Day 8 – Breakfast

With today’s main focus being Malina’s reaction to dairy, I decided to repeat foods she had already tried without incident along side the yogurt.

The reaction she had on Thursday appeared several hour later and went away by the same evening. My personal hope was the reaction was from something besides the food, since we are a dairy family and she loved her yogurt. In case it was a skin irritation to the acids in yogurt, I was careful to not let it stay on her face for too long and helped her keep herself a little more clean. We were also more thorough in cleanup, making sure to wash her face and neck with soap when she was done.

So on to today’s foods, Malina had smashed blueberries, breaded avocado, and plain Greek yogurt.

It was an easy breakfast. I just cut up the avocado and rolled it in bread cry. Defrosted blueberries and smashed them up. Then served up the yogurt again.

She went for the avocado first. Picking it up with some difficulty, as I will have to play around with how I cut it, she got it to her mouth eventually and ate a few small bites. She did not seem to mind the crunchy texture or the squishy insides as she enjoyed it.

She had some difficulty with the blueberries again. Malina and most babies don’t develop the pincer grasp until closer to 8-10 months and as a result it’s more difficult to eat small foods like blueberries. Exposer to them though helps her practice and develop the ability. She was successful in picking up the blueberries, she just wasn’t able to put them in her mouth. I let her mess with them for a bit before moving on to the yogurt.

Malina was equipped with her spoon and very quickly started eating the yogurt. At least she still liked it.

Despite my best efforts, Malina was more messy with the yogurt today and less helpful in keeping herself clean. She even managed to get yogurt in her hair and on her ear. Spoons. I tell you they make more messes than anything. Still, she enjoyed the yogurt and had a good time.

When she was done, after about four spoons of yogurt, we went to clean up Malina and check for any rash. Initial checks proved inconclusive as nothing was found and we began our day of waiting and watching.

Even when things are stressful and worrying it’s important to remember that you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

P.S. – I forgot to come back and upload this post last night. We spent all day at home and kept watch of Malina. She never got a rash and was fine all day. We decided to proceed with the dairy allergen introduction for this next week and going back to our meal plan.

Day 7 – Allergies

So, yesterday we had our first allergic reaction. Malina is fine and it was a mild one. It might not have been food related either, but we are going to be safe here and take the day off from solids before continuing probably tomorrow.

For those wondering, this was the timeline we had.

Malina ate breakfast @8:20am

10:30am- We go out to grocery store and she chews on her wrap that I wear her in, as well as the car seat strap covers, and her car seat toy.

11:45am. We get back home and I notice a red spot on her neck above her shoulder and under the corner of her jaw. It looks like it might be a big bite but I check the rest of her and she seems fine. I also take her temperature and it comes back normal.

2:30pm Malina wakes up from a nap and I can see that she has broken out with an eczema rash all over her chin, upper lip, and neck.

Over the next five hours the rash gets redder and then slowly goes away until it is gone around 8pm.

Checking her this morning showed that she had completely cleared up but we are being cautious and taking a break from solids today.

The chart I keep handy about allergic reactions is as follows. The chart is a guideline and is not medical advice or meant to replace medical advice.

It’s also important to listen to baby and what you feel is right. There were a few moments when the rash first showed up that I considered going to a walk in clinic, but Malina was fine and so I watched and waited. That might not be the case if it happened again and I might do things differently. But I trusted myself and listened to her.

So back to what happened.

If this was a reaction to the food it was super delayed. That does not mean it can’t be the food but there are too many other things to rule it out one way or another. Malina started using a new lotion on Wednesday. I wore a face cream yesterday to help with my eye. There are too many factors, so taking a break will help and when we start again on Saturday we will focus on dairy to see if it happens again.

This type of eczema rash happens a lot in my family to the babies and kids. It is usually a reaction to acidic foods getting on the skin. Yogurt is acidic and it definitely got everywhere that Malina got her rash. So moving forwards I’ll pay extra attention to acidic foods and skin exposure.

Everyday is a learning experience with a baby. There is so much you plan for and do as preventatives but there is nothing all those things can do when you are faced with a problem. Once we figure out what caused her reaction we plan to take that info to her doctor and go from there. Hindsight is always 20/20 and with a baby it stings all the more. Still it’s important to remember that I am doing my best and that I need to trust myself because she trusts me.

So you remember too, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 6 – Breakfast

Things don’t always go according to plan. You’d think that after life in general, my pregnancy, birth, and the last six months this would be something I am familiar with and expect. Nope.

I am a planner. I like lists. BLW is a great way to apply both of those things and this blog helps me get back into the swing of writing everyday (because I am a writer, from before Malina was born). So the plan today was scrambled eggs but guess who got tied up all day yesterday and forgot to go to the store?

<—— ME

So no eggs, no problem. Except I also didn’t have time last night to do meal prep because my eye had swollen almost shut and I needed to hold a compress on it for half an hour before I was too tired to do so. My eye is at lest a lot better this morning. Only about half as swollen.

The next thing that threw a wrench in any plans to do some prep this morning was Malina waking up for the day at 5:20. So I changed her, fed her, and proceeded to convince her that it was still sleepy time and she should go back to sleep. She accepted after an hour and I just let her sleep in my arms because she needed the sleep and I was already up plus it was 7.

So when she got up again, 7:40 ish. She needed another feeding before we could do breakfast. And because I did not want our schedule to be any more disrupted I opted for the easy option.

I reheated the zucchini from yesterday since I had it and the recipe claimed it reheated well (it does not). I pulled out a small sample pouch of baby cereal. Then I grabbed the plain Greek yogurt from the fridge.

Plain because baby. Greek because it supposedly is the sweetest plain yogurt without the actual sugar (more lies). I was told regular plain yogurt is more tart and sour, so now I’m going to make sure I find out if that is true.

Mama had the rest of the yogurt, zucchini smush, and a strong cup of earl grey as we sat down around 8:20.

Malina felt about the same as she did yesterday when confronted with the zucchini. Maybe even a little better than yesterday, since it wasn’t as crunchy. She did eat a couple bites either way, so that’s a win.

“This mushy zucchini is better than the crunchy one.”

The cereal was a lot harder for her to deal with. If I’m being honest, I only gave it to her because I didn’t have anything else ready and I knew it might be too hard for her to grab and eat. She got frustrated and i intervened. Then I had the brilliant idea to put it with the yogurt I had waiting for her in a separate bowl.

This went over way better. Malina actually liked the yogurt which made me so happy. With everything going wrong it was nice to see her actually enjoy one of the foods we’ve introduced for once.

I helped her get about four bites of just yogurt and two more with the cereal. She ate most of those bites, with only a bit coming back out of her mouth into her bib. Despite yogurt being a “messy” food, Malina was the cleanliest eater today and did not get food anywhere besides her bib, hands, and tray. Though we did have a scare when both of us found out her bowl does not suction to the tray (because something had to go wrong and now I need a different bowl).

At least the yogurt was not very runny (probably because of the cereal) and did not fall out of the bowl and onto Malina’s lap as she seemed to want.

So we got yogurt down as something she likes, mushy zucchini as a preference, and cereal is okay if mixed in yogurt. Cool.

Maybe having an off day can be a good thing. So remember, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 2 – Breakfast

Malina sometimes wakes up before my silent alarm on my watch. When she does this she sometimes tries to be quiet. I hear her moving and cooing in her crib. Scratching at the elephants and whales on her bedding or smacking at the space between the bars.

Because my vision without my glasses is limited to only a few feet of clarity of detail, I will sometimes reach for my cellphone and check the video monitor. I watch her do these things and as she occasionally looks over to where we are sleeping. If only she did that when she woke up at night or even all the time. She just as often wakes me with cries and screams. She is still adorable either way, but I am biased and sure most parents feel that way about their baby especially when they are being good.

So we went through our morning routine and feeding before going out to the kitchen to make her second breakfast. I had my pan with water and a steamer basket ready on the stove, so I turned on the burner and went to grab the asparagus I’d cut up the night before from the fridge.

See, I learned from the mistakes of yesterday and have actually accomplished some meal prep for the first time in months 😛 it probably saved me at least 10 minutes, but that’s still a win.

Once the asparagus was in the basket I put the lid on and forgot about it for 15 minutes as I went on to the main ingredient. Eggs.

Yes we are doing eggs again, but we’re frying them because it’s important to offer different textures. Plus, everyone has a favorite way to eat eggs. Malina is still figuring that part out and probably will for a long time.

Anecdote time – Personally, I loved fried eggs as a kid, poached as a teen, and Benedict when I was in college and started living on my own. All three are still good eggs to me, but a nice soft boiled egg is my favorite now a days. The egg thing reminds me of that scene in Runaway Bride, a Julia Roberts and Richard Gere movie from the late 90’s. Yeah, I watched a lot of those types of romances back then, and Richard Gere was a favorite actor of mine. Still is if we’re being honest. But in the movie Julia’s character gets accused of saying her favorite eggs are always the same as the fiancés, and she ends up with quite a few of those. This accusation however makes her go and try a bunch of different eggs all at once just to find her actual favorite. Cue egg montage.

That’s like 11 different eggs and you can only see 7 clearly.

Anyways, the character comes to the conclusion that eggs Benedict are her favorite (good choice in my opinion). It was a very eye opening scene for me though. The original message the character offered was she changed her mind over time (cool, I get that) but then the message is challenged as being a follower and not having a mind of her own, a kind of toxic codependency (holy moly did that expand my mind as a young girl). It was because of this movie that I spent a year trying different eggs, much to my parents chagrin, but I found a new favorite outside of the normal and stuck with it for a long time. The hidden message under the eggs however is you don’t have to like what the people around you like or whatever makes it easier, and that is sometimes the harder thing to remember. Okay, we’re going back to Malina and away from 90’s nostalgia.

So fried eggs. Nothing is better than frying an egg in butter. If this wasn’t for Malina I’d use salted butter, but we’re limiting/omitting salt. So sweet butter it is. She can’t have runny yolk either, so I cook it extra long on low heat before flipping it to cook the other side (this hurt me in ways only fellow runny yolk lovers can understand). When done, I cut her eggs into pieces, plated up the asparagus with a pinch of salt, and pulled the quartered grapes out of the fridge.

Malina was eager when she saw her plate, honestly that made me so happy with how yesterday went, and I was so excited for her I forgot to take a picture of her plate before she dove into it. Going straight for the eggs again.

So because of how fried eggs are shaped, she got to try the egg white and yolk separately. Malina was not a fan of the yolk but she liked the egg whites and ended up eating a good amount of it.

Next, we moved the asparagus closer to her by flipping the plate around and let her go for it. She snatched up a spear easy enough and proceeded to shove it in her mouth. Much to my surprise, she really liked it. She chewed and sucked on the asparagus spears one after another, leaving behind the fibrous outsides.

Eating asparagus as she mushes her grapes. “This is fine.”

The grapes were a different story. I knew she’d have a hard time with them, but practice and exposure will make her better at doing it. Plus I gave her a lot of grapes, so she was able to grab them and toss them around. In the end, she was more interested in my bowl of grapes and helped herself to the collection of juice at the bottom of the bowl and one small slice of grape from it.

“Mama’s grapes are different and better than mine. I know it.” – Malina

I was so proud of her today. She ate well and only gaged once during her meal, which was an impressively upset face.

“Why does the food betray me like this?”

She also has gotten a lot better with positioning her sippy cup of water and needs our help with it less and less too. Probably because she finds herself reaching for it often now that there is food involved. Especially foods she doesn’t like or care for.

I call breakfast for day two a success. Malina liked the eggs better, enjoyed her asparagus, and kinda tried grapes. There was also still no sign of a reaction so we are probably good with the eggs, though we’ll keep an eye on it until she’s eaten them for the entire week.

My husband wanted me to add that we take so many pictures while she eats and get way more bad ones an good. That I also do help Malina with her foods and placements more than BLW suggests, but I can’t help myself. I want Malina to be able to pick her food up and that is easier when it is on the plate and not on her shoulder or under her chin (two common places now).

At the end of the day, I’m going to do what I feel is best while still trying to adhere to the ‘rules’ but I trust myself. And now day 2 is done and day 3 looms, but there are more successes now and my confidence is at a high point going on from here. It can only get easier, right?

So, as always, remember that you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Our Adventure Begins…

My name is Erica and I am a first time mama. My little girl, Malina, was born in July of 2019 and so far the adventure into parenthood with my husband has been enlightening, awesome, and at times trying. Malina is a good baby, We are both incredibly lucky to have her and still would be even if she was more of a hell raiser.

So on to how I found out about BLW. While I was pregnant I joined a lot of support groups so I would be as ready as possible for my baby (are any of us truest ready though?). It was in one of these groups that Baby Led Feeding/Weaning (BLF or BLW) was first brought to my attention. I felt trepidation at the idea of skipping purées and going straight to solids. It seemed risky, but I was curious and so I dove into every book and cookbook I could find on the subject (there were a lot and I am thankful to my public library’s online archive of them). I’ll make a post at some point listing the ones I found most helpful soon (depending on Malina of course).

After going through the books and talking it out with Malina’s papa we decided that BLW was for us after all. I went through the books again and started to figure out a game plan for our approach. I then joined a bunch of BLW groups to find more information as well as support.

I feel like there are a lot of options but there is also a lot of people that say things have to be done a very specific way or else you are wrong. Now, I’m not a doctor or health professional but I am a mom and that means as little and as much as anyone wants it too so I am following my own instincts and as the name suggests, baby. Which means to me that all rules are more like guidelines and that I will do what I can to keep baby safe and happy during this process, even if what I’ve deemed safe is technically not. For example, I knew I was not going to strap my girl into her high chair in the beginning because I did not want to deal with straps in the event that she chokes. I would be sitting right next to her at all times and if I was going to leave her side I’d have to remove the food anyways and could strap her in then.

On the topic of choking, it is a scary thing always lurking around a baby with or without access to food. I took a Infant CPR class and my husband has a CPR certification, it helps to know what you should and shouldn’t do and provided me with extra peace of mind. The next important thing is to know the difference between gagging and choking. It’s easy to get confused in the moment and to worry and freak out when you hear gagging happening, I know it worries me, but gagging is baby working through the problem and Baby does not need assistance but support (I stay calm and tell her she’s doing a good job). Knowing the difference will be empowering and help you feel more comfortable during food introductions, and it made me proud of my little girl to see her figure out how to help herself and accomplish it.

After spending over a month in the different groups, and that same time with the books again, I got a good idea of how I would approach BLW with Malina and we all prepared for this new adventure into food.