Success at last!

So on Saturday morning we finally succeeded! Bryleigh took her rice cereal from me, and we made an accidental discovery. It turns out that it wasn’t the consistency of the cereal or the temperature or the sitting on the floor, Bryleigh will only eat her cereal when she can see other babies eating, too! So Saturday morning I put Bryleigh in her Bumbo seat on the kitchen floor while I prepared her cereal (and mine—I’ve been eating a bowl of cereal with Bryleigh every morning so that she can see how it’s done). So when it was ready, I just plopped down on the floor in front of her and picked her up to put her in my lap. I started trying to feed her the rice cereal, and she started eating it! She was opening her mouth, leaning forward, swallowing it, and even grinning like crazy! And then I noticed why she was grinning. As she was eating her cereal, she could see another baby sitting next to her eating cereal, as well. When I plopped down on the floor by her Bumbo seat, I plopped down right in front of the dishwasher, the front of which is glossy black—Bryleigh could see her own reflection and was grinning at herself in the mirror as she ate! We did it again on Sunday, and she ate it right up—the whole bowl, two days in a row. When I told the daycare ladies this morning, they just laughed. My baby girl loves looking at herself in the mirror!!

Instructional basics

Last night I ended up not trying to give Bryleigh her cereal, and I decided that I would try again this morning (another failure, by the way), and then if she didn’t eat it this morning I would have the daycare ladies wait to give her the cereal when I arrived at the school for Bryleigh’s lunchtime feeding. That way they could show me exactly how they did everything to get Bryleigh to eat, in hopes that I can replicate their processes tomorrow. Miss I seemed really weird about it, though. From when I asked her to do this morning to while she was showing me at lunch, she seemed really weirded out by my asking her. When she was mixing the cereal, she had her back turned me, and I had to say, “Miss I, can you please turn around so that I can see how much cereal you’re using and how much milk you put in so that I can to get the same consistency?” She had to pour more rice cereal into a bowl to show me since she’d already mixed in the milk, and then she was able to tell how much milk she had added by looking at what was left in the bottle.

Anyway, so apparently the only things that Miss I did differently from me are that she sat cross-legged on the floor while feeding Bryleigh, and she heated the cereal a little warmer than I get it. They said that another important thing is to let Bryleigh suck her thumb in between bites if she wants to, because sucking her thumb helps her swallow what she has in her mouth.

Funny enough, though, while I was there, Bryleigh wouldn’t take it from Miss I, either. She ate a couple of bites and then started acting just like she does with me when I try it.

We’ll try it again tomorrow with those two changes in hopes that she’ll take it!

Mommy is a failure…

I feel like a failure. After two more unsuccessful attempts at solids last night and this morning, A and I decided that we would let the daycare teachers give it a go. On her form this morning I specifically wrote out the instructions for them to mix three tablespoons of cereal with four tablespoons of breastmilk. Later this morning, Miss I, Bryleigh’s primary caregiver, called me at work to let me know that Bryleigh ate her entire bowl of rice cereal.

She said, “You actually have to put the spoon in her mouth; she won’t take it on her own.” Well duh. What does she think I am? Some kind of idiot?

I replied (in a nicer tone of voice than this is going to sound), “Miss I, we have been putting in her mouth, but she just keeps spitting it out with us!”

She just said, “Oh.”

So then she said that they made it thicker, and I asked her what ratio they used, but of course she said that they don’t measure. She said she mixed a bowl of cereal with half of Bryleigh’s bottle. That sounds like way too much to me, but Miss I said that Bryleigh even took the remainder of the bottle afterward and then promptly fell asleep! I am going to talk to the pediatrician about this because it sounds like way too much food to me. Then again, she’s supposed to be having more calories now that she’s six months olds, and after a liquid diet for six months, anything is really going to sound like a lot, but maybe she needs it. I just don’t know.

Anyway, now I feel like an utter failure. I mean, I followed the directions from the American Academy of Pediatrics and from our own pediatrician to a tee for a week to no avail, and these daycare teachers come in and try it one time and Bryleigh eats it right up? I keep telling myself that I’m new to this and that they’re the pros—they’ve seen it all. That really doesn’t do me much good, though. When it comes down to it, I tried and failed.

I’m going to see if I can get her to eat any of it tonight maybe. I’m not sure if she’s supposed to have it more than once a day, actually. My books came in from the library, though: Super Baby Food, by Ruth Yaron (who is not a doctor, so I’m reading this with a grain of salt just because it’s the most popular right now), and Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health, by Susan B Roberts PhD and Melvin B Heyman MD (which is supposed to be the best scientifically).

No solids, Daddy!

So A couldn’t get her to eat them, either. He said that each time she opened her mouth to whimper, he’d shove the spoon in, and that in doing so she ended up eating a little. Overall he did really well with her on his own, though! He’s such a good daddy.

He said that last night they were playing, and he went to change her diaper and laid her on the changing table, and she said Daddy! He said he couldn’t be sure that she said it, but he said it sounded like she did! He said it looked like she surprised herself by saying it, and then every time he would say afterward, she would just belly laugh at him! How cute is that?

Anyway, so today we upped the ratio to three tablespoons of rice cereal to four of breastmilk, and she still wouldn’t really eat it. I’ll give it another go tonight.

New solids plan!

I nursed her again for five minutes first thing this morning and then tried feeding her another tablespoons of rice cereal mixed with four of BM. Same results, of course. Her daddy tried feeding her, too, to no avail. She actually gagged a little when we got her to take some.

So later on today I called the pediatrician’s office and talked to the nurse about it. He said that we should try twice each day, once in the morning and once at night before bed. He wants us to try giving two tablespoons of cereal to four of BM for two days, and then up it three to four for two days, and the move on to four and four. He said half and half like that should be a good, thicker consistency for her, but we need to build up to that. He said keep trying every day (we’d planned to give it a rest for a week if she still refused tomorrow, but now we’re going to follow his orders and keep at it). Mom suggested that I hold her while I feed her rather than putting her in the Bumbo seat, since she’s been used to being held while eating thus far, and the nurse said that was a good idea. He also said that it was a good idea to have A eat his cereal with her so she can see how it’s done.

I have a meeting tonight, and A is keeping Bryleigh on his own, so he’s going to try it by himself with the two to four consistency in hopes that with me gone and no boobs from which to nurse in sight, she’ll give it fairer chance.

Solids trials and tribulations

I nursed her for five minutes first thing this morning, and then I tried feeding her a tablespoon of rice cereal mixed with four tablespoons of warm breastmilk, as the box instructs. I put her in her Bumbo seat at the dining room table and put a bib on her. Her daddy came and ate his own cereal with us, which I think was good because then she saw how this was supposed to work. I even had A feed me a couple of bites of Bryleigh’s cereal to see if that would help. Not so much. She still kept spitting it out. After about 20 minutes, she was starting to get upset and was turning her face away, so we stopped. I nursed her. Her teachers at daycare want to try. I can tell that they think that they will be able to get her to eat it, but they also showed me how thick they want to make the cereal, but I’d rather follow the instructions first!

Solidarity in refusal

Apparently like me, Bryleigh is not ready for solids, either. She would not eat it, did not like that spoon in her mouth and spit out every bite. We didn’t try for very long today, but we’ve made a plan for continuation.

Our plan is to continue trying Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning this week, and then if she’s still refusing it by Wednesday, we’ll quit for a week and try it again next Wednesday.

That's solid, man. Solid.

So we are starting Bryleigh on solid foods this weekend, and I’m kind of nervous about it. It’s just rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, but I have such mixed feelings about it because I know it marks the beginning of the end of an era. I’m going to need to stop breastfeeding soon, and while I rejoice at the thought of no longer having to pump or to worry how what I’m eating will affect Bryleigh, I’m also going to miss it. I mean, that's a really special time between her and me, and while I admit that it's sometimes inconvenient, I still love it.

Now for my confession... I'm also scared to death about forgetting to buy baby food. Sometimes I forget to buy dog food! What if I forget to buy baby food? What if I run out of it somewhere where it’s hard to get? I’ve never had to worry about having baby food on hand because it’s always there!! Does this make me ridiculous?

When I was pregnant I kept having these dreams with the recurring theme that I would leave Bryleigh somewhere—in the car or at the office, at home or at the grocery store. In the dream it would just occur to me all of a sudden, hours after I’d left her wherever she was, that I had a baby and that I was supposed to have picked her up / got her out of the car / brought her with me (depending on where I left her). These dreams always left me with this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, even after I woke up, and that’s how I feel about the forgetting-the-baby-food issue.

I’ve ordered several books from the library about starting babies on solid foods and how to make your own baby food. I think I’d rather make my own baby food than buy the prepackaged stuff, but I need to clean out the freezer of all the breastmilk so there's room to store it. I guess that will happen naturally as I wean Bryleigh (and myself) off the breastfeeding.

Gosh, I’m just so nervous about it. I tried talking to A about it this week, but somehow we ended up getting into a big fight about it because for some reason, he started talking about my quitting breastfeeding right away, which got me all defensive because Bryleigh may be ready, but I don’t think I am!

Snow week---A whole lot of random stuff

So last week we got snowed in all week long. I must say that I love my baby, but I just don’t know that I could be a stay-at-home mom without being able to drop the baby off somewhere for at least a little while! One day a week or a couple of hours over several days… I think my arm muscles grew tenfold from holding her so much over the past week. I really enjoyed the time off and getting to spend all that time with Boo and the hubby, but by Thursday, we were all getting cranky. A was out in the street trying to shovel a path to get the car out. I got A’s car stuck trying to make it in to work against all odds (I failed to even get out of the neighbourhood), and Boo was starting to get cranky at lack of scenery, as well.

On another note, she started crawling backwards! Not forwards, but backwards. She’s been doing the pinwheel for a while now. She can turn herself 360 degrees like it’s nothing, but last week while we snowed in I was trying to encourage her to crawl by helping her into the crawl position and placing something she’d want in front of her, but each time, instead of crawling forward to get it, she’d scoot back. Then she’d reeeeach for it, and scoot back again. Reeeeeach for it again, and scoot back again! Then she’d get so frustrated! It was rather adorable, even though I know it was making her so mad that she couldn’t figure it out.

We’ve still been working on “Baby” and “Mama,” “Dada” and “Dog” every day. I think my repetition of it is driving A crazy. He said to me the other day, “You’re not going to get her to repeat it!” Well, I know this, but I want her learn the association of the words with the objects, and repetition is the only way she’s going to get it.

She’s getting such a little personality. She fights her naps so badly. Over the Snow Week, A kept forcing her to take naps. We could tell she’d start getting tired every day around 10:30 or so, and then again around 3:30, so when she’d start getting fussy, he’d take her, sit in the recliner, and rock her until she fell asleep, which she eventually would every time. She’d fight it, popping her head up and looking around, fussing and even crying a little, but every single time without fail, she’d eventually pop that thumb in her little mouth and fall asleep, giving us a nice rest, as well. So yesterday when I took her daycare for the first time in a week, I told them about it because they always talk about how Bryleigh never sleeps during the day. When I picked her up yesterday evening, her teacher told me she did as we said and that Bryleigh finally napped.