Non-Traditional Breakfast
Baby E slept straight through from midnight to 8 a.m. last night. She woke happy and hungry, and excessively disinterested in milk in any form.
She's drinking so little of what I pump (3-6 ounces total, if that, over the course of a day) that I'm thinking if she doesn't show more interest soon I may stop pumping. At this rate, if I pump for a week or two then I can stop pumping and the frozen milk will last her for maybe another month.
At the moment she's sitting in her high chair having water, banana, brown rice and chicken. I'm eating the same thing--it's really easy to just heat up leftovers for breakfast. Once I get past my cultural preconceptions about what breakfast should be, that opens up all kinds of possibilities.
Baby E is cooing and waving, and saying "hi" across the room to her doll. She really loves that doll, and seems convinced that any day now it will respond when she waves and says "hi" to it. It's rapidly becoming the comfort object she wants at bedtime and every other time, although she still wants lots of cuddling from Mommy.
Surprisingly, even without the milk element, Daddy is not an acceptable substitute for the cuddling. He's the one for playing.
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The older girls are eating bacon, banana, and squash pudding as I type. The squash pudding is simple and healthy, with just a bit of honey for sweetener . . . made from a pumpkin pie recipe in the Eating Better Cookbook series.
Pumpkin pie minus the crust is pumpkin pudding, and it's so quick and easy to put together. This time I made it with butternut squash. The kids love it. That pudding is the one thing taking the most willpower for me to resist right now. It smells delicious.
For lunch today, I think I'll make rice pancakes. Yesterday I tried blending some sticky sweet rice with water and cooking it different ways--frying like pancakes, baking a small amount in the bottom of a silicone muffin tin, and baking like cookies on a cookie sheet. The most successful was frying in a non-stick pan, but they were a bit touchy to cook because of the excessive gumminess of the rice.
I think today I'll try that again, but with a mixture of sweet and basmati rice. I've been chilling the liquid from braising chicken and skimming off the fat as it solidifies, so I actually have some oil to try cooking them in.
And, I'll have syrup to put on them. Yesterday I made pear sauce by simmering sliced pears in water and mashing them. I drained off the liquid and simmered it gently until it thickened and carmelized, becoming an amber colored syrup with a surprising amount of sweetness.
Tonight, I think I may try making a soup with the reserved liquid from cooking yesterday's chicken. I simmered it down until it was thick and strongly flavored, and it should make a nice soup stock. Chicken, broccoli and brown rice should make a good soup.
Maybe I'll have to publish a cookbook--101 ways to cook rice. Or maybe I could do a whole series of "Cooking with 5 Ingredients or Less" with different volumes for various dietary needs. One volume could be full of recipes using only rice, chicken, broccoli, pears and bananas. Another could be lamb, celery, squash, amaranth and apples. *Chuckling.*
In a little over an hour I have a telephone consultation scheduled with my naturopath. Hopefully she'll be able to give me some suggestions about which foods to add in what order, and how much time to leave between adding foods.
It certainly does seem that our experiment is successful so far. I think if Baby E goes for a significant amount of time (a week or two at least?) with no discernible reactions and seems to be feeling well, we can be relatively certain that there's not some underlying problem that's not diet-related.
She's drinking so little of what I pump (3-6 ounces total, if that, over the course of a day) that I'm thinking if she doesn't show more interest soon I may stop pumping. At this rate, if I pump for a week or two then I can stop pumping and the frozen milk will last her for maybe another month.
At the moment she's sitting in her high chair having water, banana, brown rice and chicken. I'm eating the same thing--it's really easy to just heat up leftovers for breakfast. Once I get past my cultural preconceptions about what breakfast should be, that opens up all kinds of possibilities.
Baby E is cooing and waving, and saying "hi" across the room to her doll. She really loves that doll, and seems convinced that any day now it will respond when she waves and says "hi" to it. It's rapidly becoming the comfort object she wants at bedtime and every other time, although she still wants lots of cuddling from Mommy.
Surprisingly, even without the milk element, Daddy is not an acceptable substitute for the cuddling. He's the one for playing.
################
The older girls are eating bacon, banana, and squash pudding as I type. The squash pudding is simple and healthy, with just a bit of honey for sweetener . . . made from a pumpkin pie recipe in the Eating Better Cookbook series.
Pumpkin pie minus the crust is pumpkin pudding, and it's so quick and easy to put together. This time I made it with butternut squash. The kids love it. That pudding is the one thing taking the most willpower for me to resist right now. It smells delicious.
For lunch today, I think I'll make rice pancakes. Yesterday I tried blending some sticky sweet rice with water and cooking it different ways--frying like pancakes, baking a small amount in the bottom of a silicone muffin tin, and baking like cookies on a cookie sheet. The most successful was frying in a non-stick pan, but they were a bit touchy to cook because of the excessive gumminess of the rice.
I think today I'll try that again, but with a mixture of sweet and basmati rice. I've been chilling the liquid from braising chicken and skimming off the fat as it solidifies, so I actually have some oil to try cooking them in.
And, I'll have syrup to put on them. Yesterday I made pear sauce by simmering sliced pears in water and mashing them. I drained off the liquid and simmered it gently until it thickened and carmelized, becoming an amber colored syrup with a surprising amount of sweetness.
Tonight, I think I may try making a soup with the reserved liquid from cooking yesterday's chicken. I simmered it down until it was thick and strongly flavored, and it should make a nice soup stock. Chicken, broccoli and brown rice should make a good soup.
Maybe I'll have to publish a cookbook--101 ways to cook rice. Or maybe I could do a whole series of "Cooking with 5 Ingredients or Less" with different volumes for various dietary needs. One volume could be full of recipes using only rice, chicken, broccoli, pears and bananas. Another could be lamb, celery, squash, amaranth and apples. *Chuckling.*
In a little over an hour I have a telephone consultation scheduled with my naturopath. Hopefully she'll be able to give me some suggestions about which foods to add in what order, and how much time to leave between adding foods.
It certainly does seem that our experiment is successful so far. I think if Baby E goes for a significant amount of time (a week or two at least?) with no discernible reactions and seems to be feeling well, we can be relatively certain that there's not some underlying problem that's not diet-related.
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 9:30 AM[Permanent link]
8 Comments:
Wow, I'm very happy for you - and BABY, especially!! That sure makes life simple, too, huh?
;-) Colleen
sorry it cracked me up when you said setting aside teh cultural preconceptions opens up all kinds of possibilities- as long as teh possibilities are rice, chicken, banana, and pear.
sounds like it's going well at least. :)
With no hard feelings intended and a little JAB of humor -
I can't help thinking that perhaps this all points to your GUT, Purple Kangaroo. Consider this: if your gut doesn't have enough digestive enzymes, little particles of food that aren't broken down make it into your bloodstream (this is what my LLL leader suggested) and thus:
-make it into your milk... creating the yeast-infection-like knife pains & (extreme) allergic reactions in baby
-prevents your body from keeping healthy weight on & building muscle, bones, etc. (not enough nutrients)... adding to aches & pains and leaving deposits/toxins (epson salt relief?)
-enter your fetus during pregnancy through the cord and cause a reaction (you threaten to miscarry) or sensitize the baby to foods?
According to my LLL leader, if you have a history of a lot of antibiotic use, it can lead to problems with digestive enzymes.
God bless, Colleen
What Bridget said.
Re: Dinner for breakfast. There's some evidence that your body actually does better when you eat dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner. Front-loading your proteins and complex carbohydrates gives you more energy that is longer lasting and more likely to be metabolized, while eating smaller amounts of simple carbohydrates at night (such as a bowl of cereal or a bagel - not that you're eating those right now anyway) gives you just enough energy to make it through washing the dishes and getting the kids to bed.
You ARE Wonder Woman!!
Dinner for Breakfast: People have thought I'm nuts for a long time, but I usually go for the gold on this one too. It makes sense! I like to be full in the morning, with plenty of energy to carry me through to lunchtime (or like the Hobbits - Second Breakfast).
Oh and...can you let us know what your Naturopath said? I'm so interested...
I'm so glad that things are working out right now. I worry that you will be reduced to air and water. :)
LOL, that's funny, Bridget. I guess I was including the squash pudding in that . . . and thinking that eating dinner-type foods for breakfast might be something I continue even after the elimination diet is over.
Thanks for your thoughts, Colleen. I am looking into some of those kinds of things with my naturopath. Poor digestion for other reasons (such as the effects of candida, IBS, etc) can have some of the same effects you're describing. I've taken various enzymes in the past to help with digestion, back when I was having a lot of stomach problems.
As for the antibiotics, I haven't used any since I was a kid because I'm allergic to them all, and I did go through a protocol to rebuild the good bacteria and heal my gut already. Baby E has never been on any antibiotics of any kind.
Liz, I really like having a big breakfast with some protein for that reason . . . it does seem to help the energy levels. I've been trying for some time to include a protein source in breakfast, even if just eggs.
A. Borealis, I like second breakfast, too. :)
CCW, I don't think we'll be reduced to air and water, although it feels that way sometimes.
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