Lipase issues, daycare panic, and bottle rejection, oh my!

EVS12 · September 2012

I'm heading back to work next week after a 4.5 month maternity leave. I was already struggling with the whole thing but this past week has been rough! I found out earlier in the week that I apparently have excess lipase in my breastmilk as several bags I thawed from my freezer stash had an awful metallic smell and LO refused to take the bottles. I have over 300 oz frozen, so needless to say, I am pretty upset about the whole thing.

Then, on Thursday, my daycare arrangement fell through. I'm going back to work 3 days a week at first, so my mom was going to be watching LO the first 2 months. Knowing that she was going to be home with my mom at first was really reassuring to me. Well, we had a family emergency arise that is going to keep my mom from caring for LO (at least the first couple of weeks, possibly longer). I quickly reached out to the daycare center that we have her signed up to attend starting in November and thankfully, they can take her early! While I'm thankful for this, I'm also in a total panic as I was not emotionally prepared for the daycare thing at all yet. Not to mention, I don't have time to transition her slowly now (as I had planned to do in November.)

And now, today, LO has decided to refuse the bottle. I'm assuming she's associating the bottle with the foul tasting excess lipase milk we had tried giving her. However, today, we put freshly expressed milk in the bottle and she still wouldn't take it .

I finally broke down and sobbed today. I'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed with everything. Anyway, I really just needed someplace to vent with people that would understand.

MamaAllison · September 2012

I'm sorry! You are in a rough spot! Hope things get better quickly!

SilliRy · September 2012

Aww...it's going to be okay! I know exactly how you feel about the milk issue--the same thing happened to me. I wrote a long post a while ago about how we dealt with it, and I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I'm going to copy and paste what I wrote to someone else about excess lipase/bottle rejection. The daycare transition will be hard, but remember that it's going to be harder on you than your LO. Your LO will enjoy seeing the other babies and will learn so much from being at DC. It's so hard, but it really will be okay.

Okay, my C&P from months ago:

We had the same problem. DD got her first bottle at 3 weeks and took it just fine. We gave her one every so often, but right before I went back to work she decided she was done with bottles. It was stressful, but we got through it. I went back to work when she was 11 weeks.-I was never able to give her a bottle, nor would she take one when I was anywhere in the house.-We tried a million different kinds of bottles. She finally took MAM bottles.-My husband realized that she was very picky about the temperature of her bottle. She would only take it if it was really warm.-We discovered (the day before I went back to work!) that I had excess lipase in my milk. I always though excess lipase affected frozen milk...but I realized that milk that I pumped in the morning would taste sour by that same afternoon. She wouldn't touch it (and I don't blame her, it was gross). I had to scald all the milk I pumped immediately before giving it to her/storing/or freezing. It also meant that all of the milk in the freezer had to be thrown away

-She was also picky about how she was held with her bottle. She only liked laying on my husbands legs, facing him (i.e., he'd prop up his feet on a table and lay her on his legs propped up). Once she started daycare (3.5 months) they just held her and she was fine, but we went through a bottle regression again when she started daycare.-The first day I was at work, she screamed the whole time. It was awful, but we were expecting it. The second day she fussed but took a bottle in the late morning...and by day 3, she was better about it. She only ever took just what she needed though...which meant that some days she drank as little as 5-7 oz the whole day I was gone...about 10 hours (I sent 9 at first and then bumped it to 12 eventually). I never worried too much though because she made up for it while we were together! We co-slept so that we could both sleep while she nursed...I knew she needed the food.

Good luck! It's hard, but you'll figure it out and she won't starve herself!

iverske9 · September 2012

Just breath momma :-) It is a new transition for both of you, but kids are resiliant and it is usually harder on the parents. Keep giving her the bottle, she will get used to it. My LO didn't like it at first but got the hang of it since we kept offering it. I am sending calming vibes your way

sarahsteve · September 2012

You're going to be okay and she'll be okay Been there with my first DD. And now I'm dealing with the lipase thing again with DS. He also took awhile to take bottles again after having one "bad" one from my freezer stash, but he came around when he was hungry. DS won't take a bottle unless I'm not in the house and he's hungry. And he still only takes barely enough to get by, and then nurses like crazy when I'm home. He's growing just fine.

Daycare will be WAY easier for her right now than it will be for you - she's little enough that she will transition easily. And each day gets easier for mama.

Anyhow this was a really helpful blog for me about lipase:

https://simplyrebekah.com/2010/03/17/excess-lipase-an-introduction/

Don't throw away your freezer stash - it can be donated!

azuremama · September 2012

Ugh, sorry for all the changes. But maybe good in that there's less time to worry about daycare? It will all work out, don't worry!

Both my kids hated bottles and it took them a week or two at daycare to really get the hang of them. It was a rough transition, but then they caught on fine. She won't starve, so try not to worry too much.

Hope you're feeling better soon!

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