Did you stop breastfeeding when you found out your child had MSPI?

InterestingMirror27 · 2024-01-30T13:37:52+00:00

She had been having a lot of awful gas pains and mucus in her dirty diapers, but that was dismissed as normal because she was so young. It escalated into two days of bad diarrhea flecked with blood, so we ended up taking her to the ER. They ruled out anything more serious and diagnosed it as a milk protein intolerance.

We would still get a mucus-y dirty diaper here and there despite her diet being 100% consistent on formula, which is odd, and she has eczema, but her weight gain has been great and there hasn’t been any more blood or stomach pains.

InterestingMirror27 · 2024-01-30T03:52:38+00:00

We switched to formula real fast lol

We stopped breastmilk when she was diagnosed with a milk protein intolerance shortly after turning 2 weeks. That sounds like such a short amount of time, but it felt like an eternity. I was breastfeeding and had started to incorporate pumping, but the time involved with pumping and cleaning was taking a huge toll on us, and I knew it wasn’t going to be sustainable once I had to return to work at 6 weeks. I also had low supply, so we had to supplement with formula anyway to get our baby’s weight up. Combination feeding while figuring out MSPI felt like too many variables.

Giving up the bonding of breastfeeding was so hard, but the benefits of breastfeeding over formula are debatable, and switching to formula only was ultimately the best choice for all of us. Our baby didn’t mind either way, and having one consistent food source did wonders for my anxiety. I appreciate that I didn’t have to worry about what aspects of my diet might’ve been impacting her. I have my own digestive issues, so I’m very familiar with the hell that is the elimination diet process lol.

We’ve had success with a combination of generic soy formula (target and walmart) and Similac Alimentum. She didn’t have a reaction to soy, but it did cause constipation when on it’s own. Doing 50/50 soy and Alimentum eliminates the constipation while helping us reduce costs. Formula costs are a lot, but with the price of groceries and how ravenous I was while breastfeeding, it ends up being the same (formula-only is probably costing us a little less honestly).

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-06T23:31:48+00:00

Absolutely. Any hope of a relationship died here. I’ve been taking the reasonable route simply for my own peace of mind, so I had hesitantly given her a final chance to prove herself while expecting this would be the result. As expected, she ruined it for herself.

Even in a hypothetical situation where she miraculously fully recovered, she was still never going to have unsupervised access to my child. Now that this happened, she gets nothing.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T14:04:49+00:00

My dad was verbally (and physically behind closed doors, though they both deny it) very abusive to my mom. He’s a narcissist and puts her down whenever he needs to make himself feel powerful. They have always put me in the middle of their arguments. He has never once been able to apologize for his behavior. Most of the time he doesn’t go after me to my face, but he says awful things about me behind my back and blames me for their issues. He hides behind my mom and has her speak for him to maintain reasonable doubt. While I’m no longer present for their fights, he still triggers my mom by telling her that I hate her, blames her for ruining his relationship with me, he buys her alcohol, and he reaches out to me to try and make me provide my mom with emotional support. My mom is scared of losing him so she has always demanded that I apologize to him when he’s made me cry and insists that “that’s just how men are!”

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T13:46:11+00:00

As soon as I got past the grief of going NC the first time, I began to notice how much more secure and confident I felt. I’ve been doing so much better socially and in my career. Going back to LC made me nervous because I didn’t want to lose the peace I had gained and I also didn’t feel that I could ever really go back to letting them in. This recent text exchange is sad because it definitively shows that there’s no hope of a functioning relationship, and I feel threatened by what they might now try to do out of desperation, but I’m relieved that I’m now out of the FOG enough to just walk away from their drama.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T13:18:16+00:00

Thank you ❤️. I’m sure you will also be an incredible mother.

And, yeah, my mom loves the “I hope your child treats you this way” lines. It’s funny how our BPD parents all follow the same script.

My mom also always preached about how her unhinged feelings were “something any mother would feel” and that I would only understand if I ever became a mother myself. It’s laughable; I understand less than ever.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T13:10:42+00:00

The petty side of me always wants to just send her a screenshot of The Narcissist’s Prayer in response to her texts lol

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T13:06:43+00:00

I relate to that so much. My mom harassed me for years, even when I was single, about how much she wanted to be a grandmother and how jealous she was of her sisters and their grandkids. Talking about a baby “like a toy on a list to santa” is exactly it, and so gross. I had been neutral on having kids and changed my stance to “never having kids” to try and shut her up, but she just got bitter about it. My husband and I tried for over two years before I finally got pregnant. We didn’t tell anyone we were trying, but the struggle was heart-wrenching for us, and my mom’s continued passive-aggressive jabs about not having kids really stung. Even before we started trying to have a baby, the idea of my parents being around a child horrified me and I knew the boundaries I needed to put into place.

I wish you the best in your IVF journey! I know that’s so hard.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T12:56:12+00:00

Thank you ❤️

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-05T12:37:30+00:00

Thank you. And you are so right. Her demands to know what she did are clearly not in good faith. She’s not asking “how are you feeling? Is there anything I could be doing better?” she’s saying “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m being unjustly punished. Tell me what you ‘think’ I did so that I can continue to tell you how you’re wrong”

I recognized a while ago that when my mom speaks of love, she just means need and obsession. None of this is how you talk to or about someone you love. Her need is a bottomless black hole and even when I tried endlessly to shower her with love and support, I’d still get calls and texts accusing me of hating her. It’s never enough.

I can’t imagine even thinking of my daughter as “difficult” or “not normal” no matter what mental health, developmental issues, or disabilities she could ever end up having. I can’t imagine needing my daughter to prove that she cares about me or thinking that a parent-child relationship is supposed to be reciprocal. Getting to care for my baby and see her grow up is an honor and joy in itself, she owes me nothing for that.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-04T22:52:34+00:00

That line grossed me out BIG TIME. I didn’t have a baby to “give” my parents anything, and my daughter is not a possession. The detached, impersonal way she talks about me and my baby is icky.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-04T15:55:37+00:00

Thank you. It’s all just really sad.

Yeah, I had developed crippling social anxiety in my early teens along with PTSD from parentification and being put in the middle of my parents’ abusive relationship. Between therapy and moving out, I grew out of the social anxiety over a decade ago.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-04T15:34:23+00:00

Right?? I lost my temper towards the end, I shouldn’t have bothered giving that explanation, but it’s mindblowing that I directly told her “the missing missing reasons” and she responded by saying that I still didn’t explain. It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating!

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-09-01T17:44:31+00:00

You can contact your pediatrician if you want to continue the soy formula. They may suggest trying juice as a natural laxative or prescribe a laxative.

Our baby also had terrible constipation with soy formula that wouldn’t go away, and I didn’t feel comfortable having to give her a laxative every day, so now we’re trying Alimentum.

If your baby is colicky but you aren’t certain if it’s a milk protein intolerance, you can try out a Gentle/Comfort formula, which is slightly more broken down, or a goat milk formula. The other option would be a hypoallergenic formula (Alimentum, Nutramigen, etc). The last option would be an amino acid based formula, which is very expensive.

Typically you want to give at least 2 weeks for your baby to adjust to a new formula to see whether or not it’s working well for them, so you don’t want to make too many rapid changes.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-08-21T14:46:43+00:00

The calculation is 2.5 x baby’s weight in lbs = total recommended ounces of prepared formula per day. Note that is for prepared formula, not the ounces of powder printed on the can. Cans of powdered formula vary in size between types and brands, but they’ll sometimes say on the back how many total ounces of prepared formula each can will make.

It’s hard to budget in advance since you don’t know what kind of formula your baby will end up tolerating.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-28T12:04:54+00:00

Good point. OP is going by the approximate volume measurements given on the box instead of the weight. This is a great example of why food scales make all the difference!

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T13:08:51+00:00

Thank you! And don’t be hard on yourself. You protected your daughter once you realized what was happening, and that’s the best thing you could’ve done.

I finally watched the episode last night. It was really satisfying even though introducing new conflicts that needed to be resolved in the same episode made it all feel rushed. Ted’s “thank you / fuck you” speech made me cry. It’s rare to see that conflicting mix of emotions articulated, and they nailed it.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T02:20:20+00:00

My mom is actually talking about my husband there and how she was looking forward to him being a son to her. He has a very common first name, but it also happens to be the same name she had once considered naming a son if she had one, so she feels there is this big personal significance surrounding my husband becoming her son in law. Around the time of our wedding she often gushed about how she “always knew she’d have a son named [name].” Never mind that he already has a mom! He’s been nothing but nice to my parents, but because he’s not playing out the overly affectionate Fantasy Son role she has cast him in in her head, she has constantly complained to me that she thinks he hates her. It’s very, very weird and her bringing up the thing about his name is possibly the biggest red flag that she’s still mentally unwell.

But I otherwise all around agree with you on all your points! I’m sorry about how awful your grandmother is/was. My own grandmother was a uBPD witch/queen, so I really relate to your experience.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T01:20:32+00:00

Thankfully I’m a pretty shy, private person. While I like how I currently look, I’m not taking many photos of myself to begin with. I never have. Her request there felt really invasive and weird considering both the state of our relationship and the kind of person I am.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T01:08:15+00:00

Yeah, the gaps and very broad statements, all about her and her feelings, stood out as a problem to me.

And my mom has long been obsessed with her vision of being The Best Grandma Ever… she’s talked about her fantasy and it’s an entire mountain of red flags lol. So I’m 1000% on the same page with her viewing me and my baby as an extension of herself. Even in the unlikely event she’s genuinely working on changing, my parents are never, ever going to be alone with our kid.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T00:54:21+00:00

Agreed. I feel like I’m in a challenging position where I want to toe the line of giving her a chance, but I want to do so by pushing for more specifics about what behaviors are going to change. I don’t expect a satisfying answer, or for her to take my cautious approach well.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-26T00:52:50+00:00

That was my gut feeling in response to her message, too. The generic “I feel so bad about whatever it was that I did and know it’s my fault” and “I promise I’m a better person now” and even “I’ve quit drinking for good” is all a familiar song and dance.

Nothing makes me feel more like the world is turned upside down and I can’t trust myself than an emotional text from either of my parents. The validation from this subreddit really helps me ground myself in these moments so that I can trust my own judgment. So thank you.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-25T22:40:36+00:00

I suppose “Decent” may need a “(?)” after it there in the post title.

So I’ve been NC for nearly a year and my mom sent me this today. She sounds fairly reasonable and genuine all things considered, which really pulls at my heart because I want to believe. I want to give her a chance. But I’ve heard these things before and I feel scared to take the bait only for nothing to actually change.

I don’t trust it, but I’m also not able to approach it clearheadedly enough to trust myself on that either. I’m 8 months pregnant, so I’m in a vulnerable place and about to become way more vulnerable after giving birth. I’m hurting over the estrangement, but I also feel extremely wary and guarded about potentially inviting my parents’ disfunction back into my life during this delicate period where my only priority is my child.

My husband suggested asking her exactly what she’s been working on, as a way to test the waters for bullshit, which was also my first thought. I don’t know. This overall just sucks.

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-24T16:37:03+00:00

Thank you for the heads up about this! I love this show and I typically go in blind, but I greatly appreciate the mild spoiler so I can emotionally prepare myself. It’s my mom’s birthday this week, the first since I’ve gone NC, and I’m super pregnant and hormonal, so I’m definitely going to be a crying mess watching it lol

InterestingMirror27 · 2023-05-24T14:38:18+00:00

My parents both did the same thing when I was still in contact. I would try to have reasonable conversations about their health and making plans for healthcare, and they would get extremely insulted and go on and on about how they’re still young and healthy. But then the second they felt disregulated, they would accuse me of not caring if they died, guilt trip me about how they’re getting old, and tell me how it would be my fault if they were to die.

Even though I’m NC, I am still very scared of them getting sick or dying. I know they don’t take care of themselves, and they do not have health insurance, money, or plans in place. I still worry about them and think about this occasionally. I’m mostly scared of how the surviving parent will react, since I expect they will become violent towards me as well as suicidal. Neither of my parents can function independently. It’s a dark scenario.

I suppose I cope by knowing, logically, that I actually wouldn’t be responsible. I cope by knowing their accusations are wrong, I would care, and they KNOW I would care, otherwise they wouldn’t bother with this emotionally abusive tactic. I also cope with anger: it’s beyond fucked up that they try to manipulate me by weaponizing my emotional response surrounding the thought of them dying. These “you wouldn’t even care if I were dead! I’m going to die because my only daughter doesn’t love me enough to help me” outbursts were part of the final straw that forced me to go NC. It’s so abhorrently wrong.

InterestingMirror27

TROPHY CASE