Overwhelmed by Solid Food

John Patrick is now 6 months old and so……..

Here comes the exciting new world of solid foods. Yay! So what do I do? I’ve talked to my pediatrician, googled it and still I’m totally confused. I get that I should introduce one food every 4 or 5 days in order to check for food allergies. I also get that I should introduce green foods first to encourage him to eat his veggies (I’ve already broken this rule). But here are all my other questions about the stuff I don’t get:

1.) How much do I feed him a day? Keep in mind that he’ll eat until he explodes if I let him.

2.) Does this mean I don’t give him as much milk per day?

3.) Once he can have more than one food, do I give them to him in meal format? (For example, for dinner tonight you’re having green beans and bananas?)

4.) My pediatrician suggested that I start giving him water in a sippy cup. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I wondered… how many times a day? When is he supposed to have water? Cold water?

5.) Does this mean I should be taking solid food to his daycare now too? I usually take 4 eight ounce bottles of milk per day. Does this mean that I don’t take as much milk or the milk quantity stays the same?

6.) What are some good containers for all this food if I need to take it to daycare?

7.) He’s had rice cereal, what other cereal should he try next? When is he technically a “stage 2” eater?

Obviously, I’m solid food challenged. I feel like an idiot but for some reason I just can’t wrap my mind around how this works. HEEELLLLLPPPPPP.

drowning in tiny jars of mushed pears,

Jen

Little Pitchers Have Big Ears (and Eyes)!

From the moment Becca was born, she was aware of her surroundings. When the nurse first handed Becca to Omar wrapped up like a papoose, I was surprised to see that her eyes were wide open and blinking at everything around her. She looked like a little owl with her slow, methodical blinking. As soon as she got close to me, she intently focused on my face and I could feel her communicating with me: “I trust you”, blink, “to take care of me”, blink, “I trust you”, blink, “to take care of me”, blink. Right from the start, she knew how to assess her surroundings and determine who/what was important in them. Once she had determined that I would care for her, she promptly fell asleep.

Almost 18 months later, I am continually surprised at what she notices and is able to figure out. Without ever having a sip of coke, she quickly deduced there was something really delicious in that red can. She would see Omar drinking it and say, “mmm, mmm, mmm” with her arm out-stretched reaching for it.

It has really made me realize how important my eating and exercise habits are to her. If she sees me eating Hershey Kisses *like today* then she is going to beg and beg and beg for them. I’ve been trying to use her clear fascination with my eating and drinking habits as an incentive to make better food choices. I wish I could say that I was now always eating fruits and vegetables but I can tell you that I generally keep my ice cream eating and cookie snarfing until after she goes to bed.

Have you been successful at changing any of your bad habits? If so, I’d love to hear about it. If not, I would love to commiserate with you 🙂

Mary Kate

Should I Count Styrofoam as a Protein?

The good news is that styrofoam is not a toxic material and I do not need to be concerned that Becca took a few bites of it. The bad news is that I walked into the living room this evening to see Becca merrily chewing away on a block of styrofoam.

I am continually amazed at Becca’s ability to zero in on the most dangerous items in any room she enters. It is as if she does a quick scan of the room and quickly determines all of the items that are likely to be off limits. She then crawls as quickly as she can to reach them before they are whisked out of sight. If she should reach the item before I do (which happens more than I would like to admit), she will pause to look me in the eye before she tries to place it in her mouth. She can spot a dime wedged between the floorboard and the wall from about 50 feet and tonight was no exception.
I had placed Becca in our living room/dining room area while I set the table for dinner. I had purposefully surrounded her with toys so she would be happily entertained while I moved in and out of the room. I remember feeling so proud of myself for distracting her and enjoying watching her play (why is it that my most confident mommy moments always seem to end in a crisis?).

I was just finishing up when I noticed that Becca had a HUGE grin on her face and seemed to have something clinging to her face. She then began waving a piece of styrofoam around and started laughing. At this point, a foam of styrofoam bubbles fell out of her mouth. I was stunned!

I quickly grabbed her and started sweeping her mouth for the styrofoam. At first it was difficult to get my finger through her clenched teeth and around the chunks. I was able to do a few finger sweeps and then Mr. O came in and finished the job. For some reason, Becca thought Mr. O sweeping her mouth was hilarious so that made the situation a little easier.

From the looks of it, she had taken a few bites out of the styrofoam and it looked as if we managed to get most of it before she swallowed it. Who knew that there was an upside to her annoying habit of holding food in her mouth for hours?

Ironically, the styrofoam piece was part of the packaging for the baby gate that Mr. O installed. Although he did a great job on the installation, he fell short on the clean up. As a result, the styrofoam piece wasn’t properly disposed of and little miss Becca managed to get her hands on it.

Shortly after her styrofoam appetizer, Becca sat down for dinner and happily ate and swallowed most of it. After dinner, I put in a call to Poison Control just to confirm that styrofoam wasn’t dangerous to digest. The woman assured me that it wasn’t considered a toxic substance.

This reminded me of how important it is to know the number for Poison Control (800-222-1222) as well as the website (http://www.poison.org/).
M. Kate

My Baby has a UTI

So Becca was diagnosed with a *possible* UTI and we have been in urine sample he$$ ever since!

It all started a few weeks ago. It had been a very hot day and I had taken Becca to the Splashground for the 1st time (it is a playground with a sprinkler section). I ran her through the sprinklers a few times, helped her to stand next to them and play with the water and had a generally good time.

That afternoon, she took a three hour nap and Becca’s Abuelita (grandmother) noticed that she felt a little hot when she woke up. I took her temperature and discovered she had a 103.5 temperature! I figured the doctor was going to advise me to “give her some tylenol, monitor her and call in the morning” but I called anyway. Sure enough, there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done.

Overnight, I gave Becca the tylenol and she slept pretty well. In the morning, she awoke with a fever of 102.5 and she was pulling at her hair. For whatever reason, I am always paranoid that she has an ear infection so I dutifully called the doctor again. As soon as I mentioned the hair pulling (near her ears) and the temperature, I was advised to bring her in– so I did.

Once we arrived there, we sat in the ‘sick kids’ waiting room and tried to assess how contagious everyone else in the room was (hmm… is that chicken pox I see or just hives?). Once we were called in, the doctor checked her ears, lungs and throat and assessed that everything was okay. She then asked me how far away we lived from the office (I immediately had visions of needing to rush home to gather her belongings so we could check into the hospital…). Seeing the look of horror on my face, the doctor explained that Becca would need to be ‘bagged’ so a urine sample could be collected.

Basically, a ‘bag’ was taped to my daughter’s labia and then her diaper was placed over the bag. I was then advised to check the bag occasionally for urine. I was then suppossed to transfer the urine from the bag into a sterilized container which I would bring to a local lab. Fortunately for me, my daughter peed shortly after the bag was placed on her so I was able to collect the urine sample. I then brought the sample to the lab and picked up her medication (amoxicillin) at the pharmacy.

Since UTI’s can be painful, my doctor recommended we begin the antibiotics immediately. Shortly after taking the antibiotics, Becca’s temperature went down. She even seemed well enough to go away for the weekend. My doctor had suggested that I make sure she is hydrated properly and that she isn’t listless in anyway. Even with the fever, Becca had been acting normally so I felt pretty confident travelling with her. Over the weekend, Becca continued to act normally and no longer had a temperature. She did have a few watery diapers but my doctor had warned me this might occur.

On Monday, I was told that the test result was possibly ‘contaminated’ but the results suggested a UTI. I was advised to continue the medication and return to the office for her next scheduled visit (10 mos). At this point, we (meaning I) would need to collect another urine sample to confirm the infection had cleared. I will have to share my urine sample adventures in another post.

M. Kate