Elora's nursing strike? Or "weaned" ???

Elora has something going on with her and only recently has she started acting like her normal & happy self.  It's been real frustrating - especially since her most disruptive symptom is her nursing strike.  She hasn't been nursing for 2 weeks now and we've been to the Dr. twice with no answers.

It started rather suddenly, one morning she refused to nurse on one side.  I didn't think much of it, because she's not a "great" nurser - if she nurses too long on one side, she'll refuse to nurse on the other.  So I've always had to time her to make sure she would eat on both sides and she's a fast eater at that.  But then she refused to nurse that afternoon and again that night.  However before she went to bed, I got her to nurse on the side she had nursed on that morning.

Anyway, she went 48 hours refusing to nurse on my left side - which was very painful for me!  I took her to the Dr.'s - thankfully they decided it was an important enough issue to see us even though they didn't have ANY openings.  I was praying that she had an ear infection - because that would be a quick and easy fix, however her Dr. couldn't find anything wrong with her except for a little swelling in her sinuses.  Her conclusion was she was congested deep in her sinuses causing her pain in her eustation (no clue how to spell that!!) tubes when she nursed.  So we went home with tylenol, motrin, zertec, diaper rash stuff (she still has a bad rash from pooping several times a day - almost better), & saline mist.

So I started her on the zertec right away and that night I got her to nurse NORMAL for the first time in days!  I thought we had figured it out and that everything would be normal..... NOT SO!!

Elora started acting crabby and clingy to me - crying whenever I put her down.  Something was NOT right and she stopped nursing again - this time all together, both sides.  Thankfully, my friend has a very nice breast pump so I started pumping 3 times a day and Elora would drink it from a bottle.  We went back to the Dr. and once again, she's perfectly healthy and the only advice she gave me was keep up the zertec and pumping and maybe call a lactation consultant.  Thanks Doc!

So I was leaning towards taking her off the zertec because it obviously wasn't working and I don't really like to medicate anyway.  I talked with our play morning facilitator at Play Morning, and she told me that I should be careful with zertec because it has a tendency to make children act strangely or "off"  She said she knew of several other Moms who had zertec prescribed to their baby or toddler who then had dramatic behavior changes.  And since Elora had been exceptionally crabby, clingy and just not herself, I decided to take her off the zertec.  After about 4 days, she's back to her happy self!! :)  I could not be happier!  Well, I take that back - she's still not nursing!!

I've decided to only pump morning and night because it was just too stressful to try to be home to pump in the afternoon.  I was getting so discouraged that I just didn't want to pump at all.  Trying to do fun things in the day was just impossible - it was like I was on house arrest so I could pump!  I now have a new respect for pumping mommies!!  So since I decided to pump in the morning and the night, I can actually see myself doing this until she's ready for cows milk.

It's frustrating though because I can't pump enough out for her appetite so she usually gets frustrated and angry at me, but we're making it work... I just wish I knew what was wrong so I could fix it.  Could she really just be done breast feeding??  If she could have cows milk then I wouldn't mind but.....  it's a perplexing problem!