Mom's Happy Hideaway

From the day our little man was born I kept saying I can’t wait until this and I can’t wait until that. One of the main things I was excited for was feeding him “real food.” I couldn’t wait to see him eat and to learn what foods he liked and didn’t like. But, then the big bad food allergy diagnosis had the audacity to crush my dreams. From that point on, I was too scared to eat food myself let alone introduce food to him.

At the advice of the Pediatrician, I started introducing foods around 6 months. We started seeing that the one thing he inherited from his mama was a sweet tooth. He loved almost all fruits! However, he hated just about every veggies at first; pushing the spoon away and practically rolling over to get away from it. Slaving away over the organic choices, steaming and puréeing and storing in individual servings was so much work! Especially for so many busts! And, that’s not food! Even so, watching him eat and his reactions to trying new things was amazing. A sense of freedom and normalcy came with letting him eat. The weight of the food allergies was not so heavy when he was able to eat. But to be honest, these moments were not as frequent as I would have liked.

In what felt like the blink of an eye his 9 month Birthday was arriving and my friend asked about how much food he was taking. We frequently shared battle stories of mommyhood and sought reassurance from each other of our parenting skills and the development of our precious angels!! And just like that it hit me!! I could wait… and I was waiting…. I had let my fear of his allergies turn me into a lazy food feeder. There goes a notch on my “not mother of the year” belt. Clearly it was so much easier and “safer” to just give him breast milk and to nurse him. I realized that I was only letting him “eat food” once daily about 3-4 times a week.

Adding salt to the wound, I was heading to the pediatrician the next day for his check up. What will they think… even worse what would they say?? Surprisingly, our amazing Pediatrician said that she would go as slow as possible with introducing foods. She strongly recommended not pushing him to eat due to his allergies. And even said that we could push it closer to 12 months before we tried full meals. Additionally, she suggested that we continue to breastfeed and provide expressed breast milk (EBM) for him until I was no longer producing. Most babies transition over to formula or cow’s milk once they are no longer nursing or getting EBM. Currently, this was not an option for us, so EBM was best as close to 24 months as possible.

There was less pressure about being more regimented with introducing foods. But, I did not want to hold him back and risk a possible food aversion. So, I decided to give him a couple bites of food that was safe for me to eat each day. At the very least, it would introduce him to different flavors and textures, and hopefully get him more interested in food. Not to mention how much easier this will be!