poly-vomit-sol

Who knows what's normal? I know I don't, even when it comes to regular life. Throw a baby into the mix, and you got me. I am probably like every other new parent: obsessing over every little thing. For instance, he seems to be sleeping a lot and not eating so much the last few days. If he were a grown up, I would think that he was recovering from a stressful experience and that he is now finally able to relax. I guess you could assign the same characteristics to a wee babe, but I don't know. They say he's supposed to eat, eat, eat/gain, gain gain--about an ounce a day, and he fed like a pro for the lactation consultant, but since then, he's been very fussy at the boob. He'll take a bottle, but he just does not seem to be very hungry.

This morning, he latched on and ate nicely with no fussing and no arching. Then we gave him his Poly-vi-sol. And he puked. And puked. And puked. How am I supposed to pack the ounces on this baby when the supplement they want me to give him completely undermines the work of the previous hour? I understand that he needs iron for brain development, and I don't want to short change him, but it's a balancing act between caloric intake and supplement.

It's one of those times that I find it helpful to fall back on a cliche and say "They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make a more palatable and digestible iron supplement for children?!" I don't get it. I mean, it's not that I don't enjoy my baby smelling like a rusty bucket and watching him retch and gag and then puke up something that puts me in mind of bubotuber pus, but I did rather prefer it when he smelled pleasantly of pumpkins and was dealing with his normal amount of uncomfortable reflux.