To eat or Not to eat, that is the question...

Ok, this is a vent.

Articles and websites like the following are starting to get on my nerves:

• The numerous news stories on the "poison milk scandal"
• http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/nuts-allergy-advice-feeding-the-crisis/2008/09/25/1222217431065.html
• http://cleanerplateclub.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/sweet-surprise-the-corn-industry-apparently-doesnt-know-whats-wrong-with-high-fructose-corn-syrup-but-i-do/
• http://www.sweetsurprise.com/
• etc. etc. etc.
• such as the eat fish/don't eat too much fish debate...

Start solids early? Start them late? Start on very few choices or just start them on the lot? Toilet training too early will harm their self-esteem?? As my dad was saying, in the "good old days" who ever heard of the concept of food allergies? He certainly didn't know of anyone that had them? Why the heck is it that these days there are so many cases of fatal allegies in people when we are being more "awared" and "careful"?

In our generation and generations before us, we all grew up, more or less healthy to a point of being a functional member of society.

I grew up with:

• powdered formula milk,
  
• cots with led-laced paint,
  
• sleeping with pillows and on our tummies while being covered in a mountain of covers in winter
• 2nd hand smoke
• drinking alcohol at a tender age of under 10 (granted it was like 1% alcohol)
• Drinking water when I was 2 months old
• having rice cereal in my bottle at 2 weeks old
• eating eggs and all sort of meat and vegies by 6 months old
• learned to walk in non-AUS-standard complying wooden walkers
• was potty trained by a year old
  
• I ate pretty much everything that was put in front of me
• I definitely drank heaps of fruit juice...

Everyday, there are new research/findings on what we should or should not eat, how everything around us will eventually kill us (although just being born, will eventually kill us anyhow), or how much evironmental footprint each of us is leaving on this planet just by existing. So, what to eat, and what to feed our children? Is it because that people have lost the ability to use their common sense and started to feed their babies on a diet of nothing but potato chips (read that story in MX a couple of months ago)? Or was it because companies have lost all sense of morality and started adding not only cheap substitutes but poison (See the poison milk powders in China) to the foods and other products they make?

I want to believe that most of us is capable of using our brains, afterall, it took millions of years to get our brains the size that they are today. I want to believe that companies don't JUST want to make money, that some maybe still have a thread of humanity left (afterall, they are run by humans, aren't they?), and try to do the right thing. But the world is so so F***ED UP right now, that everyday, news stories are making me doubt it all...

Well, I will continue to feed my baby fruit juice, I will continue to supplement her with formula (just not the "made in China" variety), I will continue to make sure she has a balance diet (even including sugar, potato chips, fish, nuts etc. etc.) I will however make sure I make most of her food, and as she gets older, to keep her away from processed food and fast foods as much as possible. Personally, I don't believe any particular food is evil, be it sugar, corn syrup, salt etc. I do however believe eating everything in moderation.

I solemly swear from now on to filter out media hypes about what to eat and what not to eat. I shall live my life with moderation in diet, exercise and hard work. I shall teach my children to do the same.

I do sincerely wish though that companies and the people who run them can find it in themselves to do the right thing and not poison our children...

Playing with another baby

Yesterday, my mum's friend's son brough his wife and 5 month old baby girl over for a visit. The baby was quite cute, and very chubby. She is 2 months younger than Kaitlyn but more than a kg heavier. Putting the 2 kids side by side, Kaitlyn looked so skinny. /sighs Not sure what I could do about it, as Kaitlyn just doesn't want to eat very much each meal. According to the formula can label, by her age, she should be eating 210mls each meal for 4 times a day. Kaitlyn eats about 100mls (max) a meal, for 5 times a day. Granted, she loves her solids, and will eat 60 to 100mls of rice cereal mixed with formula for 3 times a day. She's on the growth chart at 30 percentile, while being 80 percentile for height and 50 percentile for head circumference. I don't know, maybe she's just not a chubby type of baby.

Anyways, the 2 babies took a while to get used to each other, and they were so curious about each other. Kaitlyn kept wanting to grab the other baby and I had to make sure she was only grabbing the feet. Then, she tried to take off the other kid's socks LOL. I think just because Kaitlyn doesn't like to wear anything on her feet, she assumed other kids don't like it either? I gave the little baby some of Kaitlyn's toys to play with, but everytime I put a toy down, Kaitlyn will subtly move it towards herself... and soon, Kaitlyn had a pile of toys around her... Mmmm... looks like she has not learned to share yet.

I really need to learn to drive. So I can take Kaitlyn to play groups or baby gymbaroo. She loves playing with other kids. I will post some pics of this "play date" later, whenever I get them uploaded to the computer.

Our Little Houdini turned 7 Months Old!

Kaitlyn's 7 months old!!! Time surely flies, and when you have a child, you can actually SEE time moving forward so fast because you can see your child grow up and change each day.

Now that Kaitlyn's getting more and more mobile every day, we really have to start watching her all the time. On Saturday, because it was very very hot, we put her downstairs on the sofa bed for her afternoon nap. I wrapped her, secured her with a thin blanket weighed down with heavy books on each side, then put heavy wood high-back chairs on the side of the sofa bed. I left her there to sleep thinking she'd be safe. She did sleep for about an hour, then I heard her crying. I thought it was just her normal, "I am awake now, come and get me cry", so I did as Tresillian taught us, and waited 5 minutes before going to her. When I came downstairs, I couldn't find her on the sofa!!! I totally freaked out... where the heck was my baby!!!?? I looked around, and found... She had somehow wiggled herself out of her wraps, out of the bedding, and moved about 3 meters up the head of the sofa bed, fell about 50cm, then landed on the floor, under the high chair~~!! I have no idea how she did it but it was surely scary for me, I couldn't help but keep thinking of all the things that could've gone wrong, e.g. she had landed on her head (she probably did but she didn't act like she was in any pain), or things could've landed on her etc. I checked her everywhere and couldn't see any major cuts/bruises. We did find during bathing that night, that she had a nasty bruise on her back and a red mark on the top of her head. /sighs... I think I need to make sure I put her in her cot for naps from now on. It's a good things the air conditioners were installed yesterday.

We took her to Manly yesterday, and she loved the walk along the ocean. Although I think she loved watching the other kids, and all the dogs, more than she was paying attention to the sea. She's quite a social butterfly.

Her teething sort of just stopped. She doesn't drool nearly as much as she did a month ago, and the 2 little white buds I saw before sort of just "went back down". Ah well, it doesn't bother me that she doesn't have teeth yet, as I doubt I would enjoy being bitten. :)

We are still breastfeeding with only 1 formula feed at night. We may start increasing the formula feeds, starting with the afternoon meal, then maybe the morning meal as well, and only keep breastfeeding for early morning. I am so happy that we lasted this long. I am enjoying every minute of breastfeeding because I am not sure when it will end. But I know whenever she weans, I've done the best I could and I have absolutely no regrets.

Feeling Hot HOt, HOT...

We had a very rough night of sleep last night, and we expect today/tonight to be a lot worse. It's just so darn WARM!!! Kaitlyn does not tolerate the heat much (I think she got that from me...). Last night, she's constantly cranky and unable to get back to sleep. I stripped her down to a tiny singlet/nappies, and she still ends up in a pool of sweat. The little arms and legs just kept on punching/kicking/pushing, and she kept screaming on top of her little lungs. She didn't settle down till the room cooled down a tiny bit, after 2:30am... /sighs.

We bought air conditioners last weekend just for her, but they are not getting installed till tomorrow... apparently the air con techs are already very fully booked! It's so frustrating to look at the air conditioners in their boxes, while the baby's is in such distress.

I don't know how we'd get her to sleep today... will probably have to take her to a shopping center and let her sleep in the pram. But tonight... /sighs I am bracing myself for another nil sleep night.

Staying hydrated?

I am not sure if Kaitlyn's getting enough liquids in her diet. Yesterday for example, she had a breastfeed at 7:30am. Then between 7:30am and 5pm, she only had 150mls of expressed breastmilk!!! She had 70mls of rice cereals as well, but 150mls of milk just seems so little. I also tried to give her water, but she just plays with her sippy cup and doesn't have more than 10mls the WHOLE day. At night, she had another 120mls of milk and 100mls of cereal... I am not sure how to get her to drink more? Her nappies are not as wet/heavy as before...

Crawling!!! and sleep update

While we were in Tresillian, Kaitlyn got a lot of floor time, playing on a mat. During our stay, she started crawling, first in circles (always anti-clockwise, we think she's left-handed), then started sticking her bottom into the air and inching forward a little. Awww, our little girl is crawling... She's also standing holding onto people and furniture quite often now.

We stayed in Tresillian for almost a week. The first couple of days were very tough, for both Kaitlyn and mummy. Kaitlyn cried for almost 2 hours before she finally fell asleep that night and mummy was a total wreck. But our little missey was a quick study, from the second night onward, she barely cried for more than 10 minutes. And she actually slept through the night one time! We were going to stay for 2 extra days, but mummy cannot stand all the crying from all the babies at that place anymore, so we packed up and came home.

The first night home, Kaitlyn amazed everyone by going to sleep at 8pm, on her own, without any crying, then only waking up at 5am for a feed! The second day was also a good day. But today, for some reason, she's a lot more unsettled. I have a feeling it's too warm upstairs. We will definitely be needing air conditioning. She definitely prefer cold to heat...

So, here we go, hopefully onto more rested day and nights for the whole family.

Oh and a couple of unexpected good outcomes from our Tresillian stay, Kaitlyn is a lot less high-strung now. She used to be very easily startled... but having lived with 10 other babies/toddlers who makes lots of sudden noises, she's a lot more used to loud sudden sounds and now don't even look when we accidently drop things at home. And we found out that Kaitlyn loves other kids' company. She was always so curious about them, and imitating them. I think I should think about taking her to playgroups soon.

Off to Tresillian we go

Luckily they had a cancellation, and seeing my application was marked urgent (I guess having a hospital discharge letter sort of helped LOL), we got in. We are going in this afternoon and will be staying there for a week. I am excited about learning new ways to hopefully finally get Kaitlyn into better sleep patterns but I am also scared of being along with the baby again after weeks of not doing so. I know I can do it, did it for months already, it's just readjusting probably unnerves me a little. I keep thinking about, how do I eat, go to the toilet, have a shower etc. with a active, curious, and now almost mobile baby...etc. Just the littlest things you know. But I am sure it will all be fine, somehow.

So yeah, off to Tresillian we go... See you all in a week