Food Fight

Now that I've discovered the trove of parenting information that is the Ask Moxie blog, I have been reading some "back issues". I came across a post on introducing solids that really resonated with me for a couple of reasons:

1. I am stupidly anxious about feeding Pumpkin solids. Am I feeding her the right foods? The right amount? Does the fact that she fights getting into her high chair mean we are setting her up for food issues for the rest of her life? The rational part of my brain knows that it probably doesn't matter what food I feed her now, but the irrational worrying part of my brain that got such a boost when I became a Mommy still, well, worries.

2. I have just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. One of his conjectures is that Americans' food neurosis is a result of our having lost our cultural guides about what is good to eat. As omnivores, we are biologically programmed to be able to eat just about anything, so we rely on our culture to help us sort out which of the countless possibilities are safe, tasty, and good to eat. American culture doesn't really provide a uniform guide. We are currently trying to replace these missing guidelines with scientific research, which is ever-changing, leading us to fall prey to food fads and generally worry more about what we eat than most other people. I wonder if this is also the reason for the fact Moxie points out (and for which item #1 above provides evidence):

"Americans are totally neurotic about introducing food to babies"

Moxie goes on to try to say that we should introduce solids however we want. But then she references a Dutch study about the benefits of letting the baby lead the solid-introducing exercise, and giving the baby large pieces of food. This of course made me start worrying that I am doing wrong by feeding Pumpkin primarily mushed up food (commercial or homemade- she is just starting on "finger foods", and still hasn't quite got the concept). I think I need to get better at ignoring that worrying part of my brain, because it clearly isn't going anywhere.

The Omnivore's Dilemma has lots of other thought-provoking ideas in it. However, I will warn you that reading it will probably make you feel very bad about your food choices, even if you are a vegan who eats only organic food.

A Message of Hope

Blogger sent me randomly to the Mimi on the Breach blog, where I saw this post about a baby who is now sleeping like a baby. I followed the link to read what said baby used to sleep like. The earlier post sounds mighty familiar. The later post sounds like paradise. So there is hope!

The Good Bits

So much of what I post about parenthood, and indeed, what everyone posts about parenthood, focuses on the hard parts. I guess we're all using our blogs as a venue to vent, and/or to try to find advice or solutions to our problems. It is the same when parents talk about parenting, too. A non-parent colleague of mine recently reminded me of this negative focus when she said that the parents in the group were not making parenthood sound like a good idea. We all laughed, and assured here that there were definitely more good bits than bad bits.

So here is one of the good bits: how obviously happy a baby gets about simple things. One of the things that Pumpkin likes to do is go for walks in her Baby Bjorn. We go for a walk every work day when we get home. She now recognizes the Baby Bjorn, and when I get it out of the drawer, she gets a huge grin on her face, bounces up and down and flaps her arms. It never fails to make me smile.

Then there are the good bits that you might think are bad bits. I was struggling to get Pumpkin into her high chair tonight. She has figured out that if she kicks the plastic restraint attached to the tray, I can't get the tray on. She was doing this tonight, and at first it was frustrating me. But then I had to laugh, because really, she is a pretty smart 8 month old to have figured this out (and in fact, she figured it out when she was 6 months old). When I started laughing, she got this devilish grin on her face and started laughing, too. Which of course just made me laugh harder. We still needed Daddy's help to get into the chair, though.

Zenbit: Tea in the Mist

Tea is as lovely to look at as it is to drink.

Location: Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Date: February 10, 2006

The Great Sleep Experiment - 10 day results

It has been 10 days since we started our no-cry sleep solution experiment. Actually, it has been 11 days, but Thursday was such an unusual and busy day that we didn't think it would be a fair test of how we were doing. We did our sleep logs last night, and from the pure numbers, it doesn't really look like things are improving:

Asleep time - 7:45 p.m.
Awake time - 6:10 a.m.
Total wakings - 5
Longest sleep span - 2 hrs 30 min
Total sleep - 9 hrs

However, we have made some progress. She now sleeps most of the night in her crib, rather than spending part of the night cuddling on the floor with Daddy. I put her in her bouncy chair after her last waking, since she tends to have trouble going back down after that and we have decided that getting her quantity of sleep up is more important than getting her out of the bouncy chair. Also, several of the wakings require only that we give her the binky and a few pats in the crib, rather than picking her up. Last night, we only had to pick her up on wakings when she ended up eating. The average time to get back to sleep is down to 17 minutes from 20 minutes, and that is skewed high due to a long session where Daddy was trying to get her down without her bottle for 20 minutes before finally giving up and letting her have her bottle. Three of the other four wakings required nothing more than a binky and a few pats, and she was back to sleep in five minutes or less.

We need to revisit our plan and decide what, if anything, needs adjusting. The idea that has worked the best for us is an idea that was actually proposed for extending nap time: to be there ready with the binky or whatever calming techniques work to get the baby right back to sleep if she wakes up "too early". We've been doing this for her first waking (which used to be 1 hour 45 minutes after she went down) and have had some success in getting her to sleep through this waking some nights.

I'll post again in another 10 days!