More often than not, I feel as if I'm just making things up
as I go. The whole blogging thing? In fact, there are days now and then where
I'm sitting down, blankly staring at the cursor blinking on an otherwise blank
'Word' document. Child rearing is no
different in any way, shape or form.
It's like Ellie is the blank 'Word' document and her cry (and/or laugh)
is the blinking cursor just waiting on me to do something. The problem that lies within is that my utter
lack of experience will continue to rear its head, even if I feel like I'm
doing pretty well. Please explain? Ok, will do.
As you know, yesterday was doctor day for Ellie. Well, in addition to her shots, we also got
some specific instructions regarding her food intake. Namely her doctor feels like it needs to
increase. Ellie's always kind of been a
tiny baby in terms of her weight. In
fact, she's made a good habit of falling on and off the scale used to track
that stuff on a consistent basis. She's
actually in the 2nd percentile for her weight right now and that's high for
her! Anyway, her doctor outlined a
multi-step plan for how he wants us to proceed.
- · Step 1 - For every five ounce bottle of milk, we need to add a teaspoon of formula
- · Step 2 - Make certain that we are giving her a Vitamin D/Iron/Etc. supplement with each bottle
- · Step 3 - Begin to feed Ellie solid food three times a day
Back on point, today was the first day for trying Ellie's
new diet (or lack thereof). After doing
a little research, we discovered that Ellie's system could supposedly handle
five ounces of solid food over the course of a day. So beginning bright and early this morning,
we opened up a fresh container of pears for Ellie and went to town. Four big spoonfuls later and Ellie was
showing disinterest and was clearly ready to be done. Content with that, I put the remainder in the
fridge to save for lunch time. Once
lunch time rolled around, I offered her another three and a half spoonfuls
before she began turning up her nose at it.
Like any good parent, I chose to put it away and save it for later.
When dinner time arrived this evening, the pears reappeared
on the kitchen table but Ellie's appetite for them was nowhere to be
found. Seriously, it needed to be on a
milk carton somewhere. Not only was she
flipping her head from side-to-side to avoid the spoon but she was actually
yelling at us for our attempts to feed her.
I know, we're such horrible parents.
Here is where I reach my conundrum. How do you go about increasing your child's
food consumption without feeling like you're fattening up a turkey for
Thanksgiving. Seriously, talking about
my child not weighing enough makes me feel like there's some kind of deadline
that we have to meet or we'll be stuck with Tofurkey this year. No one wants that at all.
Honestly, I feel like Ellie's weight is right where it needs
to be. She's just always going to have a
long and lean body type. Especially if
she's built like her mother and I. The
problem is that we pay her doctor to tell us how to raise her up well. Which is needed because of the whole lack of
experience thing that keeps rearing its head.
As long as she seems happy and healthy, then all should be copacetic. I think. #DaddyWrite
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