Mommy Monday: Transitioning to solids

Sloane has her 9 month appointment on Wednesday, I'm pretty excited to see how much she has grown! Also I have a few little questions to ask the doctor. Mostly pertaining to feeding Sloane solids. I'm not so concerned on what she can eat but how much she can/should eat.

Should she be having a meal and a bottle? That's pretty much where we are right now. She can eat a whole package/container of baby food but she still wants the bottle after. Should I be trying to feed her more? Maybe make it a more rounded meal with like a thing of baby food and then also a solid to make it more filling. I have started doing that a bit lately cause I feel like we should have cut out a bottle by now.

It has also been a bit of a process actually getting into the habit of feeding her solids. We were just feeding her solids here and there and then I remembered that the doctor said by 9 months she should be half solids half bottle so I talked to Mat and made sure we were on the same page that we should be giving her three meals a day.

We wake up, she will have a bottle and I will feed her typically baby oatmeal with something for flavor mixed in, either a fruit or some peanut butter. Then at her first nap she will have another small bottle and then wake up and have lunch of typically a veggie mix. She will have another bottle at her second nap. She will have dinner some time after her second nap where she will have a veggie and hopefully some meat if we can get her to eat it. Finally she will have another bottle before bed. So typically 4-5 bottles a day and 3 meals.

We will also give her little nibbles of whatever we are eating because she pretty much insists that we do.

She's a very good eater and will eat pretty much anything except the baby food meat. I gave her some lunch meat once and she really liked that so I thought about giving her that but I think it has a lot of salt in it.

I also want to ask about sippy cups. We have one for her that we just keep filled with water so she can try it out from time to time but she doesn't really seem to understand the concept that she has to suck on it to get the water out. I'm wondering if it is just too early to be giving her a sippy cup or if I should be trying a different type. The one we have has two handles for her to hold on to and the sippy part is soft which I read is good for a first time sippy cup.

Then finally I want to ask about her choking while eating. I feel like it is a pretty normal thing to do when first learning to eat solids and as long as she is working it out she is learning. She actually hasn't choked in quite a while and I think it's cause she's learned. She also has gotten very good about chewing/gumming, so that might open up the possibility to other new foods to feed Sloane. The one meal I'm pretty excited/frightened to give her is spaghetti. I just love seeing a messy baby with marinara sauce smeared all over the place!

 

 

 

How did you transition your baby to solid foods? I don't know why this seems like such a hard thing to do but I guess I just don't know what pace we should be progressing at. Leave my a comment below letting me know what you think of how we're going about this. 

Neck pain equals a trip to the ER?

If you guys follow me on Twitter or Facebook than you probably already know that my Thursday turned crazy real quick!

It all started Monday while I was at work. I had a tummy ache since Sunday and then suddenly I got a neck ache. (already falling part on my second day back to work) The neck ache was super annoying just round my collar bone. I took some ibuprofen, tried stretching it out and messaging it in hopes to get it better. Come Wednesday and the pain was still bad and seemed to have gotten a bit worse. I also noticed that the stomach ache never really went away. It seemed like the two pains were connected (neck pain was far worse) so I decided I would make a Dr appointment after nearly everyone said i should. I got an appointment for the next day at 1:15pm.

Going to the Dr I didn't really have much hope that they would be able to help besides giving me some stretches to do since I am breast feeding and the pain killers I can take are limited. I got there right on time and described what my symptoms were and much to my surprise the Dr said that I needed to go to the ER. It was the combo of symptoms that worried her. My stomach ache that hadn't gone away was right under the middle of my rib cage was interpreted as chest pain I guess and the fact that my neck didn't really hurt when I moved but did when I took deep breaths lead to her think I could possibly have a blood clot. I was in shock! How does neck pain change to a blood clot so fast? The Dr offered to have a ambulance take me to the hospital but of course I refused. I was just having freaking neck pain! I texted Mat and told him to get dressed because he had to take me to the ER. I think I freaked him out a bit.

I drove myself home and got Sloane ready while Mat got dressed and we headed off to Evergreen Hospital. I packed a bunch of pumped milk in case they wanted to give me drugs that would prevent me from breast feeding. The car ride was pretty silent, I shouldn't have told Mat how bad a blood clot could be.

Checking into the hospital was easy cause the doctor had called and said I was on my way. I had to be wheeled around in a wheel chair which I thought was just ridiculous but "people with chest pain get the royal treatment" according to the nurses. Once checked in I was wheeled to room 24, right next to a room where the patient was screaming. To say I didn't feel like I should be there was an under statement.

They said they had to do some blood work, a chest x ray and hook me up to heart monitors and an IV. Once we were done with that it was a waiting game to see what the blood work said. The blood test was to see if I had a blood clot. If it came back positive it didn't actually mean I had a blood clot but it did mean they needed to take a closer look. Much to my surprise the test came back positive so I had to be given a cat scan.

Getting a cat scan for the first time was pretty exciting. The machine talks to you can tells you when to hold your breath and when to breath and when to swallow and not swallow. They also had to give me a injection to make my blood contrast in the pictures. The contrast injection was a crazy feeling. It makes you all warm, gives you a metallic taste in your mouth and makes you feel like you peed your pants. Once done they covered me in warmed blankets cause I was pretty cold and wheeled me back into my room to waiting Mat and Sloane. They said it would be a 45 minute wait for the results.

I must say Sloane did so great while there. I fed her when we first got there and then she was a happy baby watching everyone hooking me up to all the machines. Of course everyone commented about how adorable she was and what a good baby she was. She fussed for just a little bit when she got tired but we put her in her car seat, closed to cover and rocked her till she fell asleep. The highlight of the ER was seeing her little feet poking out from under the car seat cover.

They came back with the results about an hours later and said it all looked good. No blood clot!!  I was relieved but to be honest I never really believed that I had anything that serious to begin with. I mostly felt ridiculous about being at the ER. They said they did see some little spot right under my diaphragm that I should have looked at again in like 9 months, just to see if it hasn't grown or anything, but nothing really to worry about. So they sent me on my way. I wasn't really thinking, I should have asked what to do about my neck, so I left still in pain. I was just happy to be getting out of there.

Mat and I hadn't eaten anything since we had breakfast so we headed to burgermaster for dinner. I was too excited to have a burger, fries and a peanut butter shake after the crazy day I had. I was exhausted and ready to just relax from the stress. I felt bad cause it was my forth day back to work and I was already back in the hospital. I swear I hope I don't see another hospital till I have our next baby, which won't be for a few years at least!