I am slowly working on writing a book.
It is not the book about the typical Nurse Judy topics, such as germs, fevers and common illnesses. Instead the subject is spirits and stories about inexplicable occurrences… stay tuned.
But I still enjoy writing my standard posts that might offer support to parents.
I am delighted to meet up with Dr. Ted on a regular basis so we can put our heads together and delve into different issues.
We are currently trying to create a thorough document that will help out any parent who is embarking on the solid foods journey.
Starting solids actually used to rank pretty low on my favorite things to talk about. When I was an office advice nurse, parents had so many questions about it and I never felt like I had enough time in the course of a standard 10 minute phone call to give them all the answers they were seeking.
Ultimately, because the demand was so strong, I started offering an hour-long solid foods class. The goal was to try to get parents to relax and to navigate through all the strong opinions and judgments when it comes to what to feed, when to feed and how to feed.
I stopped holding that class several years ago.
Since attending my class was no longer an option, parents have reached out to let me know that they searched my blog for a post on starting solids and haven’t found one. Alas, for the time being, that search still comes up empty. While there are some posts on specific topics, I never did one dealing with the basic ABC’s of feeding your baby.
There is just so much to say.
Now, thanks to Dr Ted’s encouragement, I look forward to adding a new document to my collection. We are in agreement that there is way too much stress about feeding your kids. We hope to alleviate some of that.
Grandparents, friends, and social media often have a list of RULES that can make folks spin around and worry that they must be doing something wrong.
Many people have very strong opinions. When I started doing research to build the curriculum for my class, I ran into someone at a Chinese Medicine clinic. When I told her what I was working on, she got very enthusiastic. She practically started to chant. LIVER, LIVER LIVER, is really all that babies need. It should be the first food for all kids. She practically followed me out of the office, yelling LIVER!
While indeed, offering kids liver might have some actual benefits, being exposed to such passionate thoughts about what is right and wrong is NOT my approach.
In fact, during my solids class I would tell a story about no matter how hard you try to be ‘perfect’, in most cases at some point your child was likely to eat something that was completely disgusting (and they survive).
In my case what comes to mind was the time our daughter Lauren shared a meal of meow mix cat food crunchies with a siamese cat named George.
How did I become aware of this? Because Sandy videotaped the interaction. (This was long before cell phones. He was holding a large camcorder. Times have changed.)
One for me/ one for you/another for me/another for you.
Oh, daddy. I surely would have put the camera down and redirected. Sandy defends himself by reminding me that we wouldn’t have that memory if he hadn’t continued recording.
(George the cat ended up becoming ours, but I digress.)
Dr. Ted is now the one trying to field all the questions about starting solids on a daily basis.
Just like we did several months ago with our long breastfeeding document , We are now looking at data and trying to come up with an easy to follow post that maps out our relaxed approach. We are lucky to have the wonderful designer Nancy Elle collaborating with us to make it easy to follow.
We will endeavor to answer all of the frequently asked questions.
When we did the breastfeeding post I put out a request for feedback and got some worthy responses. Some of these included their hard earned wisdom which we included and others requested topics that they wanted us to cover.
So I am once again turning to the hive mind…
For those of you who have successful eaters
What are your best pieces of wisdom about solid foods that you would share?
Are there any utensils, tools, apps that were valuable?
What are the things you wished you knew before you started?
For those of you just starting out, are there any burning questions or concerns that you would like us to cover?
I look forward to hearing any feedback you are willing to share!!!
With luck we will have a finished product in a month or so.
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This photo is Coby, He is now six months and enjoying an assortment of foods.
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