he's just hungry

To start with: a BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC THANK YOU to my mother-in-law for making my life a whole lot easier with the 1 suggestion that finally worked for calming little RPG.

I am publicly posting this fully aware of the possibility of raised eyebrows and disapproving glares from some people.  (Now I've got you hooked, huh?)

Last Friday I received a text from Mom Grant (who I will refer to as "Ma" for the remainder of the post so as not to confuse her with my mom, who I call.........."Mom") telling me she had a suggestion for me, and that I should call her if interested in hearing it.  I liked this approach because she left an out for me to not call her if I was tired of suggestions (rabbit trail--because on facebook all you have to post is "Roscoe just cried for an hour" and the responses are bountiful, ranging from "that means he's allergic to milk" to "have you tried swaddling?"  While on this topic, let me say that I'm terrible about facebook status updating.  I view the majority of status updates as just that.  An update.  Not a plea for help.  So when I update with the intention of portraying humor and I receive buckets of advice, it gets on my nerves.  And Mark tells me I need to get over it.  He's right.)  So I let a whole day go by and then called Ma around 9ish.  She told me about how when Mark was a baby, he was always hungry.  He came out starving and she just couldn't keep up.  He started rice cereal at 3 weeks.  Yes, a 3 week old baby being supplemented with rice cereal.  They always blamed his hunger on the fact that she was on steroids for part of the pregnancy.  But then Roscoe had to go throw a wrench in that theory.  Read on. 

Ma advised that it'd at least be worth a shot to try supplementing Roscoe's diet with something.  We want to avoid formula at all costs just because we don't have the money to buy the organic stuff and at the same time don't feel like pumping Roscoe full of the chemicals found in regular formula.  So I got a little bottle feeder from the Grant's last Saturday.  With some experimentation, I got some organic rice cereal to the perfect consistency (very thin) for the bottle.  We started supplementing and a week later, Roscoe is a much much happier baby.

That's all it was!  Poor little guy was just hungry all along :(  Here he was crying all that time and trying to communicate that he wasn't getting enough to eat and I didn't know.  (don't get me wrong, he still has his fussy periods, but don't all babies?)  I guess Mark's hunger as a baby was due to metabolism, and that transferred to our son.  My milk supply just can't keep up with Roscoe.  I'm still nursing him, and he gets a lot more milk than he does cereal.  The cereal is just supplemental.  In fact, I really haven't cut back on how many times a day I'm feeding him, they're just spread out a little more now because he actually gets naps between feedings (for the most part).  The only feeding it's eliminated is in the early morning (2-3 am).  He sleeps better at night now, and this mama isn't complaining!

I know there are a lot of opinions out there on when to start a baby on what food, etc.  But when it comes to the decision of starting my son on cereal 5 weeks earlier than suggested and letting him go hungry, what do you honestly think I'm going to do? 

After all, this baby does look a lot happier to me.