Baby food

On Nov. 12 at 6+ months, Alex had his first taste of solid foods, bananas.  Here he is before the first bite.

 Mmm, what is this stuff?

I'd like some more of that!

 Andrew and Carson helped take some pictures of Alex as I fed him.  I think Alex enjoyed the bananas but wasn't quite sure what to do with them at first, pushing the bananas back out with his tongue.  

I did some reading about baby’s first foods.  I remember our pediatrician in Dayton saying that with breast fed babies, there is no need to give a certain food first, like a vegetable.  Some people say that you shouldn’t give fruits first because they are sweet and then the baby will only want the sweet fruits.  Breast milk is sweet, so that isn’t an issue with breast fed babies.  I did read that rice cereal isn’t necessarily the best thing to give a baby first.  It fills up their bellys too much and doesn’t have as much nutrients as fruits and vegetables.  Some great first foods are bananas, avocado, pears, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce.  So that is what we went with.

He was doing well.  The banana definitely helped the consistency of his stools and most likely helped his diaper rash go away.  Plus I stopped using all the different ointments I had tried, I think they were making his diaper rash worse!  And I realized that the rice milk I was putting on my gluten free oatmeal each morning contained corn and gluten, so I stopped eating that right about this time too.

I always waited the recommended 4 days before introducing a new food.  After banana we tried avocado.  I am a little concerned about how little fat I get in my diet and believe this isn't good for him either.  Avocados are so good for you and have healthy fats.  He didn't like the avocado as well as the banana, he would scrunch up his little face with each bite, but if I alternated bites with the banana he did OK, and then I just ended up mixing the two together.  I think then we did pear and then sweet potato.  

I really wasn't concerned about these foods.  I was making the baby food myself, trying to use organic produce if available.  (Even store bought baby food contains corn ingredients!)  I thought these single ingredient foods would't be an issue.  However we started to notice some things.  Alex's cheeks were very red and had a really rough sandpaper texture.  I at first just thought it was the cold, dry winter weather.  His voice became hoarse sounding.  I thought he was getting a cold but no other cold symptoms arose.  He had several nights where he DID NOT sleep well.  Worse than normal.  Frequent waking and even a few nights when I couldn't lay him down, I had to sleep on the couch holding him.  He also started spitting up again, large amounts of orange ~ sweet potato.  He also had a runny nose for several weeks, which can be a sign of allergies, but his 2 older brothers also had colds during that time.  So I'm not sure which it was.  Then I did a google search on red cheeks in infants and came across this post.  (if nothing else, just look at the pictures she posts of her child with red cheeks while eating foods he was intolerant to and then the picture of his clear skin once those foods were stopped).  

I had to think back to when his red cheeks started and then I tied these other symptoms in with the red cheeks and realized that it was the sweet potato!  Really?  Sweet potatoes are so benign, I thought.  We had fed him sweet potatoes everyday for 2 weeks!  We also had fed him peas, rice cereal and one helping of acorn squash. We decided to take his diet back to solely bananas and pears, two things we were pretty sure he was tolerating well, until his symptoms went away.

Here he is on Dec. 14, the day after we realized that sweet potatoes could be causing this.  No more sweet potatoes for Alex, or me for that matter.

And here he is on Dec. 15, probably only 36-48 hours of no sweet potatoes and look at the difference in his cheeks!

It is really hard playing detective and trying to figure out what is causing his symptoms.  And now I have to wonder if it is something I ate or something he ate.  I will have quite a few questions for our Pediatrician at Alex's 9 month visit the beginning of February.  He just might think I am a crazy woman!