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.
Spot on neck
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.
Eczema rash on mouth
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!
I did meal prep last night! Yay! I managed to set up everything for this morning and all I had to do was go put the zucchini in the oven when I got up. Easy. I guess I should tell you what I made for today though.
So I’ve heard a bunch of mamas, across several groups that I am in, say they made egg salad without mayonnaise and used avocado as the replacement. Sounded interesting and weird. Two things I can totally get behind if it works out, and did it ever. No one ever seems to provide recipes for this stuff though, so here is what I did in case anyone wants to give it a shot.
1/2 avocado, nice and ripe and diced up
2 hard boiled eggs, diced how you like it
1/2 tsp of dill
1/2 tsp of granulated garlic
You just mix everything together with a fork and you get a nice chunky consistency that tastes divine.
I will have to make this for me next time and put it on some buttered toast. Avocado toast has a new challenger in the arena of topping combinations. It would probably do amazing with some salt or lemon mixed in as well, but that is neither here or now since this is for Malina.
So the oven would have preheated when the timer for it went off (but we got up early) so I went out to toss my pan of breaded zucchini from the fridge into the oven and started it up.
Malina did her morning ritual and then we were sitting down and eating by 8 am.
So we have breaded baked zucchini, avocado egg salad, and I tossed a could slices of regular avocado on the plate just to see how she handled it. I was ready for today to be messy, but today is also bath day so I figured what ever.
Mama’s and Malina’s plates.
So the first thing Malina reaches for is the avocado. I think I actually cut the slice a little too thick for her to handle but the other slice was too thin and became insta mush. She was not impressed by the avocado unfortunately, which I’m starting to think is a texture thing as she hasn’t really been into anything ‘slimy’. Will have to consider than in the future.
Eating avocado.
The next thing she tried to mess with was the avocado egg salad. It ended up everywhere but her mouth so I brought in our trusty friend, the spoon.
With BLW they don’t seem to like utensils until Baby is older. This stems from an idea that spoon feeding is part of traditional weaning and has no place in BLW. I get the problem stemming from possible ‘over feeding’ when someone spoon feeds the baby, but I think it’s easy to avoid doing that. Something that does occasionally seem acceptable is offering a pre-loaded spoon of food. But even this method expects the spoon to just be laid on the table for baby to pick up on their own. This seems problematic to me because baby doesn’t know how to use a spoon first off, then it’s more of a weapon (dart) or mess maker (trebuchet) offered in this way, and finally I don’t want her to get frustrated while she’s eating anymore than necessary.
So I load up the spoon with our avocado mixture and hand it to her. Also, I want everyone to know that Malina has been practicing with spoons without food for almost a month now. We’ve also encouraged her to hold it and put it in her mouth a certain way. So, this was not her first time using a spoon.
Using the spoon.
I also want to take a moment to add a video clip of Malina gagging. I was already recording when this happened and between me knowing she was okay and being right there incase things turned out badly I kept recording. -At no point did Malina go into distress or was in any danger – That being said, it is important to know the difference between chocking and gagging no matter how you feed baby. It is also important to know how to properly handle both. In this case I encouraged her (because getting involved can have mixed results) and she worked it out by herself without intervention.
Malina gagged a bit on the avocado egg.
The video cuts out like that because I saved the spoon. Malina quickly went back to eating and ended up wanting the spoon again too.
The last thing she tried was the baked breaded zucchini.
A note on breading: be sure to check that whatever you are using does not have honey in it for children under 1 year of age. Honey hides in all types of things and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
So I made the Baked breaded zucchini sticks from one of my BLW cookbooks. This specific recipe was from “Baby-Led Feeding” by Jenna Helwig. It turned out pretty good, the only thing I’d do to modify it, if I make it again, would be to try and squeeze out some of the moisture from the zucchini before breading to avoid soggy sticks. Malina was not a fan of the breading however so I might not get to try that modification any time soon.
“Maybe one bite.”“One bite might be too much.”
Or maybe she ate the breading off and didn’t like the zucchini. It’s hard to know for sure since Malina isn’t talking about it.
So I can add avocado to our list of successes and I know that Malina will eat hard boiled eggs when mixed with something. I’m going to add zucchini too since she did eat some of it, but I’m going to add a note to try it another way to see how she does.
Finally, I wanted to add that Malina is usually a very happy little girl and she only makes these upset sour faces when eating and only sometimes then as well. So here are a couple smiles from today’s mess.
“Oops, did I make a mess?”
“Come here, mama. I have avocado fingers for you!”
Oh and it was messy. There was avocado EVERYWHERE. Me and the dog got scheduled for baths after avocado-geddon. That spoon came at me and pegged me in the head. And the dog got avocado dropped on him soon after.
Also, remember what I said about her practicing with the spoon? Same is true for the sippy cup. She practiced for a month to get to where she is at and it was only with encouragement and an occasional helping hand that she is able to do as well as she does.
Using the sippy cup
At the end of the day, every baby is different and capable of different things. Malina can’t roll from stomach to back for example and crawls by pushing her head around on the floor. so don’t be hard on yourself or on baby. They will get there when they get there. So remember, that you are doing great and you’ve got this!
So in my reading, research, and anecdotes from other Mamas/Papas/Caregivers I learned a lot about what BLW is.
Basically, baby eats what you eat.
More complex is, baby needs limited salt and it is suggested that you also limit sugar and spicy foods but neither is mandatory.
Aside from that you avoid honey (even if it’s been baked or cooked, because botulism poisoning is really bad and not worth the possible risk) for the first year and avoid whole nuts, popcorn, unpasteurized milk products, and raw/undercooked meats (including eggs unless in UK where they have Red Lion stamp) until age 5. Reasoning behind 5 years old seems to be related to further development of esophagus reflexes as well as immune system improvements. But I’m not a doctor and so if the general consensus is to not do a thing I’m going to try and follow it.
This is the info-graph I reference when in doubt or when I need a refresher:
From The Beginner’s Guide to Baby Led Weaning Facebook Group
The other important thing is how you cut and serve foods. You want pinky finger length and halved width size pieces in the beginning when baby does not have pincer grasp and then later you upgrade to small baby bite sized pieces (think small cubes) when baby can use pincer grasp, somewhere after 8 months old.
Again I have nice references I use for this from Jenna Helwig’s book “Baby-Led Feeding” –
After that things get more varied opinion wise. What I’ve taken away though is as follows: experiment with seasonings (minus salt, sugar, and spicy spices), experiment with textures (for example, baked is different from steamed) and that does also include smoother and chunkier purée type foods, and just let baby try things over and over again because sometimes they don’t want the carrot unless it’s smooshed, cold, and covered in rosemary.
Also, relax buddy. No one has the right to tell you how to do this or judge you for your choices, it’s hard enough doing that to ourselves as parents.
Malina’s BLW Food Adventures 