I feel like recently there is so much that I want to do during the time that Natalie is sleeping. Right now, I have about four books I want to read, house cleaning, laundry to fold, lunch to eat, video montage to download, and book reviews to write on Goodreads. Then in the evenings, we've continued using our Netflix as much as possible switching between online movies and the ones that come in the mail, but we also have had shows return (House and Survivor, and Smallville tonight). I feel a bit stretched, and that's before we even include quality time for Mike and I together.
But, I wanted to write a little so I'm limiting myself to about fifteen minutes, which are already a third gone.
Just as socks were driving me crazy last week, milk is driving me crazy this week. Natalie seems to be hungry all the time. So, I got the okay from the doctor to start giving her milk. Its slow going. I know this is normal, but it is still maddening. She says, MMM, like she likes it, then just sips at it and walks around with the cup. I wanted her to drink it in the kitchen to spare our carpets, but if I did that, she wouldn't drink any, not that it feels like she is drinking much now. I tried to put some in her oatmeal. Yesterday she ate it, today she refused shaking her head no, letting it sit in her mouth, and even gagging a little. So, she didn't get any milk OR oatmeal. Sigh. I just want her to be happy and healthy. When she wants snacks all the time, I feel like she is eating stuff that isn't that great for her because its what I can get for her without a lot of prep or mess. These are things like Gerber puffs, corn crunchers, yogurt melts, rice rusks, freeze dried fruit - all of which have sugar or are sweet. Then the other option is something like crackers - Goldfish cheese crackers, light salt saltines, Goldfish graham crackers. None of it seems that healthy. She gets things like meat and veggies when we eat them at dinner, and she gets fruit, cheese, and yogurt at lunch. I mean, it could be worse. She doesn't get cookies, candy, chips, french fries, or soda. That's the really junky stuff, right?
Here's our feeding schedule:
630 - nurse and a snack of freeze dried fruit and oat cereal in the play pen
9 - oatmeal (five tablespoons before liquid), Cheerios, yogurt melts, sometimes a few small squares of my toast, offer milk
(1030 - starting to cut this one since errands often get in the way)
11ish - rice rusks (or other crackers) while out on an errand, often a cup of water with some juice
130 - lunch - yogurt, fruit, maybe cheese, some sort of cracker / grain, offer milk
330 - nurse
430- 5 - couple crackers, offer cup of water with juice
530- 6 - dinner - 6 ounce "homestyle" meal jar or meal in tub (things like pasta rings or turkey and rice with veggies), with finger foods - usually the stratch and veggies we are eating. Sometimes she eats what we have with no jar or tub. (For example if we are having fish, chicken, steak, pork, she gets pieces of that, but not hot dogs, sausage, pizza, pasta mixes).
This is really only eating 7 times a day, which can be totally normal for a baby, but it seems like so much! I run out of new foods to give her in a day. Or, I'll feel like she has gotten too much of a one food group and like nothing of another (grains versus meat for example, though I know that its really protein, not meat, and yogurt is a protein).
Not to mention that she often seems like she is done eating, just picking at her food, sitting there holding it and looking around, or starting to play with it, but then I get her out of her chair and she is coming back to it. Was she really done? Did she just not want to sit in her chair? I hate the way she sits in her chair with her back arched, too. It doesn't look comfortable and seems like it isn't healthy for eating either. I've tried everything to make her sit up, but she moves back immediately. Isn't she too young to understand that she has to sit up straight or I won't fed her, just as she is too young to understand that she has to drink her milk at the table?
Sigh, again.
Sometimes, I wish I could just leave for a day and have Mike make all the choices.
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