April 2012 Rockstar Mamas and Their Babies (better late than never) - Page 6

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by AnnieA 

MW, what if you started adding flaxseed oil to stuff? Or flaxseed meal? Good, healthy, non-dairy fat! I'm thinking about coating DD's pasta in flaxseed oil instead of EVOO. When she gets a little bigger, I'll definitely be making her smoothies with flaxseed oil. I already give the big kids that. Also on the cooking thing, I feel you on that. I hate cooking for 1-2 people so I hardly ever cook when the big kids are gone. So what I've started doing is if I fix a meal that I know Ava likes, I try to make a little extra and freeze it in individual servings so I can just pull it out and defrost it in hot water for her. For instance, I made spaghetti and froze individual servings for her. I froze the leftover pancakes and waffles. I bought some of the adobe black bean soup that she likes from Whole Foods, made some brown rice and then made little individual servings of rice and beans for her. I did that when I made a pot of lentils too. Or if you have a grocery store near you that sells Amy's organic frozen meals, there are a number of them that are dairy and gluten free. They may still have rice in it though.

That's such a good idea.  I need to start doing that too!  Most of what I cook for Finn needs to be roasted or broiled, if it's not fresh fruit or something, and I end up feeding him puffs or something while everyone else is eating.  He fills up on crap and then doesn't want the main thing I spent the time cooking.  Then, if I do actually remember to start it early, then he eats it all and I've nothing for the next night.  I also need to just plain start cooking in larger batches b/c I forget he needs a whole serving.

I found chocolate flavor flax oil that I put in smoothies.  Yum.

[akind1]

I don't plan on holding back on anything food wise with Norah, except honey, and straight cow's milk, and maybe peanut butter, until age 1. She has already had berries - strawberries, and she LOVED them. I think she might have gotten a little tomato sauce with the pizza crust she gnawed on. Now, if I noticed any signs of disturbance in the force (so to speak) I would hold off on stuff; but she's handling it really well.

Cow's milk - we don't avoid dairy. We just don't. I like it too much, and I would rather have it as it is, then alternative dairy-like product. HOWEVER, I feel no need to add it into their diet once they are weaned. Gabe is allowed milk, but it's not actively encouraged; it is soemthing available in the fridge to drink, but unless he asks for it, he doesn't get it.  The boy eats some cheese though! and of course, we all have ice cream. I just don't feel milk is necessary at all. I hear from so many moms whose babies were breastfed that their LOs don't like the taste of cow milk. I tell them, then why have them drink it? they don't need it?

I love the article JJ posted on FB - it just made a lot of sense to me. (it was about "rules" for starting solids)

Hooray on Finn's first tooth!

Gabe has been so good with Norah lately. I mean, really, really, good. IDK why, but I hope it keeps up. And he loves to nurse something while I nurse her, it is too cute! I even bathed them together last night, and he liked pouring water on her (a couple times over her head, which made her sputter, but otherwise just on her hands and feet). I'm a happy mama!

[MarineWife]

I like almonds but I get nauseous if I eat too many. I get the same way from almond butter.

The Amy's dairy free has lots of soy. I've pretty much given up on being dairy and gluten free. I'm just focusing on the big things that are considered staples in the diet that maybe aren't really so good for us.

Supplementing with lots of vegetable oils/fats isn't necessarily a good thing and animal fats aren't necessarily bad. It's a balance. The SAD today has too much omega-6s vegetable fats and not enough omega-3s from animal fats . While vegetable fats do contain some omega-3s, they are not the same as in animal fat, specifically DHA. Flaxseed contains ALA but not DHA. That being said, I do usually take a flaxseed capsule a day because I get nauseous if I take fish oil. I am thinking about trying krill oil.

I've been doing better the past 2 days. I made sure Sean got more fruits from the grocery store. Dylan got some chicken soup fro dinner last night. Sean made it from scratch so there wasn't anything questionable in it, just chicken, carrots, celery, onion and some salt and pepper.

That article you posted on FB makes a good point about maybe changing your diet if it's not stuff you would feed to your baby.

Do you all try to give your babies a little protein, fat, veggies and carbs at every meal? I've been pretty much sticking to one food only because that's easiest. Like if we have eggs and bacon for breakfast, I'll give Dylan some egg yolk. I don't necessarily also offer him some fruit. I probably should, though, since that's a good time for everyone to get some fruit. Ethan and Kellen devour any fruit I put out in the mornings but then they don't eat much protein. If the boys have cereal, I don't also have a protein to give anyone.

[akind1]

Um. Norah gets one or two things, as did Gabe until he was one, and eating more of a meal. around age one, he was getting a yogurt (fruit and dairy) and a carb (toast w/ peanut butter - so protein too) at breakfast, squeezey fruit around lunch time with whatever we may have been eating, and whatever parts of our dinner he could eat, from miso soup, to rice, etc.

I think it's more about eating a balanced daily diet, then trying to get all that stuff in at every meal.

I get so bothered when my IRL friends complain that their kids don't eat much at meals, because the are snacking all day (on healthy things, like fruit, dried veggies, cheese, etc) - I really think it's far healthier to eat that way than big sit down meals. But it's hard to break out of the 3 meal a day mindset. I don't mind if Gabe fills up on fruit before dinner. I mean, big deal, so long as when he does get hungry later, which he will, we stick to him having healthy snacks.

[onetwoten]

It was a good article-- Lauri gets credit though! I'm still in denial my baby is ever going to be old enough to eat solids. No no no!

And Kat, I agree. Snacking all day as long as it's healthy stuff is not a bad thing!  One of the families I nannyed had a drawer the kids could reach. It was filled with healthy snacky foods- and they were allowed to grab something all day long, whenever they wanted, as long as it was from the drawer. It's not like they're filling up on cookies and fruit roll ups!

[MarineWife]

JJ. Like Carrie just posted on FB that Finn is now 8 months, which means only 4 months until he's a year old. Dylan has even less time. It goes by so fast!

I keep foods in child's reach for my boys to eat whenever they want. Sean gets upset if they don't eat much dinner. A lot of times Kellen will only eat some rice or pasta that Sean made as a side dish. He won't eat the meat. I don't worry about it because I know they've been eating all day. Plus, they are healthy and growing, which I think is the best measure of whether or not they are eating enough rather than measuring food.

With Dylan, I figure that, since he's getting his nutrition from breastmilk, the solids are just for fun/extras so I give him a little of whatever I have on hand. We do give him some meat and veggies at dinner and he gets fruit during the day. I think that's pretty good, huh?

I wish Sean had never gotten into this Paleo diet thing. It's really causing me to have a bunch of hang ups about food. A lot of what he explained about it makes sense to me but it's really hard for me to implement. It would be a lot easier for me to feed Dylan if I weren't concerned about grains so much. I could give him toast or cereal or pancakes. I threw it all out of my head this morning and gave him a pancake with a little bit of butter and syrup on it. He still hardly ate any of it.

[akind1]

Paleo doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think alot depends on your ancestry - the Blood Type Diet book I think made a lot more sense, because I don't think it's necessary to go back thousands (if not millions) of years to figure out what we should be eating -  a couple/few hundred should be plenty.

That said, I also don't believe in eating brown rice. 1) it doesn't taste good 2) traditionally, that is not how native cultures eat it. For example, the Thai feed the brown husk to the chickens they then eat for meat. And I also don't think I've ever seen Japanese people eat brown rice (as in when we lived in Japan) and they have one of the longest life spans on the planet. Granted, they also eat some really weird stuff like bittermelon (goya), which they swear by.

Now, I could, easily, swear off meat. so long as I could still eat fish.

I need to work on potty training Gabe . . .I think he's ready. I don't know if I am.

[MarineWife]

The stuff about grains wrt the Paleo diet makes sense to me. Historically, grains and tubers became a staple diet in European cultures during times of food shortage and increased population. So, while it may be possible for humans to survive on grains and tubers, it's not ideal and certainly not something that should make the largest percentage of the daily diet. Even with traditional foods that don't go back so far, there's a lot of stuff about only eating sprouted grains, which essentially means eating the green parts rather than just the seeds. Basically, the idea is that if you can't eat it raw, you probably shouldn't eat it too much, which is how all other mammals eat. I don't know about Asian cultures and tubers. I think that while they may not have historically eaten brown rice, they haven't traditionally eaten the highly processed and bleached white rice that we find in grocery stores here and I don't know how much rice they actually ate hundreds of years ago. I also think it's very possible that rice became a staple during times of food shortage.

I think as a species we rely way too much on processed grains for our carbohydrates (sugars) and don't eat enough whole, natural carbs. It really doesn't make sense to me that people are encouraged to eat more bread than fruit.

[akind1]

I agree with the part re:more bread than fruit. That's why I didn't understand Atkins when DH did it, he had to cut out all fruits and sweeter veggies (like peas!) and that made no sense to me - I mean, fruit and veggies are GOOD for you!.

re: rice: I really doubt they bleached it traditionally, but I am fairly certain they de-husked it (or whatever it's called). I know we only eat Jasmine and Arborio rice (because both are yummy LOL). Once in a while we will use a rice-a-roni side dish, but we have gotten much better about using less packaged side dishes.

Now, for bread, I have no problem using whole grain flours. I think we should. and when I use white flour, I use unbleached. I generally, with food, take a moderation approach - I think so long as you don't go to extremes in any direction, you are probably OK - and since that is really the best I am likely to do, it's what I strive for.

[AnnieA]

Glad you guys appreciated the article. I thought it was very interesting and good reminder to me that if I'm not ok feeding Ava what I'm feeding the big kids then I need to reconsider what I'm feeding them! I typically stick to one thing or maybe two at a meal but that's because DD wants to feed herself and if she has too many choices on her tray, she just starts throwing stuff off the sides. For lunch today she had black beans and rice and some smashed up avocado w/a bit of onion and garlic powder. She picked all the black beans out and wouldn't touch the rice today.

So she had her first non-BM poop yesterday. DH is still traumatized! And he freaked out about how we were going to get the diaper clean. I just scraped it off w/a baby wipe and threw it away. I think he thought the diaper was ruined and would have to be thrown away!

In my house, the biggies I try to avoid are HFCS, caffeine and crazy colors. Those things do a number on my kids. In a moment of weakness last week when they were home on spring break, I let them each pick out a non-caffeinated soda at the gas station. Wooo boy did I pay for that one. They were WOUND up for the rest of the afternoon. Almost drove me up the wall. I also limit snacking but that's more a function of our house and therefore kitchen area is really small. If I didn't limit snacking, there would be someone coming and going from the kitchen all day. That would drive me crazy. Plus, we have some unhealthy associations with food in a couple of the kids and there's lots of emotional/bored eating if not monitored. I wish that wasn't the case but it is what it is. So the kitchen is closed for certain parts of the day and I serve a reasonable snack part way between lunch and dinner.

[akind1]

HFCS is a biggie for us. MSG is another. Crazy amounts of red food dye. Caffeine, it depends. I won't let Gabe drink our soda (unless it's root beer and there aren't any other options available at the moment) - but I will let him sip my coffee. My mom, thank goodness, is a big label reader and totally tries really hard to keep simple stuff available for snacks for DS. MIL (even when we lived with her) bought stupid things like chocolate covered marshmallows and m&m.s She nearly freaked out when I said we didn't need to take them with us, they could stay with her as a treat when he visits. We ended up taking them, but they are up high in a cupboard.

LOL about the diaper! Solid poop is no fun. The ONLY nice thing is when it is plopable.

[MarineWife]

i googled a little on the history of rice in asian cultures. most of what i read was about the japanese. it said the earliest rice was milled to remove the husk but the bran was left so it was considered a brown rice. rice became the base of their diet after several bans on animal foods by various emperors. one emperor banned fishing and provided rice to the fisherman to make up for their loss. so a shortage of other foods caused by laws banning those foods was the driving force for that. when they started eating highly processed, polished rice, they had major problems with beriberi, a disease associated with thiamin deficiency.

Annie ~ get yourself one of those sprayers you attach to the toilet!

[AnnieA]

Originally Posted by MarineWife 
Annie ~ get yourself one of those sprayers you attach to the toilet!

I've thought about that but a)I've heard mixed reviews that include horrifying incidents of spraying poop all over the bathroom and the person doing the spraying and b)I'd like to get her back pooping mostly in the potty. She's been on a potty strike for the past week and I think it's because it feels different (maybe a little scary?) to her since her bowel movements are changing and she doesn't want to poop on the potty. She actively tries to get up and points to the toilet paper as soon as I put her down. So I don't make her sit there. I don't want her to have a negative association with the potty. Oh and I have a whole package of flushable diaper liners from GMD that I bought before she was born so I guess I could use those. Maybe in the mornings when I know she's going to poop? She doesn't usually poop in the evenings or during the night.
 

[MarineWife]

Oh, right. I always forget you are doing EC when you talk about her pooping in the diapers.

I didn't have a problem with the sprayer when it was new. Now that it's 8 years old and some of the holes have gotten clogged it sprays kind of funky. I just have to be careful how I angle everything. I think Sean may have gotten sprayed with poo a few times, though.

The flushable liners would work, too. I think I tried to get some of those when Ethan was a baby but I goofed and the ones I got weren't flushable. They were disposable, though, so I could throw them in the trash. That ended up grossing me out with poop sitting in the trash can.

Dylan doesn't have really pasty or solid poo yet. It's getting chunkier and smellier but not really thick or anything. That's one of the big drawbacks of starting solids, yucky poo!

[Baby_Cakes]

I've never used a sprayer, but I do keep a small poo spatula in the bathroom for scraping off the thick peanut butter like poo!  LOL!  We are well well well into solids poo over here.  It's just heaven.    I keep thinking it's not that long off till PL'ing, right?  Haha.  

Long day.  I didn't completely keep my cool together, and I know it was b/c I was too hungry.  I have to stop letting myself get so hungry that I get headaches and feel completely run down.  I know I could have acted a lot better and with no regrets if I hadn't let myself go so long w/o eating.  Sigh.  Someday I'll learn.

I'm a little annoyed lately too b/c I'm mad/upset with my MIL.  She's working SO many hours (and doesn't need to work, just does to kill time).  She apparently is the only person in NJ who can make a gourmet gift basket, so her boss isn't even looking to hire anyone else to work at her Hallmark store to take some hours and free up her time.  My MIL is just never available anymore and it's making me upset.  I get guilt from my FIL in subtle ways..."Call mom to come over..."  or "Come by with the kids and visit..." but it's HER work schedule that is the problem.  She's on 4 days a week and on the weekends they go to Atlantic City.  She has one day off per week and she runs all her errands that day.  I've called and texted her to come over after work for wine or just to hang out, to watch Finn while I get Nora and she always has a lame excuse.

I just feel like my "village" that I used to have is gone.  I have no family on my side to speak of at all, and now my MIL is too busy for us.  She keeps saying come summer she won't work as much but I just don't buy it.  If it's that easy, just have your hours cut now.

It makes me sad not only b/c I would like the help, but all I hear from Nora is "I really miss my Grandma."  "Can we go to Grandma's today?"  "Is Grandma coming over?"  and I hate that I have to tell her, "No, honey, sorry, Grandma is working," Nora doesn't care.  All she knows is that her Grams isn't around anymore, and misses her something fierce.  All b/c she works 4 freaking days a week selling candy at a hallmark store!!

Chris is gone this whole week til Friday, and it's just me and the kids 24/7.  I asked if she could stop by this week at all and she just had excuse after excuse, about being on all 4 days at work and taking the cat to the vet, etc etc.  So whatever.  

Then she posts all this stuff on FB about how "Grandkids are the Greatest gift"!  I want to be like so then come see them once in a freaking while!!!

Ugh!!

Anyway sorry for the rant and tangent.  I just had to get that off my tired, exhausted, emotional, hurt chest.

[akind1]

I don't use a sprayer. I shake off what can be shaked or plops. everything else comes out in the wash.

Carrie: MIL's UGH how frustrating! And how heartbreaking to hear how Nora misses her. I hate when people assume because you are "at home" means that your schedule has infinte flexibility. You'd think she'd bend over backwards to spend time with the kids. My MIL this weekend, when told they could come by the house to visit, because we were honestly too busy to drive over there, said that since Gabe cries when they leave and that breaks their heart (hers and FILs) they didn't want to come. So they didn't. It burns me up, because Gabe would have loved to see them. And we said we could come by one night this week, and they hem and haw (MIL does, FIL would be over here every day if he could - but he has to work too). It is such a "road only goes one way" sort of thing with them. Drives me crazy.

So, yeah, lets bash MILs! LOL

Such a busy, busy week! and there is no letting up ahead. Thank God for coffee. and wine. Norah was restless last night, and no wonder, she was in a puddle of pee. (how or why it got out of the diaper IDK) but oy.

[onetwoten]

:( Sorry to hear you guys are having such trouble with your MIL's. Aside from mine being annoyingly avoidant with sewing she said she would do for us, I don't have a lot to complain about right now. She's purchased all the materials for 6 cloth diapers, and we've purchased the materials for two wetbags... all BEFORE Tenley was born, and she hasn't even started on any of them. And this is even after getting a brand new super expensive sewing machine for her birthday in December. I should mentioned too that she was the one who wanted to make the diapers, we told her not to... But now that all the material has been bought and we've been banking on having them... I'd kind of like them!

Speaking of dipes- T grew into her mediums now, so we're up to 30 diapers, plus the other 6 if mil gets around to make them. I think we're good! lol  Rob also bought the material and made 12 more bamboo inserts. He's super excited about them, it's cute. He even put colored thread in the serger, so they look like store bought. lol. The first ones we made were leaking tons and I was really worried we spent all that money for nothing, but I think we just didn't prep them enough, because they seem to be getting better now. We're making sure to prep these new ones really well. That means we'll have I think 40 homemade bamboo inserts, another 5 AMP inserts- 1 hemp, 4 bamboo, and then about 5 homemade microfibre inserts. Time to sell some probably... 

Quick catchup... I was marvelling last night at how quickly you forget how bad things were. We have bad days now, and I get frustrated, but I forget what the really bad days were like already-- the ones where she would scream for hours at bed every night, and I felt like crying myself to sleep, only to have her wake up screaming bloody murder at 3am and not go down for another 2 hours. When nothing would console her, and she just needed to be nursed and then held, bounced, rocked, shushed, walked, etc 24 hours a day. Now our idea of a bad day is when she's fussy and won't let me put her down so I can catch up on email for 20 minutes at a time. It's funny how quickly they grow. She's seeming so much like a little person to me now, not an infant. 

We have our dr appt on Thursday. I'm... anxious a bit. We've been decreasing her meds slowly to try to get her down to what the dr had asked us to do (which was 1 dose a day, which we're splitting the amount across two doses). We haven't quite gotten there, but it has dropped a lot, and so far, she seems to be showing no increase in symptoms. She started being dosed at .66 three times a day (so 2ml a day at about 12.5lbs), and is now being dosed .45 twice a day, (so .9ml at about 14lbs). So we've dropped her dose by over half already. Dr wants her to be at .66 per day though, so we've got to get her down to .33 per dose. I'll take her down to .4 tomorrow, but it won't be soon enough to show the changes before her appt. At any rate- we just got a refill of 45ml, so we've got about another month and a half more of doses, plus I think there's still one refill on that prescription (she wrote it wrong, so we have more refills than she meant...) So even if the dr says no she won't prescribe more, we've got enough to slowly wean her off of it, instead of going cold turkey. 

I wanted a diaper sprayer and Rob told me in no uncertain terms that there's no way he was putting one in the bathroom. lol. We'll see once we get the laundry room finished and laundry tub installed downstairs, maybe we'll do one on there. 

When it comes to solids, I don't think there's anything I'll be avoiding other than tomato for a while, since she gets super fussy right now if I have tomato sauces and stuff like that. And the honey I guess, but that honestly wouldn't have come to mind. Aside from a possibly made up gluten intolerance in my nieces, neither side of the family has food allergies. 

Oh, apparently it's time to go play again!

[MarineWife]

Ok, don't get mad at me, but I really don't get what the big deal is with ILs being busy. I don't see how they are under any obligation to spend time with anyone. Maybe my POV is a bit different because my mother has always worked so there was never a possibility of her being available to me or the kids. I can see being disappointed if they are saying they will do something, especially if they tell the kids directly, and then not doing it but they have every right to be busy with their own lives.

Carrie ~ Maybe your MIL is less available than you'd like because she senses your expectation that she will take care of your kids for you? I don't see anything wrong at all with her working just to kill time. If she can and wants to work, why not? She's done her time (so to speak) taking care of little kids and now is her time to live for herself.

I didn't realize how much Sean leaving again would upset me. I'm really depressed about it.

Oh, did I tell you guys that we are back to Kellen wearing just shorts without underwear or a Pull-Up and using the toilet? As long as he's hanging loose and free he doesn't poop in his pants.

[Baby_Cakes]

I think family should help family.  

I don't want her to take care of the children for me.  I want her to HELP.  I understand you are usually alone and you do your thing and are fine w/o help, but I'm finding it lonely and very hard having two littles and managing by myself.

There is also the fact that I'm constantly hearing from my FIL that I should be spending more time w/her.

Then there is the fact that my MIL herself keeps going on about how she works too much and misses the kids, but then does nothing about it.

ETA - I definitely feel the strain of this more when Chris is away.  I feel like...they know he isn't here and I am only one person.  Why doesn't anyone care enough to want to lend a helping hand???

[akind1]

Carrie - hugs! - I have the same dilemma with MIL - except she does NEED to work - she always says how much she misses the kids, but doesn't make any effort to see them now that we are not in the same house, it's all on us to bring the kids to her. makes me wonder, you know?

Do you have any IRL friends you can hang out with and let the kids run amok while you chat? that is what I'd be doing if left to just me and the kids.  Even if it's only a couple hours, it's a welcome break.