Our Eating Adventure

When I was pregnant and when Everett was little, I thought we would wait as long as we could to feed him. I wasn't in a hurry to have him eat, and everyone (including my pediatrician) was saying there was no reason to have him start solids before 9 months.

But as we were getting to 5, 6, 7 months with very poor sleep--on my part, he sleeps fine, just waking 2 to 3 times a night to eat--I started thinking, "most people say feeding solids doesn't help babies sleep, but I'm willing to try anything!!"

A bit after 5 months, we let him start nibbling here and there: potatoes, sweet potatoes, banana. We didn't try to feed him every day, just when we were eating something we thought he might be interested in.

He did well at first. It was more a fun new toy than anything.

Mostly out of convenience, we didn't make avocado his first food (that honor went to potato), but that's what we had intended. And when we bought our first avocado for him, it was kind of ceremonious. And he seemed to like it.

When Gion's sister Gretchen and her husband Mark visited in early November, we bought another avocado, and during a family dinner, we were shoveling the green pulp into his mouth, not really noticing how much we were giving him, but it was quite a lot.

That night was the worst night we'd had as a new family. Everett started throwing up a few hours after eating, and he kept throwing up until there was nothing left to throw up. I fed him a full meal (of mama's milk) just so he had something to throw up. And sure enough, he threw all of it up as well. We went through a number of pjs and several sets of our sheets before we put him to to sleep in a disposable diaper in our bed so we could keep an eye on him.

Having had a few bouts of food poisoning myself, that's what it seemed like to me. Not an allergic reaction, but that something had upset the stomach, and the body wanted it out. I assumed it wasn't the avocado, and when I told Dr. Patterson about the ordeal, he didn't think it was the avocado either. He said avocado is a very non-reactive food. People are hardly ever allergic to it.

However, we still avoided feeding him for quite a while. He wasn't insisting upon eating, and we were a bit skittish.

But once again the lack of sleep became my number one concern, and I decided I wanted to try to feed him again.

On December 10th (I looked up the video to get the date) we tried a bit of rice cereal mixed with breast milk. It's what Dr. Patterson had suggested giving him in the first place. I had resisted because I didn't see any value in the food. But it is non-allergenic, and could fill him up at night (plus, I "borrowed" a bunch from my friend Janna, so I didn't have to buy it). When we fed him that night, he acted like we were trying to poison him!! Gagging and making the most ridiculous faces.

So once again, we stopped feeding him.

A couple days after Christmas, we went to a dinner party/poker night at our friends' house. We were all eating dinner, Everett was sitting next to me in the high chair. Leslie had made some squash. Thinking it would be fun for him, I gave him a finger of the food. He made the disgusted face and promptly threw up all over Trago and Leslie's high chair, his clothes, everything. That was slightly embarrassing. More because I didn't know that he'd be sick, not because he was (being parents, they've seen it all).

And we went back to not feeding him.

On January 11th, at almost 8-months-old, we were eating minestrone soup for dinner, and it occurred to me that there were elements of the soup that he might enjoy. The soup was spiced for adults and had chicken broth in it, but he was 8-months-old! We gave him zucchini, beans, carrots, and broth from the soup, and he really enjoyed it. Yay!

That's when the feeding started more seriously. I've been trying to have something for him at breakfast, usually banana. We'll usually give him something from our plates at dinner, like beans. And if I'm really on-it, he'll get something at lunch-time, like orange.

He's very independent, so he'll eat much better if he can feed himself. If he can pick it up (fortunately he's very dextrous) or if the food sticks to the spoon, and he can hold he spoon, he's a much happier camper.

His sleep pattern hasn't improved yet, but I'm hopeful. He's just been changing SO MUCH that it's hard to get a good system down. He recently stopped letting Brian comfort him at night, so that's a big and very unfortunate turn-of-events for me.

He'd been eating so well that on January 17th, more than 2 months after the first event, we decided to try avocado again. We gave him quite a bit. More than a couple little chunks--many spoonfuls. He liked it!

But a couple hours later we were watching TV downstairs and heard him coughing upstairs. Brian ran up to check on him. When he didn't come down right away, I went up and sure enough, there was milky-avocado slush all inside his crib. We went through the same thing again. Hours of him loosing the contents of his stomach, us cleaning up, feeding him more to throw up, sleeping with him in a diaper, and worrying about his health.

As soon as he started vomiting, we realized this kid was allergic to avocado, no question. If it's not a clear-cut allergy, it's at least too rich for his stomach.

It's all so ironic because we looked into giving him avocado for his first meal. As we read, we realized we should start him with something a little blander, but avocado came in as soon as possible. Brian and I both love avocado, think it's one of the most delicious foods on earth. Plus, it's super good for you--bonus!!

So it's sad to us that Everett might not be able to enjoy this glorious "fruit." But hopefully this reaction won't last forever.

This week we've had a couple difficult nights. Friday he woke at 11:30, I nursed him, he went back to sleep (if I remember correctly), but woke at 1:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep. I nursed him, rocked him, rubbed his back, eventually he went back to sleep, but it took a long time. This is quite unusual for him.

I assumed he was just rilled up from attending his friend Rosalina's first birthday that evening. The only weird thing was that he smelled like chicken soup to me. And he had no reason to smell like that.

Then last night, we dealt with a similar situation. This time, he never went back to sleep in his own crib and ended up in our bed, waking up every hour or so and crying loudly. I think that, once again, he smelled like chicken soup (I'm so congested that I couldn't tell--or maybe my illness is causing him to smell like chicken soup to me!).

I've been sick, so I'm hoping these few nights he's just been fighting something off too. I'd be sad if he was allergic to something else, like sweet potatoes or apples. I've done some research, and it seems that banana allergies often go with avocado allergies, but he's eaten quite a bit of banana with no obvious reaction. He's also eaten sweet potato on days he's been healthy and sick. Maybe orange? Apple? Hopefully none. But I'm wondering if maybe we should take him to an allergist sooner rather than later. }:

My thought right now is that I probably have a kid with a few food allergies who is also a bit of a drama queen (sad that I can't tell him to "save the drama for your mama." I am the mama!). I've seen video of other babies eating, and they are not as animated as Everett is. For him, eating is a production. And it can be a fun one or a very unpleasant one.