I have to admit, parenthood feels a lot like asking yourself this question a million times a day and being worried that the answer is no, though from what one of the health visitors or midwives said in the early days, the only truly bad parents are the type who either don't ask themselves the question or don't really care what the answer is. Naturally though it's something I worry about, because I worry about everything.
Particularly I'm worried about it at the moment in concern to weaning, because guidance about it is so all over the map, and some people will say you HAVE to start with purees and some will say you HAVE to start with baby led weaning (which doesn't mean no purees) and some people will tell you to just do what works for you and for the baby. Okay, fine, so he's just going to eat chips wherever we are then? Nooooo.
We started purees early because my little vomit comet was forever losing his stomach contents and - like an idiot - I thought that purees would help him to maintain his weight even if he was puking milk everywhere, but it turns out that purees aren't really nutrient or calorie dense foods, so yes they would stay in his tummy better, but no, they weren't going to help him with his weight at all. That being said, he has moved up the growth charts since the point where we were told he was tiny and to look at him, it's obvious he's a healthy and growing kid. It's hard not to get concerned about the numbers when you go from growth scans where they are right on average, then they seem to drop off a lot, and then they're on or near the 9th centile line and then fall off of that. Now I understand that centiles are like if you lined up a hundred kids born on the same day at the same point and put them in order of weight or length or head size, but I would have thought that "normal" would be something like forty five to fifty five. I'm not sure why I chose that number, or those numbers, but I thought that, and it turns out that the anomalous, or extreme, numbers on that scale are actually 0-2 and 98-100 according to the allergy clinic. If someone had told me that six months ago it would have saved me a whole lot of stress.
Another thing that gets challenging with weaning though is how much do you give them? They're still little, they're still drinking milk and they have no concept of what a feeling of a full stomach is really, or that over eating leads to vomiting, so if you're completely led by your child that is sure to go wrong, isn't it? Well, yes and no. If they're turning their head away or refusing to open their mouth, they might not like something or they might be full, or they might just be having an off day, but you're the parent, so if you know that they've eaten double in one sitting what they normally do, you have to be the responsible bar tender and cut them off.
Some of it is about persistence as well. Most advice says try giving your child something ten times before accepting that they don't like it. Personally I find that really hard, because chickpeas make little man cry, but also because if he's not interested in food it's getting thrown and if it's not something the dog will willingly eat (and I can then clean the floor of dog spit instead) it's trying to get it cleaned up myself, and that's either from the floor, from smeared all over the high chair or changing whatever clothes he's wearing because it's gone all over him...
As if all of that is not enough, there is a window of time to move from just thin purees which are mainly fruit and vegetables where you're trying things out to textures. Things like yoghurt (or dairy free alternatives if, like us, yoghurt is off the menu), couscous, pasta, toast, soft biscuits, melty sticks, wafers, strips of food etc. Between eight and twelve months is apparently the absolute must to ensure that babies don't end up stuck on purees with a lot more difficulty moving on. Obviously this is caveated in terms of development, but that's the best window in terms of the average... And honestly, it's hard.
The first time little legs tried couscous it was because I was having couscous, and I thought, well, the pouch he's eating today is a savoury one anyway so I can just pinch some couscous from my lunch, mix in some of his pouch so it has more flavour and isn't dry and we'll see where we get. There was coughing, there was wretching, there was a whole lot of saliva, but there were also smiles and grabbing for the spoon, so it's not that it was terrible, it was just new. We gave his melty sticks and wafers before he got his teeth through because I had read that they can help with teething, but things like toast and biscuits waited for the teeth to arrive to make sure he had the ability to cut through them and not end up with huge chunks in his throat.
Even with a couple of teeth through and a few months of practice with purees under our belt, weaning is still a scary experience. It's fun to see how he reacts to new food and what he likes and doesn't like - spoiler alert, if it's not chickpeas, he likes it, at least so far - but given he already has an allergy to milk, it's nerve racking to worry he'll have another allergy and that could be more serious, and that's on top of worries like you have with any child that they could swallow something or choke on something and it becomes a medical emergency really quickly. I can give him a bottle and be bobbing around the room whilst he finishes it, but with solids, I have to be looking at him and making sure I know how he's getting on. I'm not complaining about that, because it's important to make sure he's safe and I know that, but it means another task I have to be switched on for and something else I need to fit into the day with everything else. And how many times do you do it? Well, you should be getting towards three meals a day. I have no clear concept of how to do that. Parenting classes focused on not shaking the baby, not how to get through weaning...
That being said, I realise this slightly moan-y blog is coming from a privileged place. Yes, he has an allergy, but it's one thing (granted which is in a lot of things and I've turned into a habitual packet reader) not multiple things which make it hard to use pre-made purees and dinners and mean you're cooking everything yourself, and it's not life threatening, because the after effects are unpleasant but not anaphylaxis. In terms of development, the little guy is doing well, so he's sitting up, trying to crawl, and doing all of the muscular things he needs to do for eating, and he's curious about everything. His interest in food is a really good thing (until I'm eating something with cheese in and need to defend it). The prognosis for his allergy is that it's somewhere between highly possible and highly likely he will grow out of it, and it's not an uncommon thing. 10% of baby's now have a milk allergy of some sort and I think it was something like 80% of those children grow out of the allergy.
There is work to be done on it, because part of growing out of the allergy comes from working through something called the milk ladder, which manages exposure and builds tolerance gradually, but that is doable, and I do know that we're lucky in a lot of ways, even if I did just put my unsocked foot into a puddle of refluxed milk and that feeling is putrid.
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