Archive for March, 2010

Sometimes cooking for my little baby girl is fun and exciting and sometimes it’s absolutely frustrating. We had no real problems getting her to eat the earths best jar food – but at about 12-14 months it was time for me to buckle up and make her some fresh food that will help her little body out. The first thing that I tried was humus – and she loved it. The humus was even a little more garlicky than normal – and she just dove into it. She loved the idea of using a chip or pita to dip in the humus. Then I tried making a vegetable soup, paying close attention to the amount of salt that I put into the dish. I think the rule is until they’re 2 or 3 – 1 gram of sodium is their daily maximum. So i made my vegetable soup and really limited the salt added and thought that she might like textures (so I didn’t blend it). She enjoyed the soup, but not in the intended way. She enjoyed putting a bite in her mouth and sucking on it for a second, then spitting it out and throwing it on the floor. Then I decided to try to make her broccoli soup, and blended it up. It turned out grainy and she was very aware of that. The soup trickled down her chin and was quickly thrown off of her high chair table. Then someone gave her a little bit of pizza and she fell in love with cheese. Pizza, quesadillas, eggs with cheese…, she loved them all. She also still loved the earths best jar food, which is good since getting her to eat vegetables had been unsucessful so far.

At this point one thing was obvious, she loved starches. Pizza, quesidillas, bread, and a new favorite of hers – pasta. Cheese filled raviolis became a very big favorite of hers. She also liked pesto and alfredo sauce.

For about 6 straight months my daughter was getting monthly ear infections and it was very scary. She woke up shrieking and we’d take her to the doctor and they would prescribe amoxicillin. After seeing that the antibiotic was not working, and being concerned over the fact that she was ingesting so much amoxicillin it became time for changes.

The era of blended vegetable soups arrived. I decided that I would become an expert (or at least better than i am now) at making creamed vegetable soups. My main goal was to eliminate dairy from her diet, because after researching recurring ear infections, I found that a large number of recurring ear infections are due to food allergies and dairy is the most prominent.

First I started off with carrot and zucchini soup, and she loved it. Then I made a potato soup (for my wife and me i topped the potato soup with bacon and cheese – it was delicious), and she loved that as well. Then I read about how to make a proper silky broccoli soup and made my own version of it – she loved it too. I was on a roll. The last soup that I made was parsnip soup, which I had my reservations about – because parsnip has such a particular taste. She loved it too. So at this point I’ve got 4 toddler approved soups and I’m psyched. So now I don’t have to go to the jarred foods to get her her vegetables, and frankly as far as jarred food goes – a lot of the nutrients are dead because of how it was processed and how old it is.

So far so good.

12/16/2010

Here’s an update on the ear infection situation.  My daughter had 7 ear infections last year and with little sleep and frustration at not being able to make her better, we continued to do what the doctors recommended – which was antibiotics.  The pattern was very clear.  My daughter’s sleeping became disturbed, she started napping less and waking up 2 hours after falling asleep crying (sometimes normal crying and sometimes frantic).  We take her to the doctor the next day, the doctor looks in her ear and says that it looks like she’s got an ear infection (me personally – I thought that maybe they could do some further testing to see what we were working with – bacteria…?).  The doctor after looking at her for a couple minutes prescribes an antibiotic which we start giving to her.  After the antibiotic was completely used, we had 2 weeks of rest and then pattern started again.

After 6 ear infections and about half of those were double ear infections, I decided to do something that was extremely hard – not listen to the doctors.  I had been reading about ear infections from her first one and it turns out that they are quite recoverable with no antibiotics and in fact there is a lot of speculation that letting the childs immune system deal with the ear infection will help the child to avoid ear infections in the future.  We did get the antibiotic prescription filled and kept it in the refrigerator – just in case we broke.  What we found was that she only has 1-2 bad nights (waking up 3-4 times and being a little franctic).  We gave her Hylands ear ache tablets and the panic and pain seemed to melt away in about an hour.  So we had found one tool for dealing with her pain.  I cannot say enough about Hylands ear ache tablets – they are amazing.  We also started consulting with a homeopath and she recommended that we give her some Sambuca syrup twice a day (which we did – we used Vermont’s Apitherapy).  We also gave her 8 drops of the non-alcohol based nettle tincture before sleeping (which has anti-histamine properties).  After 2 days her sleep improved and after about 2 weeks her runny nose, cough… disappeared.  It was now March of 2010 and she didn’t get another ear infection until November of 2010.

No doubt that weather conditions aggravate her ear infections potential – closing the house up for winter, having less fresh air flow, having the heat on pushing dry dusty air – and also November is usually a cold season when everyone is getting sick.  We went to the doctor and got the antibiotic to have on hand – in case we broke down.  But again she went through a couple days of bad sleeping and a couple weeks of runny nose… and the ear infection cleared up.

What does this all mean?  It means do what you want with treating your children, but if you have already been down the traditional path and it isn’t working then keep in mind that letting your childs immune system fight and beat off an ear infection is not a bad thing.  Hylands Ear Ache Tablets should be in your medicine cabinet (even if you’re going to use antibiotics) – because that first night of shrieking usually happens before you have an antibiotic on hand – give you child the pills so that you can both sleep decently and then go to the doctor in the morning.