Three months later

When you find out that you have been overfeeding your baby and therefore they have excessive gas, don't sleep much, cry a lot from pain, have infrequent stinky bowels, and feed nonstop, you feel horrible. But it is worse when you think that you have to give up breastfeeding to save your sanity, sleep train that baby, and vent the frustration of dealing with the baby by allowing them to suffer with bloating and cramps. No wonder they like being held upright and being moved or bounced in some way. After many marathon sessions of overfeeding, I am exhausted and can't think straight. Life is miserable and I just want to escape. I dread the time that she will wake up because I don't know how I am going to keep her peaceful after she has fed. She wants to be fed as soon as she wakes up. Before falling to sleep as well. Also when she has gas, or is tired, or bored, she wants to be fed. She is vocal and stubborn. If I try to stretch out feeds because I know she is overfeeding, she forces me to feed her by having incredible meltdowns. I have created a milk monster. A gassy, super gassy one. That doesn't sleep.

And the worse part is that the more she overfeeds, the worse her farts are, the less she sleeps, the more she cries, the more she wants to suck and feed, and so on. And she is not able to pass stool. The milk is hardly digested and her stool is so full of air and undigested fat that it is impossible to flush it down the toilet bowl.

If it is any solace, at least she isn't underweight. She is at double her birth weight in 3 months instead of 6. But this means her fat cells have been stretched by all that overeating. And she will be ravenous because these cells are very demanding. And she may have problems with obesity in adulthood.

I feel horrible about myself as a parent. I was so foolish, I tried to solve my problems using the wrong methods and only ended up with a bigger mess than before.