First of all: yes, I know I'm totally neurotic about my son's nutritional intake. But when the pediatrician tells you to make sure to bring your (under fifth percentile for weight) child back right away if he doesn't seem to be gaining weight quickly enough (um, how the hell do I know how quickly he should be gaining weight? I thought he was doing okay), you'd probably be a little neurotic too.
Sam is in the stage where he doesn't want me to feed him, but he can't always manage it himself. He subsides mainly on guacamole, bananas and cheese puffs these days. I try very hard to get some yogurt into him each day, but as much as his mouth loves yogurt, his hands say "Don't put that fucking spoon anywhere near the mouth, bitch!" I feel like I'm fighting with the giant quid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as I not so deftly maneuver the spoon past his flailing arms and into a waiting and grateful open mouth.
Sam fights his dad a lot less on the spoon feeding. Like, a LOT less. So this weekend, I'm taking a full break from feeding the boy and letting R take over. I think we both (me and Sam) need a break from the neurotic energy I'm putting out at meal time. We both need to take a step back and realize that it is only food, and even though the pediatrician may be concerned, Sam is hardly showing signs of malnutrition. He's still constantly on the go, getting into everything he can and frequently molesting the cat (who is far more patient with him than he deserves, the little monster). He's a happy jolly soul, and I need to let him figure out this food thing on his own. My job is to provide him with fresh nutritional food--his job is to eat when he's hungry and stop when he's full.
I think most of my problem is that Sam has been eating a lot of what I would consider junk food. Cheese puffs and banana cookies are not exactly the healthiest fare. I want so badly for my son to have a better relationship with food than I do. I want him to gravitate towards fresh healthy choices, instead of going for pr-packaged convenient junk. And I'm coming to the hard and inevitable realization that I need to get off my ass and model these behaviors. Fresh food is not going to magically appear in the fridge. I need to devote some time to preparing wholesome food for all three of us. If I want Sam eating good homemade food, I need to make it for him. And if I want him growing up not addicted to junk food, R and I need to model the eating habits we want him to have. I need to start cooking again--and not just sporadically, but on an everyday basis. If I want Sam eating fresh fruits and veggies, I need to do the work to prep them and give them to him. And I know this is not that hard, not that time-consuming. But somewhere in me there's a block to doing this, and I need to figure out what that is and how to get past it.
It's a really hard lifestyle change to make. A real paradigm shift. We still struggle with it, but we've gotten better. For us, it was going to the grocery more often and really having a mental plan for foods that we'd make that week.
FWIW, I think you have the right attitude and that it will come together. Good luck!
Posted by: caramama | August 30, 2008 at 03:28 PM