20
He had a toothache/He started crying/It sounded like an earthquake
Filed under: baby | Tags: | February 20th, 2008
Sometimes I wish I had an easy baby.
The good news: Evelyn is finally eating solid food. It took a lot of work and it’s hard to say exactly what happened to get her out of that rut, but we’re there. Her favourites are yogurt, fruit and sweet potato but she has had a number of other vegetables, cereal, beef, chicken, egg and chickpeas. She also likes fresh pears cut in cubes and has tried some other fresh fruit. She likes cheerios and these “sweet potato stars” that we bought and will eat bread and crackers sometimes.
The bad news: she’s a *really* picky eater. Sometimes she will taste something during a meal that she doesn’t like and get furious and then it will take 5 minutes just to get her calmed down so she can try again. We always have to mix the egg, beans or meat with a vegetable, fruit or yogurt and sometimes the vegetable has to be mixed with something too or she won’t eat it. She also prefers things that are crunchy so if I try to give her something soft (e.g. cooked rice, steamed vegetables cut in cubes) she usually squishes it and throws it on the ground. Most meals are very taxing for us. She refuses to drink water most of the time so we are really worried she isn’t getting enough fluids. We will talk to her doctor about it tomorrow.
Evelyn has 4 teeth and lots more on the way so I am trying to brush them at night but it isn’t very successful. She cries and turns her head away from the toothbrush and it’s very hard to get the brush in contact with her teeth. I have been doing this for over a month now with very little success.
She went through a phase where she wouldn’t hold still for diaper changes and would flip over on her tummy almost as soon as she was set down. Now she usually gives us about 20 seconds before trying to turn over so we are able to do things more easily now but it’s still tricky.
Sometimes I feel so frustrated and I really wish that Evelyn would give us a break. Pretty much everything has been a big trial with her and it’s hard to be optimistic about the future. I don’t want to sound overly pessimistic here because she’s really a wonderful baby and very clever but I just don’t have the patience for baby tantrums some days. She gets upset about so many things all the time and is REALLY LOUD. If this is what she’s like now I wonder what the “terrible twos” will be like. Best case will be that we don’t really notice the difference, worst case will be unbearable.
I haven’t had a chance to blog in a very long time because we moved two weeks after we came back from our Christmas holidays and I am back at work full time. We had to buy a washer, dryer, fridge and stove for the place, bought a car (long story, more later) and I had a root canal. Things have slowed down a bit.
7
Giddy up! It’s syrup.
Filed under: baby, scary-ness, voayges and vacations | Tags: | January 7th, 2008
For Evelyn’s first Christmas we bravely decided to return to Alberta to visit our families. We planned everything in advance in September, visiting Dan’s family, my aunt and uncle, my Dad and a few friends as well as planning a 2 day respite in Kananaskis to recover from all the traveling. First of all, let me say that traveling around the province with a baby when you don’t own a car is difficult. Second, babies need a lot of accessories and you have to bring them. All of them. As an adult packing for a trip you can make rational decisions about leaving things behind for a few weeks but babies don’t think like that. So we brought as much stuff for Evelyn as we did for ourselves (and that includes a significant part of our luggage space dedicated to gifts!).
It snowed the week before we left Montreal and the snow still wasn’t cleared from our street the night we left. There was a “no man’s land” of snow in the parking lane (with a buried car in it) and the traffic was a mess. We booked a taxi earlier in the day and it didn’t show up at the time we requested it. I called the company and the line was *busy*. Ok, so much for that. Fortunately, living on Sherbrooke street a lot of taxis pass by so I flagged one down. He had to park on the corner due to the aforementioned sea of snow and we ran back and forth with our stuff. The poor guy didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Yes, we wanted to go to the airport and yes, we had to strap in that baby car seat. Poor Dan struggled for about 10 minutes to get it hooked in. I think part of the problem was that the bars were stuck under the cushions and we just couldn’t get the clips to go in far enough. He had actually started driving when we got one clip in place but he offered to stop before we got onto the highway so that we could get the other one in place. The 20 was really backed up with cars and it took about 35 minutes to get to the airport. The taxi driver played a Leonard Cohen tape on the way and unfortunately Dan just can’t stand his style of singing so he was talking about it the whole trip.
When we arrived we had planned to buy a nice sandwich at MBCo only to find out that they had no more food. So we went through security but then found out there was only one restaurant! Fortunately we were able to get a table and hand just enough time to eat before we had to go to the gate. Before that we tried to buy a book at the bookstore but had out typical Montreal lack of customer service problems so left without the book.
The flight itself was fine although it’s a very long 4 1/2 hours when you’re holding a sleeping baby (it was an evening flight). Dan’s parents picked us up at the airport and we got to their place really, really late. Our visit at their place was good for the most part, save the puking. Yes, there was puking and I will get back to that in a moment. We roasted chestnuts on the fire, cooked and ate some nice meals and generally had a good time. To make a long story short our niece picked up some gastrointestinal virus from a family that babysat her (they thought it was food poisoning when they got sick) and she passed it on to almost everyone except Evelyn. First Zoe got sick herself, then Dan’s sisters. We didn’t stand much of a chance of avoiding the illness since it started out with us overhearing the phrase “Oh no it’s all over their stuff” on the baby monitor when Zoe threw up on our toiletries bag. We were still feeling fine 2 days later when we left for my aunt and uncle’s place but at Christmas dinner it became increasingly obvious that something was amiss by Dan’s trepidacious table manners. After supper Dan spent most of the evening trying (or trying not to) throw up in the downstairs bathroom. Finally my cousin took him to the hotel and Evelyn and I joined a few hours later. Not too far into the night we experienced what could be caleld a spectacular show. I will skip the details but let’s say it wasn’t pleasant. Fortunately my microbiological training kicked in and I knew that bleach is the best way to kill viruses so I called my aunt and she sent some bleach based cleaners and cleaning cloths over so we could disinfect the bathroom as needed. The night followed a predictable routine of “throw up, wash hands, disinfect, wash hands, repeat” for both of us. Somehow Evelyn didn’t get sick, and I’m tempted to chalk it up to our disinfection protocol although I am sure part of it was due to breastfeeding.
We spent boxing day recovering and sleeping in the hotel. Unfortunately we had requested a playpen for her and first there were none available and then they brought it to the wrong room so we didn’t have any way to contain her most of the day we were sick. We did our best to keep her safely on the bed, mostly thanks to Treehouse kids TV. By the afternoon of the 27th we started to feel better although we were not really able to eat until the 30th. My aunt suggested we go out and shop for boxing week deals so we went out with our cousins and a momentous event happened. My aunt offered to babysit Evelyn and I warned her about Evelyn’s fear of being away from mom and dad. She said she would give it a try and would call if there were any problems. Well we were gone for 4 hours and Evelyn really only got upset during the last 10 minutes or so, so it was a great success! In general she became more socialized during the trip although it was pretty hard on her at the beginning. She also took a great liking to my cousin Anna, perhaps because she kept showing Evelyn shiny silver coasters. We also learned Evelyn likes to “head bonk”. Basically you make eye contact with her and tilt your forehead toward hers and she does the same until the heads are touching. It’s pretty cute.
On the morning of the 28th Dan’s parents came to pick us up for the trip to Kananaskis. We were very happy that Evelyn still was healthy although a bit concerned when we found out Dan’s mom was still sick from the virus that morning. We all decided to take a chance on it and went to the hotel. We arrived just before check in and total chaos was happening in the lobby. I guess everyone else decided to take a weekend vacation in the hotel too so it was packed and our room wasn’t ready until half and hour after the “guaranteed” check in time. Worse, the kettle in the room wasn’t functioning (I needed to boil water for Evelyn) but when Dan’s parents got their keys we swapped and all was well. Ok, yes I know that Kananaskis is a bit of a mountain wilderness cop-out, but with an 8 month old baby we wanted something that was family friendly. And boy were there ever a lot of babies there!
At supper Evelyn was especially grouchy and we all debated about the reason (“maybe she’s getting sick?”). For about the millionth time since Evelyn was 4 months old I wondered if she might be teething so I stuck my finger in her mouth … and sure enough, there was a sharp bump on the bottom gums! Oh boy! The following night was very long, likely a combination of her teething, her congestion (apparently that comes with teething) and my inability to produce milk (since I had hardly eaten since the 25th).
The following Day we wanted to take it easy and try something fun, so Dan signed us up for a sleigh ride. Nice and simple, a good thing for people recovering from being ill. We were in a red wooden sleigh pulled by two white and brown horses which were humongous. We followed a path in the trees with a cross country ski trail on one side. We pulled up to a gorge with a river in the bottom. It was beautiful. On the way back we encountered a few cross country skiers on the track. Unfortunately some of the skiers didn’t stop when they encountered the sleigh and the sound frightened the horses. The first time wasn’t too bad and the driver was able to get them calmed down quickly but the second time it happened they broke into a gallop. Dan thinks it lasted about a minute but it felt like forever. Yes, Evelyn was on the sleigh ride with us and I was really frightened that she would get hurt. Fortunately the horses calmed down and we finished the ride without incident. Well I don’t know who had the bright idea of putting the sleigh ride and ski trail on the same path but it clearly seems dangerous to both the skiers and the passengers!
After our adventure filled sleigh ride we went for a dip in the pool. Evelyn came along for this part and I have to say she did much better than our first swimming pool adventure. I’m sure it helped that the water wasn’t as cold. She didn’t cry although she was quite nervous and clung to me like a monkey. I have never been hugged like that by her before! She wasn’t even secure enough in Dan’s arms – he was holding her and when she saw me she practically climbed over him to get to me!
Supper that night was more teething drama and another sleepless night followed. We checked out and headed up to my Dad’s place. My Dad bought a Wii so Dan burned his mind playing Mario Galaxy. We had lots of good food and a great time. We cooked a small ham and had a nice salad with lots of avocados. We stayed up for New Year’s eve and Evelyn did too. She was totally wired all night and it was pretty tiring.
The following day turned out to be “beat up the baby” day. We met with my master’s thesis supervisor in Red Deer and had a great chat. Unfortunately Evelyn was sitting in the high chair and decided to hit her head on the table. Then I was unclipping the pacifier from her clothing and by freak chance I managed to let my grip slip on clip (say that fast 20 times) and the clip caught her on the lip. Well everyone in the restaurant watched as I took my screaming, bleeding baby to the bathroom to clean up her lip. Fortunately the damage wasn’t too bad but we decided to throw out the clips and buy something with a weaker hinge to prevent that from happening again. Afterward we met up with my high school friend and her family and had a nice time. Again, Evelyn manged to find new and exciting ways to hurt herself – on the rocking horse toy and by catching her fingers in a spinning wood block alphabet thing. We had a great visit and returned to Dan’s parents place later in the evening.
We spent the next day trying to pack and last minute shopping at the Superstore in Airdrie (which as really nice super cheap baby clothes) and watching a Bollywood movie. The next morning we were off for our flight home. It was even longer than the flight out since Evelyn was awake for most of it and holding a bouncing, squirmy baby that drops her toys every 2 minutes is even more tiring than holding a sleeping baby.
When we arrived I waited for a very long time for the stroller and car seat to come through the oversize luggage belt because apparently everyone decided to go skiing in Calgary and there were about 50 pairs of skis to be sorted out before our stuff came out. Then we got in line for the taxi and discovered that there was a line of hundreds of people! Even with about 10 taxis coming in every few minutes it still took about 30 minutes before we got into one. And the roads were not even bad, it was just because there were so many people coming back from Christmas trips. But we made it home in one piece and the only thing we lost were a pair of mittens and a pair of earmuffs. Not bad considering all things.
19
in other news…
Filed under: baby | Tags: | December 19th, 2007
Evelyn has consistently refused to eat. We have been trying for 6 days now. For two days we even offered food in place of a bottle and she would go 5+ hours without eating and cried the whole time I tried to give her solid food. I basically have to coerce her to eat and I just don’t want do to that. I will try and talk to the doctor tomorrow and see if we need to check her iron levels or not. It’s jut not going to happen.
Evelyn has now mastered pulling herself up on her knees. She did it for the first time two weeks ago and then perfected it today. We have to really watch what we put on the tables now!
Before supper I had Evelyn in my lap and I decided to try an experiment. We had some carrots and cucumbers leftover from lunch so I gave her a carrot stick and then ate it from her hand. She thought that was pretty cool and soon she started offering it to me. It goes without saying that she didn’t try eating it herself. Great, well at least I’ve taught her to feed me!
17
snow day
Filed under: interesting thingy, Montreal | Tags: | December 17th, 2007
Well I sure am glad I don’t have to go to work today. I didn’t bother to look up the official tally but we got a LOT of snow over the past 24 hours. Lucky Dan has a final voice exam today (this always happens every exam period for him) but all the has to do is take the metro so it’s not so bad. But the weirdest thing of all was that yesterday afternoon there was lightning. Yes lightning. I was sitting in the living room and saw a flash of light. This was followed by rumbling that was definitely not a snow plow. I didn’t even think that was possible!
16
solid food redux
Filed under: baby | Tags: | December 16th, 2007
I’m posting this attempt at a coherent summary of our problems feeding Evelyn so that I can direct the mommies and daddies I know to this. I need as much advice and help that I can get.
We were looking forward to the solid food phase with Evelyn, thinking that it might make things easier (she has always been a difficult eater). How wrong we were. I am going back to work in January and I initially thought that she could have solid food and milk from a cup during the day and that I could nurse her in the morning and evening. However based on our experiences giving solid food to her I have since partially weaned her to bottles (with a lot of work!) instead. One thing I would say is that the orthodontic bottle nipple is the only reason she will get any food during the day when I am gone. All the other bottles and nipples I had tried were a complete disaster and she refused to suck on them. Of course we are doing everything we can to make this as good as it possibly can – glass bottles (instead of polycarbonate), organic formula etc.
So anyway, here is the problem we are having with respect to solid food. We have been trying to give her food since she was 6 months old. My daughter is very strong willed and very clever. I think there are three main problems. One, she does not like the taste of food. Even the blandest foods mixed with milk or formula make her gag or shudder when she tastes them. I think she is gradually getting used to the taste of cereal but it is taking a long time. Two, she refuses to let me put anything in her mouth. Spoon, finger, any kind of utensil. She even started reacting that way to bottles again for a short while. By refuse I mean that she screams, turns away, arches backwards, fails her arms, hits the spoon etc. Sometimes I can sneak my finger into her mouth if I am washing her face since that’s a routine she is used to from birth. Three, she just doesn’t understand eating at all. She has no desire to put food in her mouth on her own, feel it, taste it, swallow it etc.
Here is what I have tried:
- different tastes of food: cereals, vegetables, fruit, tofu
- different textures: smooth, lumpy, mixed with milk, water, very dry etc
- different utensils: my finger, her fingers, different spoons, “lil dippers”, a mesh “teething bag” filled with tofu or cereal and even a basting brush (more on that below!)
- finger foods – small pieces of bread, grains of rice, small chunks of cooked vegetables, cheerios and cereal biscuits
- showing her pictures of babies eating and videos of babies eating with a spoon and their hands
- eating food in front of her (she has been sitting at the table with us since she was 3 1/2 months old)
- us eating her food with her utensils then giving her a chance to try
- putting a spoon of food up to a picture of a baby, then to her mouth
- offering her food from our plates
- singing her favourite songs, showing her her favourite books etc.
- rewarding her if she does end up with food in her mouth and especially if she swallows it
- she knows how to handle a spoon and put it in her mouth so I tried loading it with cereal first and handing it to her, but she has since learned to bang the spoon or turn it upside down to get rid of the food first, then put it in her mouth. In her mind spoons are toys, not a way to get food.
There is no history of food allergies in either of our families, so I don’t think she is “self-protecting”. So far she has reacted fine to
all the food she has sampled.
Mostly it has been a total disaster. I have tried to be very casual about it and mostly just let her look at and touch the food since everywhere I read it said not to force a baby to eat who doesn’t want to. “try again in a few days” is what is has been for 2 months so far with no progress. We just had her doctor’s appointment this past week and the doctor was very concerned that Evelyn wasn’t eating yet. She said that we had to “insist” and “teach her” how to eat (i.e. “force her??). I explained that we tried all these things and what her response to food was like. The doctor said that we just had to keep trying because otherwise she wouldn’t get enough protein and iron. We have redoubled our efforts and have tried all these different things again and again over the past few days. I think she might have eaten half a teaspoon today between two feeding sessions today and that is a big success for us. So there does seem to be some progress. We have found that the “basting brush” technique seems to work ok, since if we brush some cereal on her lips she kinds of sucks on them and takes the tiniest bit if cereal in. She also doesn’t react to it quite as strongly and since the bristles are soft silicone it kind of tickles. The hardest part is getting the food to her lips or mouth since she seems to hate that so much. It’s also extremely, extremely messy and time consuming.
Evelyn is very healthy, 50th percentile for everything, strong, developing at or ahead of the “schedule” and is very smart. She certainly isn’t wasting away or shutting down so I really don’t see why my doctor is so concerned.
So my question is – what should I do? I thought the main point of babies learning to eat during the first year was just to start enjoying food and learn to swallow and chew. Evelyn obviously does not follow the typical pattern of baby eaters. I want her to enjoy eating and my dream is that one day she will spontaneously eat on her own or even ask for food! But if it is true that she isn’t getting enough protein and iron from breastmilk and formula then should I try to give her a supplement or get food into her in any way possible? Should I resort to putting cereal in a bottle or putting cereal on a pacifier to make sure she is getting enough food? That seems extreme to me, but if she needs more protein and iron then I will do whatever is necessary to make sure she gets it. But I don’t think it will teach her to eat. She has to figure that out on her own.
15
Filed under: baby, that sucks | Tags: | December 15th, 2007
For two days I have been trying to get Evelyn to eat solid food. I tried giving her mashed tofu with a spoon and she screamed each time. Once I did get something into her mouth she wouldn’t swallow it, just collected it in her mouth. I think I might have made a bit of headway on that. I figured out that the problem was that she doesn’t think that she should swallow the food so I gave her a drink from the bottle after each mouthful yesterday. That seemed to get the tofu down. Today instead of doing that I showed her a book that made her happy and she seemed to forget there was food in her mouth and swallowed it without trouble. But still getting a spoon to her mouth is really hard. She flails her arms around and I have to cover them with a blanket so that she can’t hit the spoon away. I feel really horrible.
I also had limited success using a mesh bag “teether” which is basically a small bag that one can put pureed food into and the baby is supposed to chew on it and the food comes into the baby’s mouth in small pieces. She chews on the handle and when I try to gently turn it around she screams. Once I managed to get it in her mouth she did manage to eat a small bit.
I tried to give her a rice cereal biscut – I think this thing is supposed to turn to mush as the baby chews on it, but she just scraped a whole bunch of crumbs off and got them all over the stroller and her clothing. I then tried mushing up the biscut in formula and putting that in the teether mesh bag and all she threw it around and got mushed biscut on her clothing.
However we seem to have a larger problem in that Evelyn is refusing to have milk more often. I tried giving her bottles at every opportunity and she has only had 400 mL or so. I have tried nursing her and she refused to nurse after a minute or two.
We can feel her bottom teeth coming in and sometimes babies loose their appetite when teething. It would be nice to just leave it at that. But with the whole weaning thing and me going back to work in January I am worried it’s more complicated. I am just so scared of what will happen if I don’t try and feed her.
Evelyn also hasn’t been sleeping well lately and has continued to wake up throughout the night. I have also had a lot of back pain lately and I think my scoliosis is really starting to make itself felt. I have tried not to carry her in the sling for two days with the hopes that it will help but I am starting to think my baby carrying days are over. It makes me really sad.
We’re going back home for Christmas. I was looking forward to it but now I think it’s just going to be a horrible sleepless nightmare with me having to try and feed her all the time.
13
So we had Evelyn’s doctor’s appointment today and the doctor was most concerned about Evelyn’s resistance to eating solid food, particularly that she isn’t getting enough protein and iron. So we have to try and force to her to eat rice cereal or tofu. We gave her some tofu tonight. We had to strap her into the stroller to stop her from pushing away and I think she swallowed a bit, but it sure isn’t easy. She cried a lot. She just doesn’t get it. Now I am paranoid that she isn’t getting enough to eat with her bottles either, since she drank way less today than other days. Great now I will be counting each mL she drinks and worrying. Her weight is 50th percentile but since we just started weaning it might take a while for it to show in her weight if she isn’t getting enough. It’s so hard to tell if I am crossing the line on forcing her to eat or not and I really don’t want her to end up with some kind of food complex because of this. Tonight she kept refusing the bottle and I really insisted, thinking that she hadn’t had enough. Well she just ended up spitting all the milk back up anyway and went to sleep as happy as can be after that.
This sucks.
11
Evelyn loves oranges. We let her play with some Clementines a few weeks ago and now every time she sees an orange she shrieks in delight. It’s really funny, especially in the grocery store! Note to family: remind me and we can try it at Christmas too… 
6
Library thing
Filed under: baby | Tags: | December 6th, 2007
So I have finally created “Library thing” for Evelyn. It’s basically a list of books we have for her so if you’re thinking about buying her a book check the list first to prevent duplicates!
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kicky
6
So Evelyn just figured out how to pull herself up to a standing position from her stomach today. She crawled over to a box that I had put near the freezer to block her from getting at the electrical cord. I held it in place so it wouldn’t slide and she grabbed the edge, pulled herself up on her knees and then got onto her feet on the second try! Now we’re in trouble, as she’s going to start doing that on everything.
Also this week I discovered that she understands the word “no”. Two weeks ago I was at a cafe with a cup of hot tea and Evelyn was in the sling. Naturally she grabbed for the mug and I touched her hand to it briefly and told her “no” a few times. Lately she has been crawling to places in the apartment that she shouldn’t be going to so I have told her “no” and moved her back. Well this week she has tried to do a few dangerous things and I firmly but gently said “no” and she stopped doing it and cried (angry because I won’t let her I guess). Also she doesn’t try to grab a cup I have in my hands now.
I have decided, for a number of reasons, that it is time to wean Evelyn. I would have liked to nurse her for much longer but since I am going back to work I just don’t think I can handle the working/pumping/nursing thing again. Good thing she is quite happy taking bottles now and the glass ones we bought have arrived! Actually it’s surprising how fast it is going.