Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Growing Up

Pumpkin will be one year old next month. I am having a hard time believing this, despite her obvious developmental progress. Perhaps because I don't really believe she's almost one, perhaps because she is still showing so little interest in most finger foods (except crackers), I haven't really thought much about how I'll proceed with her feeding once she turns one and we are "allowed" to give her dairy, egg whites, citrus, and probably all sorts of other things. (I put "allowed" in quotes, because when I finally got around to doing some research on food allergies, it turned out that the evidence for holding off on these foods isn't all that strong.) I know that I will keep nursing her, I think I'd like to try to decrease the amount of pumping I do, and I haven't really figured out the details.

Her day care center, on the other hand, is ready to move her towards more toddler-like eating habits. She'll be moving up to the room for older babies soon, and we need to start getting her ready. That means more finger food, so we need to start sending more finger foods for them to try giving her during the day. Part of me rebels at having to send in food that I suspect she won't eat, and at having some of my parenting decisions directed by her day care providers. But the more rational part of me realizes that they've seen hundreds of kids through this transition, and probably know what is likely to work. Also, Pumpkin's love affair with graham crackers started at day care, so maybe they'll have better luck with finger foods than we are having. So I've reluctantly agreed that we'll start sending more finger foods in next week. I want the rest of the week and this weekend to work on finding ideas and trying them out at home. (Tonight I tried apple pieces that I'd microwaved with some cinnamon. She liked them, but didn't actually eat them. She gummed them and spit them out. I think I need to cook them a bit longer.)

Day care also wants us to start working on transitioning her to one nap a day, since that is what they do in the big baby room. I'm having even more trouble with this, because her sleep is already such an issue. But I guess this is just another of the trade offs I've made. I want to work, and I've chosen to use day care rather than a nanny. This means I chose to lose a little control over Pumpkin's days. I know that I am having a bit of an irrational reaction to this change, too, since Pumpkin drops the afternoon nap at least once a week now. So I'll get over my neuroses on this, and we'll start working on moving her morning nap later and getting her to give up her afternoon nap. Maybe it will make her sleep better at night. A girl can dream.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:32 PM

    When we transitioned to one nap per day we kept getting comments from daycare about her being "grumpy" in the morning. Well no kidding, she is tired and needs a nap. If you want her to not be grumpy, let her sleep.

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  2. Good luck with the changes. It is hard to let go of some of the control! I hope it all goes smoothly. :-)

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