8/06/2008 12:43:00 PM

Milestones

Masha'Allah, my babies are growing so fast!

My oldest daughter, A, turns 22 months today. I cannot believe that she will be 2 years old soon! My youngest, Z, will be eight months old next week! In her first 2 months of life, she gained a lot of weight and looked very chubby, masha'Allah. But slowly (or rather quickly maybe) she started shriveling away in front of my eyes. I could not figure out what was wrong with her. She was eating so much, and yet she was crying all of the time. Those months of my life were some of the worst. Finally, I took her to see a different Pediatrician, who asked me a few simple questions, and as she asked them, the wheels started turning in my head. I realized what was going on. Then she said it. "Well it seems to me that your milk has dried up." And suddenly it seemed so obvious, I couldn't believe that I had not figured it out myself. She had been eating so much solid food to make up for the lack of breast milk. She had been eating pureed vegetables and fruits, cereal, and yogurt. I guess that her tiny and immature digestive system couldn't process the nutrients in that food, and so she was eating enough to maintain her weight, but not enough to grow any. At that doctors visit she was 6 months old and she only weighed 10 lbs. (She was 7 lbs, 4 oz at birth) I was horrified that I could let this happen to my sweet, sweet girl. What kind of mother was I? The doctor assured me that it wasn't my fault and that Z's suck wasn't strong enough to stimulate production. And it is true. Z would get very frustrated while breastfeeding. She would latch on, then as soon as the gush of the let-down would subside, she would stop sucking and cry. I guess she thought she was too much of a princess to work for her food. :) Well I started her on formula, much to my dismay, and she gained 3 lbs in two weeks! Alhamdulillah!!!!! Now she is so chubby and adorable! During those months of 'starvation' her development was basically on hold. She wasn't verbalizing other then crying, and she could barely roll over. Since formula, she is sitting up, crawling, pulling herself up to standing, and she is beginning to cruise around furniture. She calls me "mama", and she also says "Baba." She is always smiling and laughing, (although she still wants to be held all of the time) and I feel like walking is not so far away! It is so amazing.

Alhamdulillah for the beautiful girls in my life. May Allah allow me to raise them to be good muslimahs, so that they can in turn raise good muslimahs. Ameen.

Salam

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

ah answer to the above question. I should have read down further.

molly