Crunchy is as crunchy does

Felix had his 2 month check up today, with a pediatrician recommended to me by another “all natural” mom. I LOVE her – the pediatrician, that is.

And Felix is a beast! 12.5lbs and 25 inches. Man, can this kid GROW. (He was 6lbs, 20 inches when he was born.)

When the pediatrician walked into the room, she didn’t say a word about the fact that I was bottle feeding. It wasn’t until she asked about any issues we might be having, and I told her of our breast feeding saga, she said, “So that’s breast milk in the bottle?” and THEN I knew how she felt.

She said that since he’s thriving and the pumping is working, why not wait until we’re settled in the new house to contact a lactation consultant and try proper breastfeeding again? I must have looked as tired as I felt today, as she said we’ve had so much going on, don’t add anything else to it already, if we don’t have to.

*sigh of relief*

I said that I hate giving him any formula – on a good day it’s only 25% but some days are closer to 50. I’m trying out some “power pumping” this week to try to increase my supply. But in the meantime, she professed to hating formula and said I could try goat milk, raw if I’m comfortable with it – and hell yes, I am. I’m a strong advocate of raw milk, drank it all through pregnancy and don’t think there’s much nutritional point in drinking pasteurized milk. Raw is absolutely safe, when you know your source. More so than pasteurized.

Anyway. I’ve read about using goat milk and wanted to try it, but not without talking to a doctor first. She heartily endorses it and said none of her patients that do it have had any problems because of it. Plus, across other cultures, many parents will supplement their babies/children with the milk of whatever animals they have on the farm.

So for the rest of this week, I’ll be power pumping to build a stash, then this weekend we’re going to a local farm to get some lovely raw goat milk.

I’ll have to keep a record of all he’s eating for awhile. Goat milk is great if, say, it’s 25% of his diet. Not if it’s consistently 50 or more, only because it doesn’t have as much vitamin D as breast milk or even cow milk. In which case we’d have to give him liquid vit D supplements.  Not a big deal, but good motivation for me to really work on upping my supply.

Then there’s the vaccinations. We had a long talk – she’s pro alternate schedule, and pro skipping a few altogether, as am I. He got one today (he was NOT happy) and will get 2 more, but not until his next couple visits (spaced a couple months apart.)  I know I’ve said this already, but I like to repeat it because I can’t believe *I’ve* learned & changed so much – I remember, not that long ago, when I would read about people who didn’t vaccinate their children, or rather, just didn’t give them this vaccine or that.  I was in the camp that thought they were stupid, naive, or crazy and putting the rest of the “herd” in danger.  Then I started to learn, to research, and to talk to people about their vaccination experiences and I realized that they were not stupid, naive, or crazy.  And now I will be one of those people who get pointed at and yelled at by the mass populous for being stupid, naive and crazy for not giving x, y, and/or z vaccination to my child.

So that’s that.  I co-sleep (well, I did until HE decided he didn’t want to anymore), use cloth diapers, buck the vaccination system, and now I’m going to be giving goat milk to my child.  Can I have my “crunchy hippy” badge now?

OH!  And I decided, at our new house, that I definitely do want to have chickens – I hear that the State of Washington allows you to have up to 3? (For residences and non-farms, that is.)  My friend, J, who is my whole/natural food idol has been talking about it and I’ve read DMoms accounts of having chickens, with admiration & longing.  We eat so many eggs that it would be tremendously cost-effective, and I’d know that they were cage free and not just “vegetarian fed” (chickens should be eating bugs, etc, as well) AND I think it would be awesome for Felix to know where his food comes from, to have that connection to what he eats.  Once we’re settled in the house, I’ll start looking into it.  (And any advice on chicken-keeping would be greatly appreciated!)