In the Grand Scheme of Things

So Milo has fallen off of his growth curve too, but not in a way that is as dramatic as Nora's slowed growth. Part of me thinks, this is just genetics. Jake and I are pretty small people, I was a small baby, and we were both small kids. So Milo and Nora aren't going to be huge people. On the other hand, given that both babies have slowed their growth a little too much (according to those evil charts), the other part of me thinks, "Great. It's not just a fluke, like it was with Nora, instead it must be the fact that Jake and I totally suck at parents and we can't even feed our babies right!"

So we're feeding them the highest-calorie solid foods we can think of, and we have to fortify their bottles (both breastmilk and formula) so that they are drinking something that's higher in calories than normal breastmilk or formula. I don't even want to nurse them anymore because I know that they're not getting a calorically-dense enough meal from breastmilk alone. But...I am still nursing them when they want to, basically in the middle of the night or the early morning.

The hardest part about all of this is that Milo and especially Nora just don't want to eat sometimes. It's bedtime, and they will both refuse to nurse, and then when I give in and give them a bottle sometimes one or the other will only drink an ounce or two and then just stop. They'll push the bottle away, turn their heads, cry if I try to give it to them, and basically give me every clear signal possible that they are not hungry. It feels cruel to force somebody to eat when they don't want to. It feels wrong. I cheer and cajole and soothe them into near sleep so that they practically eat in their sleep, and do whatever I can to convince them to eat because I know they have to in order to grow properly, but it all just feels wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, way to set up a lifetime of eating issues here! Way to teach a kid to keep eating even when she's full! Gah!

I know that some day I'll be worrying about things like breaking into the liquor cabinet, or driving recklessly late at night with their friends, and this eating thing will seem like no big deal.