Thursday, September 24, 2009

Toddler Snacks

I thought I would write down some more ideas for toddler food. This time, toddler snacks we couldn't live without. A lot of these are for toddlers on the older side; sorry, I'm forgetting what I used to feed Z. Also, I'm mostly writing down some things that perhaps aren't typical. I assume you all know snacks like fresh fruit or cheese and crackers. :)

> Freeze-dried fruit at Trader Joe's (TJ's). Blueberries, strawberries, banana, mango. They are a little expensive, but they're a great snack for when you're out and don't want to bring along messy fresh fruit. Z likes the blueberries in his yogurt.
> Apple Carrot Fruit Sauce Crushers (TJ's). Apple sauce with carrot in a portable foil juice-box type container with a screw-top. Z just likes to squeeze it and suck the stuff out. I'm not sure he really likes the contents all that much. But a good way to get some veggie in your kid.
> Peanut butter. Okay, maybe this is an obvious one. We love it on everything: crackers, bread, apples. Straight off the spoon. And for those who can't have peanut butter, try sunflower seed butter. It's pretty close to PB.
> String cheese, american cheese by the slice, cheese melted on veggies, beans, meat. Cheese makes everything better!
> Cereal for eating by hand: Kix (almost indestructable, but they do roll), Cheerios, Crispix, Chex
> Pretzels sticks- the big ones. I like the Rold Gold Honey Wheat ones or the Trader Joe's Honey Wheat ones. These are fun to dip in peanut butter and then "fish" for raisins.

For the bowel movement challenged (constipated):
> Ezekiel bread (we like the raisin cinnamon)- lots of fiber and yummy toasted with cream cheese
> Fiberful Ends & Pieces (Trader Joe's)- the leftover bits of fruit leather. Has a lot of sugar (fruit sugar), but lot's of fiber, too.
> Cinnamon Oat Bran Swirls (Trader Joe's)- I told Z they were cookies (really just a sweet-ish cereal). Again, for the fiber.
> Prunes. I was surprised Z ate them, but they are sweet and delicious!
> Miralax. When all else fails. Soluble, mild laxative that dissolves in anything and is tasteless. Consult your pediatrician first.

Again, I would love to hear ideas from other moms!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Toddler Food

Even after getting through the introduction of solids, the challenges with food continue. There was a long time with Z (maybe a year?) when I could feed him almost anything. His biggest turn-off was always texture. If I could get the right texture or disguise it enough, he would eat it. I would cook and chop up kale and blend it into other things and he would eat it. Kale. Really. I also fed him plain yogurt with wheat germ and tahini mixed in for his lunch every day. Wow, those were the days! :)

I based Z's first year of food on the book Super Baby Food. There are a lot of things I really liked about this book, but let me say it is not for the faint of heart. If you are overwhelmed by solids, don't start here. If you feel like you want lots of information and want a PLAN for the nutrition of your child, pick it up. I found the book extremely helpful for coming up with ideas of what to try and when. It has a chapter for each month and charts that show the different kinds of food to give for a balanced diet (one leafy green veggie, one orange veggie, one citrus/vitamin C, etc.). It has an appendix listing fruits and vegetables and how to pick them, cook them, store them. It's premise is that you are making most of the food for your baby, but it has lots of helpful information besides that.

Much of the good nutrition Z had in his first couple years of life is due to Super Baby Food. I am a picky eater. It is hard to make your child eat stuff you would never eat. But having the lists of things to try and some good recipes in the back helped me overcome myself. The kale, tahini, wheat germ? Papaya, avocado, kiwi? I would have never thought to give those things to Z. Like I said, I'm a picky eater.

So, anyway, after conquering that first year or so, just when I started to feel good about myself because my kid ate kale (did I mention Z ate kale?), Z started to get more discriminating in his tastes. And there was no rhyme or reason to it that I could tell. One day pasta was the best thing ever. The next day he wouldn't even put pasta in his mouth. The cornucopia of vegetables dwindled to store-bought baby food peas. It started to be a real challenge just to figure out what to feed Z every day. And by this point he was wanting to feed himself, so I was looking for healthy finger foods also (it takes A LOT of puffs to fill up a toddler, dang it).

Then one day I found...

Gotcha. I have no answer. I found no book that solved it all. It was just trial and error. It took a lot of try and try again. I kept lists of snack ideas and, even if Z refused something once, I would try it again another time. So here are some tips on feeding a toddler:

1. Try & Try Again. Don't just offer something once. Try it several days in a row; then, if still no luck, try it in a week or so.
2. Get Them Excited to Eat With You. Give your child one thing they like and then have them try something new that you are eating. We made a big deal that Z was eating the same thing we were eating. Sometimes this worked.
3. Avoid a Battle of Wills. This was a big one for Z. If I showed a strong desire for him to try something his spidey senses would take over and his mouth would snap shut. If I nonchalantly offered something, he would try it and sometimes even keep eating it.
4. Keep them Hungry. Keep snacks between meals to a minimum. This is easier said than done. It was hard for me to not feed him when he said he wanted something. But it's amazing how a cracker here, some apple there can really add up. Of course he's not going to eat broccoli at dinner when he's really not that hungry to start with.
5. Limit Where (not just when) Snack are Eaten. One of the best rules I ever made for my own sanity was that snacks are only eaten at the dining table. Sometime when I was exhausted and pregnant I started to let Z eat in front of the TV. It's true what they say about mindless eating in front of the television. And besides that, the mess was infuriating. The last thing a pregnant woman wants to do is bend down to pick up munched cereal off the floor. Besides the mess, however, limiting where Z could eat snacks meant he was less interested in eating. If eating a snack meant he had to sit at the table, he managed to do without the snack.
6. Keep A List. I mentioned this above: keep a list of snacks and foods to try. Keep the list even of the things he didn't like. So many times I gave in to crackers for lack of inspiration. Having a list helped me keep a variety of things and cut down on the brainpower required at each meal. So, here is my list- perhaps it will help you. Remember to try the same thing presented differently: cooked carrot, raw carrot, carrot mixed with peas, etc.

SNACKS/FOODS to try for a toddler:
> tortilla with beans and cheese (like a quesadilla), beans and cheese with a tortilla on the side (the wheat ones are good), tortilla with turkey meat and cheese
> pasta (orzo is a good start, then move on to more interesting shapes like fusilli) with tomato sauce, ground turkey and zucchini (cut up very small so less detectable). Substitute other types of meat and veggies. Gnocchi was a big hit with Z. And I get the multigrain pasta (only Barilla is edible in my opinion).
> -balls: meat balls, sweet potato balls, pea balls, peanut butter balls. You can make just about anything into a fun finger food with a little bread crumb and egg white. The back of Super Baby Food has a lot of recipes for those.
> Toast with turkey and cheese (I had to chop up the turkey so that Z wouldn't peel the entire turkey layer off and eat just the cheese). Pita with turkey and cheese. English muffin with turkey and cheese.
> Healthy raisin bread (like the Ezekiel brand) with cream cheese
> Mashed potatoes with roasted or baked chicken and broccoli or peas. Mix it all together and they might just eat it all.
> Mild chili- black beans, corn, petite cut diced tomato, ground turkey. Make it very thick and hearty and it's easy for them to spoon in.
> Yogurt with stuff mixed in: fruit, wheat germ, tahini. Yogurt and wheat germ make a complete protein. Tahini is a great healthy fat.

I'll try to think of some more... but I actually lost my list. :) I would love to hear ideas from other Mom's too!

Tips for Starting Baby on Solids

Harper is 7 months old now. I delayed starting her on solids because I just wasn't ready for one more thing to do. But then I noticed she was really breastfeeding vigorously and sometimes she didn't seem satisfied. Then, she started waking up more from naps and such, so I decided it was time. I started her about a week ago. The first few days were very slow going. She pushed her tongue out a lot and didn't really know what to do. I had to kind of shove the spoon into her mouth. Then, suddenly, on the third day, it just clicked. Pop! She opened her mouth like a little hungry birdy. (So cute!) I am shocked at how much she is eating already (probably around 2 tablespoons of dry rice cereal and then I add formula to make it a good semi-runny consistency).

I think it really helped make things easier by waiting until she was a little older. With Z, eager to follow what the books say, I started him on the day he turned six months old. He was a little slower in most developmental milestones (sitting up, crawling, etc.) so now I can see that if I had waited a little longer he might have caught on more quickly. He had more trouble with gagging; I had to get the consistency just right for him. So far, Harper has gagged only a couple of times when I made the cereal a little too thick.

Anyway, I thought I would use Harper's solids milestone as an opportunity to write down some of my tips for new Moms just starting baby on solids.

1. Breast, cereal, breast? Breast, wait an hour, cereal? I spent quite a bit of brain power on when I should feed Z his cereal. It seemed like every book said something different (as usual, right?). There are lots of good reasons to do it just about every possible way. I'll just share what I decided. For Z: For the first week or so, I fed him on one breast, then did cereal, then finished with other breast. I wanted to make sure he was hungry but not starving. After I was confident that he was interested in the cereal, I just fed him at the breast (both sides) then did the cereal. It was just a heck of a lot easier that way. Also, the breast milk or formula is the number one priority for babies, so I wanted to be sure he was getting enough of that. For Harper: I feed her as usual (both sides), then when I can get to it, I sit her down to eat her cereal. This is usually about forty-five minutes to an hour after she breastfeeds. I would rather get it a little closer to when I feed her, but that's breakfast or lunch time and I'm busy getting everyone else fed. I haven't noticed any decline in her appetite for the next feeding, so I'll stick with it for now. There is the potential that the baby will get used to eating more often rather than being able to eat enough to wait for the next feeding (for us, four hours later).

2. Do not view solids as a nutritional necessity. As soon as I started with the solids I started getting really anxious about Z getting enough and getting the right variety of things. Although solids do add all kinds of great nutrients to your child's diet, they really don't need it. A child can get everything they need from breastmilk or formula for the first year of life (isn't that amazing!?). Everything else is icing on the breast, er, cake. The solids do give them extra calories, so you will likely see a change in consumption of breastmilk/formula, however don't stress about how much of the solids they are eating. Follow the guidelines for how much they should be drinking of breastmilk or formula, and then give them solids to their heart's desire. Babies don't overeat. Really. They will stop when they are full; just be sure not to feed them so fast that they don't register their fullness soon enough. Be aware of their signs for "all done," such as turning away, closing their mouth, getting restless or whiney.

3. Do view solids as a developmental exercise.
Just think of all the things your baby is learning... sitting up at a table, opening her mouth for the spoon, mushing things in her mouth, swallowing (without sucking). That's just the physical stuff.... Then you can start to teach her table manners - no grabbing the bowl/spoon/bib, no throwing food, no tantrums, no rubbing food in hair. At first I taught Z those things just by guiding his hands and saying no. Eventually, when he was bigger and more insistent, I flicked his hands as a physical conditioning to go with the "no" that I'm saying. The hand thumps are a type of repetitive conditioning training (like you might do with a dog- I know, bad analogy, sorry). The child has to learn what you expect, but it is not a matter of right and wrong or disobedience. With all of these things your baby is learning, be patient with them!

4. Don't, I repeat, DON'T clean up until you're really done.
Get ready for a mess. All the training in the world won't stop your baby from smearing peas in her hair again. The most gigantic bib in the world won't prevent her from lifting the sweet potato sodden cloth and dumping it on her arms and the floor. Absolutely don't bother to really clean up until the spoon is retired from active duty. I still struggle with this. I obsessively clean up mid-meal and then get frustrated when there is more mess to clean. Don't do it! Save your wipes, your knees, your sanity. When baby is done, wipe her first (hands then mouth then hair, as the case may be), give her a toy and then, only then, proceed to the table and floor.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Two Kids One Room... Finally

It's been a month since I started working on getting both kids into one room. We successfully worked through Harper's early morning wake-up and got rid of the pacifier and swaddle. Everything was "ready" except for me. I just kept delaying putting her in the kid's room for the night. I kind of wonder at what point I would have finally done it.... but circumstances intervened and our friends picked up the bassinet for their little one who is due very soon.

So, it has been about five nights with both kids sleeping in one room at night. Harper takes her naps in a portable crib in our room during the day. And then, after her 10:30pm feeding I just lay her down in the kids' room. Z is already asleep and he hasn't woken up from that yet.

I am so extremely thankful that Z is sleeping better at night now. I keep meaning to write about it, but it has been two or maybe three weeks of solid night-sleeping for him (with only a couple of exceptions). John offered to take over the wake-ups (which meant that I stayed in bed, adrenaline pumping from the abrupt wake-up, while he very leisurely, if at all, got up to take care of Z). I honestly think that John's delay in going to him is what helped. And John taking the responsibility, which meant I had to stay in bed, helped me not rush in as well. And perhaps Z also just got through the phase, I don't know. All I can say is that it has helped so much! I am SO thankful. Yet another example of how things change even when you think they never will. That phase was really rough and lasted almost a year!

With both kids in one room, the only problem really has been that Harper wakes up a little early still (6:45am) and plays and coos. She is not very loud, but it's enough at that time of the morning to wake Z up. A few times he has just remained awake and plays in his room and a couple times he went back to sleep. This morning he woke up really upset at 6am (I think because he had to pee) and when I put him back in bed he said he didn't want Harper in his room. I wanted to say- well, you're the one who woke her up! But that has been the biggest problem so far. I ended up feeding Harper early and putting her in the port-a-crib in our room. She is so sweet and just plays and barely makes any noise, but that was pretty much the end of my sleep. Really, though, it could be worse. (It could always be worse.)

At least when Z gets up early he still stays in his room. We've always had to reinforce the rule for Z to stay in his room in the morning until we come and get him. I am so glad we did. He still has to be reminded almost every day, but at least it is usually less of a fight. What a huge difference that 7-8am hour makes in my life! I feed Harper, pump, take a shower (sometimes), get breakfast ready. It takes me a while to wake up so that hour really helps.

Looking back on the last month or so, I realize how much we've accomplished. Here I am at the point of having both kids in one room, which was very high on my list of worries for having two kids. And it's fine! We worked hard to get to this point with the least amount of difficulty and we made it!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Poo-servering, Barely

Day 7 of potty training. Yesterday was really hard and I seriously started contemplating giving up. I'm still telling Z when to go, so there were no potty accidents yesterday. Instead there was a total of, I kid you not, 10 poo accidents. All afternoon, he kept going a little in his underwear and then wasn't able to go on the toilet. Mess after mess after mess. Poo everywhere. On the toilet, on the kiddie toilet seat, on the floor on his shoes, on his foot, legs and hands. In the bathtub (twice). It is extremely difficult to be patient at a time like that. I tried really hard to stay calm but I didn't always succeed. I cried three or four times, but tried to hide it from Z. He found me anyway and said, "Okay, Mama." (I don't think he understood what I was crying about; he had already moved on.) By the fifth poo clean-up, John was home and I had put a pull-up on Z. I figured at least then I wouldn't have another pair of underwear to scrub.

After dinner I went out to a ladies thing and had a chance to talk to a few other moms about it. They gave me some great ideas like getting him a special book for reading on the potty just when he goes poo. And making the prize for number two something he really wants. And making Z help with the poo clean-up, at least putting his dirty underwear into the toilet to rinse. (This is supposed to really gross them out so they don't want an accident again. Z doesn't seem bothered about the poo all over. Really? Surely a loathing of your own feces is an inherent human trait?) Also, I got out the little potty for him and told him he could use it just for poo since it is much easier to get on and off and puts his legs in a more comfortable position. We'll see if he wants to use it.

So, when I got home last night, I felt a little more hopeful and had some more ideas to try. And then, (hope upon hope!) John gave me the update on the evening. Z did it! John also got to clean up poo five times, but Z finally went poo in the toilet! It turns out that he was constipated! Oh, man. I didn't think of that because it seemed like he had almost the opposite problem- lots of small soft poo's. So, Z was super proud of himself and told Papa that he gets dinosaur treats when he goes poo-poo. (This is past bedtime so Z had to wait until morning.) I think there is a different dynamic with Papa around. Maybe that will be John's job to help with the poo encouraging every night. Lucky him!

The next steps are just to keep working on Z knowing when he has to go himself. Today I started more indirect prompts and Z had an accident. I was actually kind of glad for the opportunity so he could learn. He's been going on autopilot for a while with me prompting him all the time. But I should report that we went to the grocery store this morning! When we passed the bathroom, I asked if he wanted to go. He was curious, of course, so he said he did want to go. And he actually did go in the toilet at the store. Again, a good learning opportunity, this time for both of us.

A friend last night told me to be patient and expect three weeks or so of really having to work on it (with the number two's). It's nice to have some rough idea in my head, because at my most tired and pessimistic, I was imagining him starting kindergarten and still unable to poo on the toilet. We're sticking with it. One day at a time, right? I plowed down the cleaning product aisle today and stocked up.