Dexter has been on solids for less than a month, but starting a baby on solids starts a chain reaction. It's changed me and him. Maybe this is too much information, but whatever, it is what it is and like anybody reads this thing. So… close the browser now if you don't want to be grossed out…
Fine, so let's talk poop - diaper changes are so disgusting. He poops more now and it is foul-smelling, vast quantities of various colored stuff that so often shoots out of his diaper that I keep him in his pajamas until he does his morning doo doo. It is vaguely recognizable too. If he eats sweet potatoes, his poop is orange and smells like rancid yams. It certainly isn't sweet. Rice cereal makes dark brown poop, and peas - well you know, it's green! It harder to wipe off now too. I put enough diaper cream on his hiney that it looks like he sat in a tub of whipped cream just so I can get the poop off in a reasonable amount of time. Mix this with a baby who won't lay flat on his back for diaper changes anymore and you have a poopy disaster just waiting to happen. (Side note: he peed on his ear and laughed about it the other day… so I don't feel so bad about laughing at him peeing on himself anymore if he thinks it's funny too.)
He doesn't nurse as often anymore because it takes longer for the solids to digest. I have enjoyed a little known side affect of breastfeeding which is that I haven't menstruated since before I got pregnant. Well, that vacation ended when I started Dexter on solids. Literally, within a week, Aunt Flo came to visit and she'll keep coming back to irritate me until I decide to get pregnant again or get too old to. So much for natural birth control! Can I just say that the thought of getting pregnant again anytime soon scares me? I need to have a little more time to forget the details of the discomfort it brings… like years. I want to focus on my little boy before even considering torturing myself again for another.
It has also changed whatever hormones that were keeping my arthritis at bay. I'm now flaring more and more. It has made a dramatic difference in the last 3 weeks. The aches and fatigue keep getting worse. Slowly, but surely, the Prednisone just isn't cutting it anymore. My limit is 10mg before I see the doctor about starting one of my previous prescriptions again that will require Dexter to be weaned. I don't feel comfortable exposing him to medicine that the effect is unknown on breastfeeding babies and may potentially cause blindness. Prednisone is common and I'm on such a low dosage that he's barely getting any of it. It does come through the milk, but it's something like .01%. It is a very common drug and has been used for several decades. Even though it isn't rated as "safe", I feel like if there were any serious issues, they would've been discovered by now. The other drug I used to take is less known, as it has only recently been introduced as a therapeutic drug for various autoimmune diseases. It can cause blindness, so eye exams every 6 months are mandatory. That is NOT something I will risk on Dex. I will have made my goal of nursing him for the first 6 months in just a couple weeks. If I need to start taking any other medicines, then he'll be making the change to formula. That will be a sad time for me, because even though breastfeeding was incredibly hard for me at the beginning, it's a special time we share - just me and Dex.
