In the hospital the nurses made sure I drank my milk every morning. They told me it would help me produce milk for Meow Meow. I enjoy dairy. I love love my cheese, and I used to love my cereal and milk. So I drank a lot of it for Meow Meow. I started noticing, however, that her poop was not the yellow chunky stuff breast fed babies were supposed to have. Instead it was green. She also needed to be burped all the time and would experience pain in her abdomen after nursing. When I asked about this at a +La Leche League USA meeting, they told me to cut out dairy. For those of you that do not know dairy takes about two weeks to get out of the system. This means that while I was actively trying not to hurt my little one anymore, she was still experiencing a lot of discomfort.
Going dairy free is not something that is easy, and not something I want to go through again. It seems like milk is in everything! I had to be really vigilant about reading food labels looking for milk, cheese, and cream. I had to say good bye to my beloved frozen yogurt and cheese cakes. Good bye hamburgers with cheese. Good bye pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches. I started with vegan cheese as a substitute. That got pretty gross real fast. I will say, however, that almond milk and coconut milk are pretty good substitutes in cereal (another food I miss, but we'll talk about that later).
Eventually, all the dairy was out of my system. And then it was all out of Meow Meow's system. She turned into a different baby. She was a pretty happy baby before this except her bouts of discomfort that lasted until she passed out. But now she was happy all the time. A little cry for nursies, a little cry for changing, and that was pretty much it. When people ask me why I am dairy free I tell them it is for my little one. Being a mother means making sacrifices for our babies. We sacrifice our bodies, we sacrifice our lifestyle and time, and some of us sacrifice our food. But when I look into her happy smiling face after a nursing session, it does not feel like I have made any sacrifices at all.
