of that. I will have to look into it, since I would be inclined to use it too. I like absorbing it through the skin, I agree with you, that's the way it's supposed to happen.

[Julia24]

I tell ya! I don't know about this either. I mean, it makes me crazy that now they're even saying that children shouldn't be out in the sun for 15 minutes a day without sunscreen for the vit d - you're supposed to sunscreen them up and then give them a supplement. That just seems ridiculous to me. I think I'd probably NOT. I mean, aren't we DESIGNED to live through winters - isn't bm probably passing the vit d along to the baby? jmho. I do give my girls kefir and a multi-vitamin daily right now though. I usually skip the multi-vitamin, but I'm doing my darndest to keep everyone healthy for this winter. (I'm even using actual bleach and anti-bacterial products, which I NEVER do!)