LMH, Sophie is 4 weeks and eats every 2-4 hours. Sometimes she'll go at 4 hr intervals for a while, and then she makes up for it by eating every hour
. She usually nurses for 15-30 minutes at a time.
Okay, I am annoyed with my mil. Again
:. I am busting my butt trying to help Sophie with the reflux/gas/digestive issues, taking her to anyone I think might help her in addition to doing an extremely severe elimination diet. I started the diet W morning, and by W evening felt I was seeing improvement in the reflux. We're on day 3 now, and she has not had any painful reflux episodes in a good 24 hours. She is still spitting up a lot, but is not screaming in pain like she was before. There have been no more projectile vomit / coming out the nose incidents either. So how obvious can it be? I mention to mil that I really think she's doing better since I started the diet, and mil says, "Well, she's getting older every day too."
She was always making passive-aggressive comments about the slippery elm too, and it was obvious she didn't think it was helping, even though it was very obvious to me that it was (screaming baby, give slippery elm, baby stops screaming
). (FWIW, I'm hardly giving her any now - since the diet change has helped - and feel that I could probably stop altogether.)
She did the same thing with dd1 and her birth trauma. After 4 months of crying at the breast, I took her to a new chiro and she stopped crying while nursing after ONE VISIT. I seriously kid you not. It was like a switch had been flipped. The very first time I nursed her after that visit, she didn't cry. Before chiro, crying at the breast; after chiro, not crying. Pretty obvious. MIL was out of town at the time, and I called to tell her the good news. Her response? "Sounds like she grew out of it."
And it's not like she doesn't believe in alternative stuff (although she has stated repeatedly she thinks chiros are quacks
). She says she believes in homeopathy, takes a ton of vitamins, etc. She won't spend any money to see an alternative
practitioner, and goes the traditional western route when it comes to more serious health issues (e.g., had hip replacement surgery last year - which went badly, btw, and she has a bad limp and has signed on for yet
another surgery to try to fix that). But she buys homeopathic stuff at the drugstore, etc.
But for whatever reason, she is constantly dissing my "non-traditional" attempts to help my kids. When we were in the thick of things with Sophie, she kept saying, "It was like this with my kids for the first 3 months." Basically saying, it just is what it is and you can't do anything about it. Well, now Sophie's doing lots better, and she is poo-pooing what I've done. The only thing I can think of is that she has to dismiss it all as quackery or else she'll feel guilty for not going to these lengths for her sons?
All I know is it makes me feel unhappy when she dismisses what I'm doing. I think I want her to buy into it in part because she is acting as dd1's childcare while I drag Sophie to all these appts, and I feel a little guilty about how much I'm asking of her. So I'd like for her to feel like it isn't all a waste of her time.
I know the solution is to just let it go. I don't need her approval. I'm a big girl and I can make my own decisions. And the best thing for me to do is to stop
asking for her approval, because I'm not going to get it. So there's really no point in even bringing any of this stuff up with her. I need to just go about my business and not discuss it with her. But she plays an important role in my life, and I care about her a lot, so it does bum me out that things are like this
.
ETA: I think what it boils down to is I feel like she is telling me "You don't know your child. You are not able to discern what helps her and what doesn't." I'm not convinced that's what she's
trying to say, but it feels like it, yk?
:
Hi everyone! So glad to be on the other side. Hope I have time to post soon!
) and his boss said he could have an entire week!! So we thought he was using up 2.5 weeks of his paid vacation after the birth (of a total of 3.5) but it was really only 1.5 weeks! I'm very excited 
:!
