Episode 8: Eat, Papa, EAT!! - Part 1

So, the Little Man has been, generally, a very easy baby (knock wood that that continues). He sleeps great, he doesn’t fuss a lot, he naps great (now), and he is really very happy. But we have had one problem – food. While this has caused me much distress, I have to believe that there’s a reason this happened to me. Maybe I am destined to help someone else going through something similar, or maybe every kid has something that drives their parents crazy. Either way, I have decided it’s time to try to write down our food journey up to now. That way, I can remember what happened if I need to again, and also so that I can share this with any other readers or parents who are going through something like we did, well, are. This is the first in a long series of posts about my son’s eating difficulties. They have been going on for a little over a year now, and I feel like things are finally being resolved. I hope that you all aren’t too bored by my story, and I hope that if you are going through something similar, that this gives you some help and hope.

Before I gave birth to my son, like most modern mothers, I read a lot of stuff about babies and how to raise them. I had decided that I was going to breastfeed my son for at least a year. Introducing food seemed very complicated, but I hadn’t really looked into that much, thinking that it would be a long time before I would have to worry about that. Well, once the baby was born, there was no more time to research. Breastfeeding was a little rocky at first, and I ended up having to use a nipple shield. Ladies, if you have to use a nipple shield, DO NOT BE ASHAMED!!! Every other mother I’ve talked to about breastfeeding had to use a nipple shield for at least a little while, and I know 10 people with babies close to LM’s age. Our breastfeeding relationship only got better, and soon, LM was breastfeeding like a champ. He was growing well, and staying right on his 40^th percentile line. 

Having very little knowledge of how to “traditionally” introduce foods to babies, I was very intrigued when I first heard about Baby-Led Weaning (BLW), sometimes called Baby-Led Solids. This approach encourages parents to skip baby cereals and purees at 4-6 months of age, and to just give the baby finger foods at the age at which they would normally be switching to finger foods anyway (about 6-9 months).  So, Big Man and I decided we would try it. At about 5 months old, LM started showing interest in our food (one of the first signs that baby is ready), so we gave it a try. It didn’t go very well, so we waited a month or two and tried again. 

Each time we tried, the Little Man would eagerly put foods into his mouth, chew them for a while, then spit them out and put another piece in. He was not spitting them out because he didn’t like the foods, it was just like he wasn’t sure how to move the food to the back and swallow it, he just spit it out instead. I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, just that he wasn’t ready for solids yet. Especially since the literature I had read on BLW stated that kids don’t learn to swallow until they are ready. All along, LM was growing fine. 

At about 9 or 10 months of age, things were complicated by the fact that LM began to fall off of his growth curve. His weight for height was still fine (which was why he never looked skinny or small), but he dropped well below the 1^st percentile for both weight and height. When the pediatrician would ask about his eating habits, I would have to re-explain every time what BLW was and why we were doing it (since it is a group of doctors and you see a different one each time), which annoyed me a bit. I thought it was this viable alternative, and expected my doctors to be aware of it, but I later found out that it was largely conceived as part of a thesis paper by Gill Rapley, the BLW guru. 

When LM was 11 months old, we were referred to Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI)’s Feeding Clinic in Baltimore. Before I was able to call and make an appointment, LM ate and swallowed (and pooped) about 20 peas. We didn’t call KKI because we thought he had cracked it! A month later, when we went back to the pediatrician’s office, he still wasn’t swallowing solid foods, so we called KKI. We were scheduled for their first available appointment with the Feeding Clinic on November 30, 2010. 

Around this same time, we started to notice that LM was developing hives at mealtimes occasionally. At first, we thought it was just because he had sensitive skin. One day, I shared some string cheese with LM at lunch, and his face and neck were covered in hives. He had a bit of a cold this day, and what really scared me was that he rubbed his eye and it nearly swelled shut. I washed his face with soap, and the hives went away within a few minutes. I asked some friends online, and they told me to look into milk protein allergy. It seemed to make sense, so I called the pediatrician. I asked about milk protein allergies, and whether he could even have a reaction if he wasn’t swallowing the food, could he get a reaction just from contact? The pediatrician seemed to be more concerned about the fact that LM wasn’t swallowing than about his allergy. I was in a bit of a panic, because I remember thinking, “shouldn’t we be taking a potential allergy more seriously? Couldn’t he die from this?” We were advised to try some yogurt to see if he would swallow it, and also to confirm the allergy. LM loved the yogurt, and actually swallowed a few bites. Soon after, he was covered in hives from his nose almost to his nipples. And these weren’t just redness with a few hives; it was a solid mass of swollen skin. I was very worried. It is so hard to see your baby like that. It looked so painful, but luckily, didn’t seem to bother LM much. I applied some cortisone, and they went away within a few minutes.

It was about this time that I decided to just request the same doctor every time we went to see the pediatrician. If you are taking your child to a group of doctors, and you feel like you would prefer to just see the same person every time, just request the doctor you want. You shouldn’t feel bad about doing that, and the doctor gets to know your child better. It may still not be ideal (Little Man’s doc often needs to be reminded of LM’s issues and current status), but the one doctor you see will certainly be better acquainted with your child as an individual than seeing a different person at every visit. 

Before our first appointment at KKI, we had to send in a detailed questionnaire about LM’s eating habits. One section asked us to categorize several different food textures as “will eat,” “won’t eat,” “can eat,” or “can’t eat.” Since we weren’t sure whether he COULD eat the foods, we had to check “can’t eat,” but also changed that category to “can’t eat/won’t swallow.” As a result, we decided to let LM try several of the textures on the list that he hadn’t tried before, like crackers. He loved them, but still spit out each bite instead of swallowing it. On my mother’s advice, we had tried to give him some puree a few times, but he really didn’t want anything to do with the spoon. At this point, LM was about 13 months old, and was still getting basically all of his nutrition through breastfeeding. I was having a bit of a difficult time, and was feeling very pressured to be providing all of his nutrition at a time when he should not have been getting ALL of it from breast milk.

That's it for Part 1, there will be more coming tomorrow!!