henry is feeling much better now! he had some funky stomach bug that just needed to work its way through his system i think. he is taking antibiotics now and is no longer clinging to me like a sad little leech :) poor baby...i was beginning to feel like i had sprouted a fifth limb though... :) he is back to his busy ways, and back to eating food! which brings me to the true topic here: henry's diet. as you probably know by now, henry is allergic to dairy and mildly allergic to peanuts. his skin also seems to react to wheat/too much protein. SO, i have been majorly stressing over what to feed this baby of mine. paranoid that i would make him sick or miserable with another horrible eczema outbreak, I was freaking out about mealtime. I also was beginning to feel like a bad mom because i didn't think that he was as far along in his eating stages as he should be since he still eats very plain fruit and vegetable purees for the most part with only a few other things like cracker puffs, banana chunks, peaches, and even a little corn now. i thought that other babies his age were eating more table foods, and i was worrying about what too cook and how to cook it because it is so hard to avoid the aforementioned foods! It was even a task to bake his birthday cake which was a simple box recipe (gluten/peanut/and dairy-free of course) however, I quickly realized I couldn't spray the pan with pam or flour it with regular flour, so i purchased some dairy-free "butter" and gluten-free flour. oh yes and i had to have dairy-free frosting as well. i am not even going to tell you how much all this stuff cost me. uffda folks. and he didn't even eat the dang cake :) also on my mind, the fact that most babies switch to whole milk by the time they turn one, and i couldn't switch him to that, but i didn't want to only feed him soy milk because it does not have the fat and vitamin d that babies need for brain development. so i didn't know if he would need supplements.....yikes. needless to say, i may have been losing a little sleep at night over all this.
enter a wonderful dietician. i set up a consultation with one to discuss all my questions and craziness. and what did i find? that feeding henry basic vegetable and fruit purees is just fine. that he can, and should, stick with his soy formula for another year until his second birthday (just switch from bottle to sippy cups). that adding olive oil to sweeten up certain foods is much yummier, healthier, and easier on the wallet than all that fake butter stuff. that henry is perfectly normal and will be just fine! the dietician explained to me that there is too much pressure on parents to feed babies table foods and a lot of variety of foods early. (hmmm, you mean kind of like trying to teach your baby to read before they are one? haha, sorry, i can't help but laugh at this because it seems so crazy to me, why do we put so much pressure on kids to perform so early?...) actually, i guess it turns out that the more slowly you introduce new foods, and the less variety, the better, especially for little ones with allergies. We discussed henry's meal plans and possible foods for me to slowly introduce over time. Also, it is normal for a baby to not want to self-feed and just play with their food, and also to be sensitive to new textures. As long as henry feels comfortable and happy when he eats, and he is getting the nutrition he needs, then he will be okay! So glad that I went and talked with this woman, I feel so much better now, and I most definitely will not be passing on any of my fears and anxiety to henry! I'm just going to sit back and let him grow and develop at his own pace and just try to follow his cues from now on instead of worrying about what every other baby his age is doing at the diner table. henry is his own special little man :) of course i already knew that, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded i guess.
And, just in case we also forgot who wears the pants around here, henry decided to remind us. Yep, Henry wears the pants in this family. And he wears them on his head :)
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