I'm a strong advocate for breastfeeding. I breastfed my son, Ezra for 2 years and 8 months long, probably with the last couple months him sucking just for comfort. I gotta say though the last couple months that I was no longer producing milk, the feeling of him sucking for comfort was really really annoying and painful. If you have seen dogs or cats nursing their pups that's getting out of the puppy stage, probably nearing the weaning stage, the mother will start kicking her young ones away when they try to suckle. It felt exactly like that, I felt like kicking my own son away for sucking! That was how annoying it felt only I couldn't coz I knew I was his pillar of security and I told myself I was gonna allow him to take his time to self wean himself off when he is ready to let go of the breast. I didn't want the weaning to be stressful for the both of us. He self wean himself 3 weeks before his baby sister came out to see the world. As Ezra was my first born and motherhood was just a whole new world I was stepping into, everyday is a learning lesson for a new momma like me. Even as a so-called 'experience' momma now for the second time to baby Cadence, I'm still learning something new every now and then. I made a lot more mistakes first time around with Ezra, the sad thing is the mistake has to happen to him. It seems rather unfair that the learning curve for a mother is usually with the first born, but it is what it is. The only positive way to look at it is that we get it right immediately with our second or third. One of the biggest mistake I did with Ezra was that, when he was about a year old plus, we went back to my hometown for about two weeks. During that time, he only direct latch for feeds and after we went back home to KL, he rejected the bottle when I had to leave him with my mother in law. Little did I know that my dilemma would start from there. Since he rejected the bottle, I made the effort to travel back home for lunch everyday to feed him directly. I was left with no choice. I was adamant about wanting to breastfeed for two years so that lasted up till he was two years old, until I had intentions of weaning him off, only I didn't know how. He didn't seem like he was ready to be wean off, so I cut his intake to only night feeds. So came the time to introduce powdered or formula milk to him, that was even tougher. As he had rejected the bottle, trying to introduce cows milk to him was like me trying to understand Physics. As expected, he rejected all of it and I failed at trying to get him to drink milk. The closest I ever got to was him drinking Milo and chocolate milk which was in the tetra pack form. Not the best option, but it's better than nothing. Fast forward to a year later, still no milk, not even chocolate milk powder. Substituting milk with other calcium rich food was equally difficult as Ezra is a really picky eater. Not a day passed by that I don't think about his lack of calcium and the fact that his height and weight often falls under the 25 percentile on the chart, the fine lines on my face starts to become more obvious and not so fine anymore from the worrying. 3 important thing that is essential for a toddler's growth, exercise, protein and CALCIUM, said his pediatrician. Exercise, checked; Protein, checked; Calcium, 'X' EKKK!! Dahiku kerut sekerut kerutnya. Am I suppose to give up trying? Does that mean my 3 year old won't be getting any sorta calcium ever? Is he gonna be ketot forever? I was desperate for a solution. To the point I was contemplating of buying Calcium supplements off pharmacies shelf, crush it and mix with his food. The only reason I didn't do it is I wasn't sure if toddlers can take adults supplements. Just when I thought all hope is lost, my company had a 'Vitamin C' day. It's suppose to be a health day check. They invited some hospitals representative to our company to give out free check ups. There were counters that sells vitamins and supplements. I decided to drop in to check on calcium supplements. I saw it, I asked the sales person if the adult calcium supplements could be prescribe to toddlers. Obviously the answer is no, to my disappointment. But she came back with another bottle, 'These calcium supplements are for children', to my delight! Abbott has a calcium product for children. It was calcium in milky chew form, chocolate flavored. Bonus! I was so ecstatic by the discovery that my face was beaming from the moment I laid eyes on it and my smile was from ear to ear. Words can't describe how excited I was coz I never knew or expected there are such products for children. So I bought two bottles on that very day. RM 36 a bottle. I went to Guardian to check it out, RM28.90 per bottle. I got ripped off, by 8 bucks! Not pleased and I was pissed about it, cussing the sales person away but heck it. I would have bought it even if it cost RM100. So I bought additional two more bottles. That's how much of a kiasu I am. A bottle has 30 soft chews. 2-3 soft chews can be prescribe a day. Ingredients for these soft chews are glucose syrup, calcium carbonate (400gm elemental calcium per chew), sugar, palm oil, cocoa powder, sorbitol syrup, soy lecithin, iodized sodium chloride, chocolate flavor, mono and diglycerides, vitamin D3 and water. And the chews contain edible gelatin from bovine source. Now this may not be as good as milk powder or fresh milk but then again living by the it's better than nothing rule, this is like the best option I have now for Ezra. Kids love these, I remember the sales person telling me. Indeed!! The texture of this chews is exactly like Sugus, except it's chocolate in flavor. I give Ezra 3 chews a day. He has a lot of catching up to do from the prior years lack of calcium! I'm a happy momma.
