Saturday, January 19, 2008

Holy Poo, Batman!

It's so cold here today! I know my sister, in Wisconsin, would laugh at me as their high for today is 1 degree with a wind chill of -35, but it's so cold here today. There are times that I would have sworn that I was colder here in Texas than I ever was in Wisconsin. Maybe that's due to the fact that our houses are often not designed or insulated for the below 50 temps, and so few of us southerners seem to know how to dress for the cold weather.
And, admittedly, the FM makes 65 seem really brisk these days, but, whatever, I'm sticking with it's so cold here today!

Squeak is nearing her first birthday and think I'm in a bit of denial. She however is not. She is working hard on all things big; walking... standing... getting nekkid and emptying the spice cabinet...pictures later ;-)
One of the other things she's working on is food. She's been food crazy since she was about 3 months old, but I managed to hold her off until she was 5 or 6 months old, and let me tell you, that was not easy. The things that can go on in a mother's mind when big decisions like starting solids come into question!

Now, Monkey had no issues. I wanted to keep him exclusively breastfed until he was a year and he wanted to hold off until he was 3. Okay, not really, but the boy did not care for solid food and it was a non issue. He ate what we gave him when he was hungry and that was that. No troubles. It should also be noted that our food choices, unfortunately, were often not always the healthiest.

Squeak on the other hand.....
Wants all food that we have. Begs for it. Feels hurt when we don't share. :*(
Everything we eat is so healthy that well, it's almost embarrassing in this culture.
I waited until she was 5 or 6 months before I finally felt so horrible for denying my toothless little pleader that I began giving her things that she was happy to chew on, like raw carrots, but couldn't really get to her stomach. So, all were happy again, but....

As time went on she became very good at gnawing on raw fruits and veggies until they began to mush and become baby eats. This seemed like a really natural progression and I felt good about it.
Then, enter the poop saga. Or, the no poop saga as it were.
Fast forward to now, at 11 months, and we have some definite constipation. So, of course, my mommy brain is screaming "She's 11 months old! She's 95% breastfed! My diet is awesome! She only gets a little raw, organic food! She can't poop! OH MY GOD SHE MUST HAVE A BOWEL OBSTRUCTION!"
Now, I'm a reasonably rational, intelligent person. I know, you can tell, right?
Okay, reasonable enough to know that this, um, might not be true.

So, my question is this, Doc:
1. She's 11 months old and 95% breastfed.
2. Our diet looks like this:
-Our dairy (all of it) comes from a local farm, and is raw. But wait! There's more! It's also
from cows which meet these criteria
-Our eggs come from local, organically raised, pastured hens.
-Our vegetables and meat are always organic.
-If it comes in a package, we probably don't eat it.
-We don't eat sweeteners other than honey, and occasionally, brown rice syrup or maple syrup.
-We buy all of our grains whole and either sprout them or ferment them before eating them
weather we are eating them whole or we ground them ourselves. With one exception; we
eat a pre-made, sprouted grain bread and occasionally pasta or tortillas from the
same company.
-We eat vegetarian meals 4 times per week, a red meat dish 1x, poultry 1x and Wild Alaskan
salmon 1x. We also include one serving of organ meat each week, as well as a bone broth
at least once per week.
-Miso soup for lunch every day.
-Sunny side up egg with side of fermented whole oats for breakfast every day.
-Uh, yeah, that's it. Exciting huh?
3. Of these foods Squeak gets a some raw, organic fruits, vegetables and, as of a couple days ago, the occasional egg yolk.
4. In addition to the distilled water, we also sip herbal teas and infusion daily. These include one or some of the following:
-Nettles
-Oatstraw
-Peppermint
-Lemon Balm
-Chamomile
-Red Rooibos
-Horsetail
-Ginkgo
-Red Raspberry leaf

So, now that the only one left reading is my faithful mother (oh, wait she doesn't have a computer!) Damn, okay, Dear Reader,
Please, please, tell me why my baby is constipated!
Why does she push for days before finally producing some little petrified rock???
Please, for the love of all things, don't tell me to get rid of the dairy. I'll cry. I promise, but if you must, at least tell me a good reason why so that I can repeat it to myself when I'm chewing my lettuce for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh, I should also cop to the fact that I have been known to succumb to the tempting call of the Whole Foods pizza counter or have friends over and make something that doesn't meet all our criteria. Some of these dietary changes have been in place for years, some only consistently so, for a few weeks.
Oh, and if you could tell me what to tell Squeak when she pleads for a bowl of oats or some smoked chicken....that would be great, Dear Reader.
You're the best!

4 comments:

Kathryn said...

Coming from AAF:

Have you tried giving her prune juice? Also, you can take bran cereal and smash into almost any food she'll eat. Just doing that will help a LOT.

Kristy said...

That's some diet! I'm impressed by your commitment. As for the poo (or lack thereof), you didn't really mention, but I presume she's exhibiting signs of discomfort and the like? This coming from the mom of a kid who used to quite happily poo no more than once every 5-6 days... but I can't remember at what age that stopped? Maybe by 1 yr that's no longer normal? Sorry I don't have any advice. I like Kathryn's prune juice idea.

Aimee said...

Oh, yes, sorry. She is grunting and pushing, but nothing comes, and as of today, she is getting upset about it. There is no crying or anything though.
Monkey was one of those once a weekers too, but his was always a "normal" BF looking poo. Never this dehydrated rock stuff.

sheltonfamily said...

When Adeline was getting constipated (she hasn't been for quite some time now) the doc told us to try 4oz or so of straight apple juice a day. We never had to do it everyday, just once in a while when we could tell she was constipated. Once it got really bad and we felt so bad for her that we gave her half an infant supository (on the doc's rec). We barely had the tip in and the poop started to come. Doc said that just the act of inserting is enough sometimes to get things flowing again. Anyway, we only had to do that once and for the most part the apple juice worked.

Good luck!
Paige (mom to Adeline, 12.5 months)