Week 28 - Food Wars

Our little sweetie is one tough cookie. She bonks her head in process of rolling over and falling from sitting up, thrashes her feet and arms (when she's excited and happy as much as when she's mad!) banging them really hard on the floor, changing table or whatever...and is generally doing things that make us cringe daily and say "OW" (and she's not even mobile yet! yikes!) Yet these Ouch Moments don't really seem to bother her in the least. But while she may be a tough baby in some aspects, when it comes to digestion, our little girl is as sensitive as they come.

We were a little hesitant to start Ellie on solid foods because of all of the issues that she's had with breast milk and formula. For 22 weeks now I have been avoiding dairy, soy, and a variety of other things (broccoli, tomatoes, etc) that wreak general havoc on our child's gastro-intestinal system. When I eliminated these things back when she was only six weeks old, the doctor told us that 60% of babies outgrow milk and soy allergies and sensitivities by 6 months, while 98% outgrow them by a year.

As you may recall, back around Thanksgiving we gave Ellie her first taste of solid food (rice cereal). She loved it and ate it up like she had been waiting for that moment since birth. Well, two or three weeks later we tried something new: oatmeal. It was a completely different experience - not only did she hate it, but she literally gagged while we were trying to feed it to her (she REALLY hated it...or she is a total drama queen). This set into motion our on-going Food War. Realizing that she wasn't a fan of the oatmeal, we went back to rice cereal. Our smart, stubborn girl remembered the great oatmeal debacle all too clearly and promptly declared rice cereal inedible as well.

After several days of trying to get her back on the rice train, we decided to make things more interesting by mixing some squash in the rice cereal. Thus "squashy-rice," Ellie's favorite treat, was born. She began to eat well again, although not eating too much at one time. The following weeks we offered different vegetables with varying results: sweet potatoes (yum!), green beans (ew!), peas (ew!), carrots (double yum!). With all of ew's came the process of having to "reintroduce" eating to her again, as she was once again leary of being fed something disgusting.

So with all the excitement and variety in her diet, we thought it might be a good time for me to introduce something I have eliminated back into my diet. She seemed to be handling the solid foods pretty well (the ones that she will actually eat) and now that she's over 6 months, maybe she is one of the 60% to outgrow her allergies, right?! Can you see this disaster from a mile away? We honestly didn't!

The last time I had some soy, it resulted in gassy-chaos, but I did go completely overboard with the soy intake, practically eating every soy product imaginable in a ten minute sitting. So, last Saturday I ate a small soy yogurt in the morning and had some stir-fry (with a little soy sauce) at night and waited with fingers crossed. The results were pretty disastrous. She had horrible gas for 3-4 days - so bad that it was waking her up several times throughout the night (she'd wake up screaming bloody murder, pass gas and go back to sleep...eventually), was fairly fussy during the day and would launch into these screaming fits of pain. There is nothing worse than hearing your child scream in pain. Coincidentally we'd introduced carrots for the first time that weekend too, so we're actually unsure if the soy, the carrots, or the perfect storm combo of having the two things at the same time caused the gastro-intestinal wreck. I am not eager to try soy or carrots again anytime soon to figure it out.

I have a feeling that the Food War (her gastro-intestinal troubles and her sensitive pallate) is going to be an on-going battle. It's so hard to introduce new things or reintroduce things into my diet knowing that it could result in excruciating pain for our little baby. But we're taking it one day at a time and crossing our fingers that her little digestive system will mature enough to handle anything by the time she's a year old and that she's not in the 2% that will continue having these problems! In the meantime, I will remain dairy and soy free and we will keep slowly trying new foods hoping that each one will go in (and out) easily.