Too much sugar = not enough sleep?

[Adaline'sMama]

I work from home running two businesses (one of which we live in) and I take DD to work with me for 3 hours a day (I work as a personal chef less than a mile away). She usually eats during the three hours that I am cooking for my employers. She likes all kinds of stuff, but the main thing she eats is fruit. She loves banannas, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, and mango. She doesnt really touch avacado or potatoes. She will scarf any bread product down. So, basically I feel like she is getting too much sugar in the fruit. Im looking for ideas about things she can feed herself.  She is still getting 75% of her nutrition from breastmilk, and Im not interested in weaning her at all. So, what else can I feed her that doesnt take a lot of prep time, that I can put on her tray to self feed? Id really like for most of it to be whole foods, not processed. She does eat some O's and stuff like that, but not everyday and not at the highchair. She doesnt eat meat,and we plan to keep it that way for a while. She does eat cheese and eggs, but not with the enthusiasm with which she eats fruit.

Here is why Im thinking she is getting too much sugar:

For the past 2 weeks this has been her schedule:

Wake up: 8:00 am

Nap: 10:30- 10:45 am

Nap: 2:00- 3:00 pm

Sleep: 11:15 pm- 2:30 am

Wake 2:30- 3:30 am

Sleep: 3:30- 5:30 am

Wake: 5:30-6:00 am

Sleep 6:00- 8:00 am

This is killing me. She is seriously only napping for about 1.5 hours a day, and her days are lasting 15-16 hours, AND she isnt sleeping through the night. I can barely exist on those few hours of sleep, I have no idea where she is getting all this energy. She is super active too, its not like she is laying around looking at the ceiling all day. Shes crawling constantly,standing up for an hour at a time, talking, ect. I love it, and its exciting to watch her be so engaging, but Im getting NO alone time, or time to get things done. . Im ready to take some steps to change this pattern :)

[SeattleRain]

Have you tried something like Plum Organics or HappyBaby packets of food? Could she squeeze one of those into her mouth? If so, that might be a good option. How's her pincer grip? Can she pick up sweet peas on her own? What about Cut pieces of green bean? How about sweet potato fries? Pieces of squash? Slices of zucchini?

It sounds like you might be in a sweet foods rut. You might want to try spices to flavor the "bland" food she doesn't like as much like potato. Maybe try sprinkling some cumin on there or something. Plain potato is BLAND so its not surprising she doesn't want to eat it compared to the flavor of mango.

[elluin]

Can you mix some chopped veggies in with the fruits? We steam, chop and freeze our daughter's veggies so they can be served quickly. She loves asparagus, brussel sprouts, carrots, sweet potato, green beans, turnip, etc. If your daughter still prefers the fruits over veggies I would mix them together, the juices from the fruit will sweeten the veggies. Babies don't have the same preconceptions as adults that fruits and veggies don't belong together!

[Adaline'sMama]

While we are at home, she does get fruit and veggies mixed together a lot. She will eat them, but she eats all the fruit off of her high chair tray first, and then will pick at the veggies. She cant squeeze food out of tubes yet, plus when Im working at someone elses house, and she is sitting in the high chair, I need her to be eating something that is pretty mess free.

We havent tried pieces of squash and zucchini, mainly because I think its weird to eat them raw. However, my MIL puts them on veggie trays all the time and people eat them, so that is obviously just something I didnt grow up with. She eats sweet potato fries, steamed veggies, rice, oats, wheatberries, lentils, homeade bread, ect. (whatever we eat) at home all the time so its not like she is ONLY ever eating fruit.

Im having a hard time finding easy to self feed, not super messy, non super processed, non sugary foods that she will actually eat  while Im working at my employers house.

That being said, she has not had any sugar at all in the past 24 hours and she still pulled a 16 hour day yesterday with only a one hour nap. She was stilll wide awake at 12:30 this morning, and up for the day at 8 am.  I dont know what to do. These 16 hour days with only one 1-2  hours of napping are just killing me. This cannot be how life is from now on :)

[MJB]

Haven't they shown that sugar doesn't cause hyperactivity? I really don't think it's from too much fruit. 

Have you tried quesadillas? What about fake "chicken" nuggets? Or, we really like the spinach nuggets they have in the health food section at Kroger. Beans have been a hit with all my kids. 

However, I really don't think her diet is the issue with sleep. We recently got Edie switched from 3 20-40 minute naps to one 2-3 hour nap and it is awesome. However, it requires tightly swaddling her and playing music the whole time which took us a while to figure out. Also, if we let her fall asleep before 11:30am, she'll sleep for 20 minutes and then be cranky all day and not take a good nap. She's also sleeping much better at night (still waking, but not hourly). I'd try fiddling with her nap schedule, swaddling, white noise or music, feeding her a bunch before her nap, walking, whatever it takes to get her to take a good nap. When something works stick with it. 

[Adaline'sMama]

Mandy,

Thats good to know about the sugar. Im beginning to think that isnt what is going on. I think she may just be super excited that she is almost walking. Quesadillas is a great idea! She loves peppers and onions. Im trying really hard not to feed her crappy dairy products, so Ill have to get some good cheese this week. She loves mashed beans, but I cannot get her to pick them up and eat them. She picks up peas and other small things very easily though. We have been feeding her Quorn (diced fake chicken made from mushrooms, not soy) and she loves it. Im not sure how much longer we will stick with this no meat rule, as I myself have broken my veg and am eating local meat 3-4 times a month. I hear rumors that the Mexican grocery here sells raw milk cheese if you know who to ask.

We are still swaddling, using white noise, feeding tons before naps, playing music, ect. All of that stuff has worked until this week. All of the sudden all of my special tricks are useless :). When the boob comes out of her mouth, she wakes up instantly. Ive even tried to revert back to the paci, with no luck. Im seriously having drive her around and play loud music in the car around just to get one 1 hour nap. Then I have to do all of my activities outside, in sight of the car, while she sleeps in the carseat. Thankfully, I have a ton of wood to stack, so I need to be out there anyway.  We have no idea where all of this energy is coming from. On the plus side, she has said "cat", "up", "nap", and signed "nurse" in the past few days, so maybe the tradeoff is worth it.

[MJB]

It sounds like she really is learning a lot of new stuff! No wonder she can't sleep! Her 1 yr. molars could be coming in, too. There are so many reasons why babies can't sleep you just have to be thankful they ever do. Edie's on almost the exact same sleep schedule at night, and it's a big improvement from a couple weeks ago.