On Bloomburg and formula, i.e. Formula IS medicine

Bloomburg is a crazy nanny statist, but in the formula area (not a ban if you actually read about it, just having nurses not hand it out like candy really), he is right.  Formula is medicine.  This is coming from someone who had to supplement with formula for 6 months of her child's life (I still continued to breastfeed and am breastfeeding her still at 16 months old).  All  they are doing is having mothers request the formula instead of formula being pushed on them by nurses find it easier to hand out formula than give a mom who is trying to breastfeed the support she needs to be successful.  Breastfeeding is hard work and many mother fail at breastfeeding successfully because of lack of information and support, not necessarily the true ability to do it.  Moms should be given every possible resource to help them to breastfeed their children and women should not encouraged to automatically pop a bottle of formula in their child's mouth at the first sign of problems.  The formula companies spent the 50s convincing mothers that formula was better than the "old-fashioned" breastfeeding, and it has taken decades for people to realize otherwise.   Lack of breastfeeding knowledge from older generations is why we are still having so many mothers chose not to breastfeed or not have success at it.

Biting

K (15 1/2 months) has started biting, but thankfully she is only biting me and not her friends.  It seems to happen when she is frustrated.  I tell her no biting, and put her down and walk away for a minute, during which time she usually cries.  She's been teething, so I'm also giving her a toy that she can bite on afterwards and telling her that if she needs to bite, to bite the toy instead of Momma.

Any additional suggestions?

15 months and TTC #2

K turned 15 months yesterday.  She has been walking full time for about a month or so now.  She is still a pretty good eater, although she is eating a little less at every meal.  She is still nursing all the time.  She started taking 1 nap a day about 2 or 3 weeks ago even though her nap is usually only between 1 and 1 1/2 hours long.  She has been pretty good about waking up for a brief nursing between 6 and 7 am and then going back to sleep for another hour or so, especially since we got some new curtains for her room.

K is saying quite a few words.  She says momma, dadda, yeah, no, hi, bye, na-na (for thank you), night-night, more (and she signs more), book, wow and "itsy" when she wants us to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider (which she is obsessed with...she also does the motions for it).  She signs all done (in many contexts).  She is getting to be very talkative around familiar people even though it's not really English yet.

I'll know her weight and height when she has her well-child visit tomorrow afternoon.  She's wearing mostly 12 month outfits with some 18 month outfits thrown in.  She is still quite petite, but she is perfectly plump for her age.  She has 5 teeth (3 top, 2 bottom) and 1 coming in on top.

She loves to swim.  She's been swimming at my SIL and BIL's house in a big pool as well as going to the splash park and playing in the baby pool at our house and friend's, and she always loves it and doesn't want to be done.

I'm feeling a little anxious about what I should be doing for TTC#2.  I feel like I need to go a bit harder core if we aren't pregnant this month.  Yes, I realize that this is only our 3rd cycle TTC #2, but I want to get as many things in order as possible and it took 3 years for K.  I'm currently on T3 15 mg and hydrocort as well as a relatively standard prenatal.  When we conceived K, I was also on Pain and Brain (a curucumin supplement), sustained release B6, Mucinex, the cyclic antibiotics CD 6-15 for both my husband and I, Benadryl P+5 through P+9 and did acupuncture.  My progesterone and estradiol have been ok but not as good as when we conceived K.

Onto cycle #3, round 2 and K is almost 15 months

K will be 15 months on Sunday and I just had cycle day 1.  We only used 1 fertile day this time and it obviously didn't work.  I'm back on T3 and hydrocort and I've called for my cycle review and we'll see what  Dr. H has to say.  I'm still breastfeeding K pretty often at least 6-8 times a day and that doesn't seem to be changing very quickly.  I definitely plan to breastfeed on demand until at least 18 months and if I'm not pregnant by then maybe try to get down to 3-4 times a day.  This upcoming cycle is odd since I'll probably ovulate around our 5th anniversary and if we actually conceived, the new baby would be due around my husband's birthday and K's birthday (they are 5 days apart).  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  We aren't going to avoid, but I'd almost rather a new baby got a separate time.

K is down to 1 nap a day.  She usually wakes up between 7:30 and 8 (with a quick feed at between 5-7 and back to bed), then naps around 1 for about 1 1/2 hours and then she goes to bed about 8.  She is still a pretty good eater most of the time.  She is also now a full-time walker and says quite a few words and does a couple signs.

I've been super busy with traveling quite a bit, taking care of K, watching a friend's baby twice a week and getting ready to work from home doing medical transcription.  I'm going to try to do a 15 month post for K.