My Not-So Chubby Bubby

* Special disclaimer. We're (i.e. "me") talking "mom" stuff here, so if you 1) don't want to read about this sort of stuff or 2) just plain aren't interested, you might wish to skip this post. Come back for the next one, though, so I can bore you with more knitting!

As some of you noticed from the last post, my little guy seems to have slimmed down a bit since birth. I've had a slight worry from the beginning that he wasn't getting enough to eat, because he wasn't making the usual amount of messy diapers despite the fact that he was sleeping well at night and eating regularly every three hours.

Heh. I never thought I'd be in the position to want my baby to make more messy diapers. Weird.

Well, it seems that my little guy has a "weak sucking reflex". He latches on just fine, but after about a minute or so, he loses interest in "the business" and half-heartedly muses about eating.

(It's rather difficult to find just the right words to describe this process. At first I tried "nibbles", but that made me cringe in pain just thinking about it, then I tried "sips", but again, the idea of being a human straw hurt my self-esteem. "Muses" seemed much more artistic if a bit erudite. Hee hee, I got "erudite" into m paragraph! Can you tell English was my favorite subject in school?)

Thanks to a friend's advice and use of another friends pump, my little guy is finally getting enough to eat. Apparently it's easier for babies to get milk from a bottle than the, uh, "direct source". I've been keeping careful tabs of how much Gabe's been getting and how much the "direct source" is supplying, so hopefully we'll start to see some improvements.

(By the way, can't manufacturers find some better name for the thing than "Breast Pump"? How unromantic is that!? It ranks right up there with "sump pump" and "pumping gas". I'm going to start calling my borrowed breast pump the "Drug Dealer" since it has the practical affect on my son of a milk narcotic.)

Oh, I can't wait till Gabe's in high school and I can pull out the spread sheet I'm making of his feeding schedule, complete with the quantity of bowel movements he's made for the day.

He's gonna love me.

I wonder which nursing home he'll put me in?(I'm trying to make light of this, but in reality I was worried sick for a few days. Now that I know Gabe's getting enough to eat, I feel much better. )