Giving my kid a food complex

I’m a first-time mom with Type A tendencies. I like rules, make lists, and follow plans. That all seemed to work out fine until I had a baby. Now I struggle to balance my need for order and answers with the desire to enjoy the unpredictable journey I am on with my son. And this is my blog about that.

A few weeks ago my son wouldn’t eat. He recently decided he was way too old and mature for pureed foods, but still a few months shy of a year at the time, he had not quite mastered finger foods and had developed a discerning opinion of certain textures.

So instead of eating, he would throw the bite-sized bits on the floor for the dog. Or mush them between his fingers. Or put them in his mouth and let them slowly ooze out off of his tongue on his bib.

My first thought, naturally, was that he was going to slowly starve himself to death. He would never learn to love food, he would only want to throw it, and no matter how many options I threw at him, he’d throw them back.

That’s my default position. He throws some finger foods; He’ll have a food complex as he gets older. He woke up 4 a.m. a couple times; The kid will never sleep til 7 again. I tend to get to the extreme fast.

One of his teachers at school (OK let’s be honest, it’s daycare, but it sounds so much more productive calling it a school), taught me a very valuable lesson in my son’s early months there. I think he had decided he was no longer into napping, at least in the morning. Maybe he was transitioning from three naps to two. I don’t totally remember the circumstances, but it was one of countless times that my son had changed things up on us, right when I had hit my groove and thought I had it all figured out.

“Oh that’s just Silas being Silas,” she told me.

Of course it was. So simple, and so right. He had a role in this play, too, and I had completely counted him out. I was listening more to the half a dozen child-raising/sleep expert/nutritionist/milestones books I had read. I had forgotten to listen to my son. Just as my natural childbirth prep taught me to trust that my baby would know what he was doing in birth, I had to trust my son that he knew what he was doing in life. At least as a baby, for some things, sometimes. Often, he’s just doing his thing, figuring things out. Now, as he approaches his first birthday, this phrase continues to hold true, and has become something of a mantra for me.

I don’t really have the struggles most working moms have to balance professional and family lives while trying desperately to squeeze in a quiet moment for myself. (Well, not yet, but I only have one kid, a dog, a husband, and I don’t even work five days a week.)

Instead my struggle is balancing my pervasive research-fueled neuroses with trusting myself and my son and enjoying each moment. Often the “He’ll never eat again” and the “I’ve given him a food complex” wins out over the far more sane “He’s just figuring out food” and “He’ll eat when he’s hungry.” And I forget to relax and smile at how he chews with such an earnest look or pulverizes a piece of food in one clenched fist while eating the rest with the other hand.

And this week, he’s been pounding the food, shoving ever bit he can into his mouth.

Here are a few fail-safe foods I’ve found my kid will eat:

-Cheese toast
-Scrambled egg (try sneaking some veggies in there)
-Any fruit cut into small pieces – mainly bananas, blueberries, and pears
-Whole wheat spinach ravioli
–Baby applesauce muffins
–Mini banana muffins
–Slow cooker turkey meatballs

What I’m Reading:

Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense by Ellyn Satter

 

A few good kid/baby food sites:

• Weelicious
• Wholesome Baby Food
• Wholesome Toddler Food