Dietary Revolution
Filed Under Breastfeeding, Danny, Family, Health, Maddi | Leave a Comment
Danny started being incredibly fussy when he was around four and a half to five months old. I just comforted him the best I could, and kept breastfeeding him. Around month five, I started debating giving him food, because I thought that maybe he just needed more than breastmilk, but I withheld, and dealt with the fussiness, worked on increasing my supply and nursing him more often than I had been.
Right before he turned six months, I noticed he would get more fussy whenever I had milk. It sparked an idea that maybe he has a dairy sensitivity. I talked to my sister-in-law, Tasha about it because my nephew that I babysit, Rex, has a dairy sensitivity. I thought maybe it was a genetic thing. Rex has a dairy sensitivity, and so does my husband, and one of my little sisters did too, so it only made sense that was what could be wrong. So, I cut out my dairy. He seemed to improve a little bit, but he was still fussing an awful lot.
At six months and some odd days old, I started him on rice cereal and baby fruits. He LOVED it! Everyone knows how fun it is to feed babies new foods for the first time ever! He absolutely adored it! We started vegetables, and meats too. And when we ran out of rice cereal, we started using baby oatmeal. (I had 15 boxes of unopened baby oatmeal and rice leftover from when Maddi was a baby! Good thing I saved it.) I made all of my own vegetable and meat baby foods though because frankly, all the baby foods that come in jars except for fruit, taste disgusting. And at first, it was okay, but he started getting fussier, and fussier.
He got fussy to the point he would scream these high pitched SHRIEKING screams. Constantly. He’d scream so loud no noise would come out for a few seconds, and he’d get super red in the face. And it was like this all day and all night. It was terrible, and it still is. We’ve really only had one decent night of sleep in the last six weeks. On top of the sleep deprivation, I was getting really depressed. I felt like I wasn’t a good mom, because he wasn’t just screaming, he was MISERABLE. I hate seeing my baby upset, and I hate seeing him in pain. Sometimes, when he screams like that, and nothing will calm him down, I feel like a failure and I just want to cry. It breaks my heart in a way I can’t even describe, to see him in pain.
I took him to the doctor, but that really didn’t help any. They just shrugged their shoulders and said to put him on a sensitivity formula… And any of you who know me, know I would NEVER do that to my little man. If he’s having trouble with breastmilk, there’s no way adding formula will help! And not to mention I wouldn’t feed that garbage to him anyays. So, I pretty much ignored the doctor. Some people might think that’s dumb, but Danny’s my baby. And a lot of doctors are quick to endorse and encourage formula. So, that was pretty much a wasted appointment.
I posted on a couple parenting message boards about his strange behavior. Everyone recommended stopping solids altogether and going back to exclusively breastfeeding. I was considering doing that already, but hearing so many people recommending the same thing just made me more confident in the decision. So, he’s been back on JUST breastmilk for four or five days, and there has been slight improvement.
Yesterday, one of the moms on the message board suggested a gluten/wheat allergy. And it made sense! Especially when I made the connection that he hadn’t been AS fussy when we were using the rice cereal, but got worse when we introduced oatmeal. There were some babies at the daycare I used to work at when I was pregnant with Maddi who couldn’t have gluten or wheat! And their behavior when they DID have it, was a lot like Danny’s is. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
So, I cut out wheat and gluten starting yesterday. I tell you… It’s tough! It’s so crazy how many things wheat and gluten are in. I had a boyfriend in high school who was allergic to wheat and gluten and it drove me nuts because he couldn’t ever eat anything with me! It was so hard to find things that he COULD have, and going out to eat was even more difficult. I remember thinking, “Man, I’d hate to have to eat like him…” and now, here I am, following the same diet.
So yeah. And on top of that, Dan and I made a bet that I couldn’t go vegan for an entire month. I researched it a lot, and I really feel like going vegan is something I might make a permanent change, you know? I really feel strongly about it, and I don’t want to support a very horrible and inhumane industry. If I raised, or hunted or caught the animal myself, or know it came from a GOOD place and was respected throughout its life, then I’m okay with it. But I can’t bring myself to eat the meat of animals who were tortured, direspected and abused.
So, needless to say, I’ve been learning a lot. I made eggplant parmesan with soy mozzarella, and candied oranges and home made veggie burgers today. I can tel you, it’s definitely been a learning experience.
But yeah… The vegan part isn’t too difficult. It’s the gluten and wheat part that’s horrible.
Ahh, the things I don’t do for my children….