Jake at 18 months

I thought about apologizing for not updating the last month, but I don't want to.  No news is good news? Yes, I think that saying says it best. 

Jake turned 18 months old yesterday.  How did that happen??

Jake is weaned.  *sniff*  It has been about 6 days since he's nursed.  He's been doing really well.  We've had a few bumps, then I'd give in and nurse him, but I found I was just confusing him more.  So I did the unthinkable.  I ate a banana.  Then I ate sushi (dear God, how I've missed sushi).  There was no way in hell I would nurse him after that!  And guess what?  He didn't really seem bothered by it.  If he did ask for it, I would say it's "all gone".  He'd fuss for a minute, then move on.  I'm now going through what I feel are like baby blues as my hormones start to adjust once again.  I have mixed emotions, of course.  Happy to see him thriving without me, sad to let that special nursing relationship go.  But it really was time for both of us. 

I've been much more lenient with Jake's food over the past month.  I still scan every label, however.  If I don't see the word:  rice, oats, quinoa, or bananas, I deem it safe. I am grateful for the restaurants that put their ingredients online.  It has made a world of difference.  It takes some effort, but we feel normal because of it.  I don't think anyone really knows how much I still think of FPIES and still watch every little thing he eats.  But, I think this is a good thing.  It's not a big production anymore.  It's just something that is second nature and we deal with now.  I have a feeling in another year we will be one of the very lucky families that will put this strange, rare syndrome behind us.

He eats pizza with the family every Friday night now.  You have no idea what this means to me.  We have had pizza night every Friday since before my daughter was born (she's 8 now).  He can participate.  He loves that he eats what everyone else is eating.  And he likes it!

Most meals I cook he can eat.  Or I have learned to modify to make them safe for Jake.  Nobody has noticed.  We all eat the same food.  I don't feel like a short order cook, making different meals anymore.

I still have a few main things I want to trial.  Jake still hasn't had any beans.  He hasn't reacted to them through my milk the past few months, so this will be trialed soon.  (It feels strange not having my nursing safety net for trialing!)

Jake can eat things that contain soy... but I haven't tried straight soy beans yet. 

Jake has still had a few bad diapers... but not FULL REACTION diapers.  He had one bad blowout this month.  I have no idea what caused it.  We had gone to a frozen yogurt place, but the ingredients in the yogurt seemed fine.  They did have a gluten-free yogurt that contained rice milk, maybe some cross contamination?  Who knows.  Truth is, it was no big deal.  He never complained of a tummy ache.  He woke up from the nap with a bad blow out.  It was over. 

Jake has his 18 month appointment next week.  I'm hoping we'll see weight gain and good iron levels!  He looks healthy.  He talks a mile a minute, saying new words every day.  He makes us all smile with his sense of humor and overall cuteness.  Things are going well. 

Weaning - I think it's harder on me

Sleep, glorious sleep.  The one good thing that comes out of weaning!  I dropped our middle of the night nursing sessions.  The first night was hard, very hard.  The second night... not as bad.  The fourth night?  He slept eleven hours STRAIGHT.  I slept ten of those hours myself.  I am a new woman!  He is a SUPER HAPPY boy!  Mornings are so much easier when everyone is well rested. 

We're down to nursing twice a day.  Nap time and bedtime. 

It's really hard to let go. 

It wasn't that long ago that I was his main source of nutrition.  I was afraid to feed him anything.  My elimination diet was going strong, he was nursing every two hours AROUND THE CLOCK.  I was sleep deprived, we never left each others side.

It's really hard to let go.

His nutrition is going great.  He has finally started drinking some of his toddler formula in the mornings.  I started mixing it with whole milk, much better.  He will have 3-4 ounces.  I may start adding another serving in the afternoons for him. 

I continue to give him the Poly Vi Sol with Iron once a day at lunch time. 

Ascorbic acid is no longer an issue.  

He will be fine when I take away these final two nursing sessions.  I keep telling myself this. 

We're taking our time though.  In the next few weeks we'll drop down to once a day.  I'm leaving for a weekend at the end of July.  Perhaps this will be the best time to drop the bedtime nursing session.

I will miss it. 

My last baby. 

It's really hard to let go.

Allergist Appointment

Jake had an allergist appointment today.  All went well.  He was pleased with Jake's progress and new foods, of course.  He had a few suggestions to get more calories into the little guy.  With our recent pass of corn and dairy, he'd like us to try some Toddler formula for a calorie boost.  I'm not sure Jake will agree with this, but it's worth a try.  The boy only likes water to drink.  He'll drink OJ or milk every once in a while, but only if his older brother does!  So we'll see how that works out. He gave me the OK to start weaning.  On one hand, this makes me happy. He's getting enough variety in foods, he should be OK to be weaned now.  However... my baby doesn't need me anymore.  It's hard.  I'm ready to have my body back, but I'm not ready to let my little guy grow up either.  We have always had the breast milk to fall back on.  It's always been our safety net.  But we have so many foods now, I feel confident he's fine without me.  That being said, I'm starting to take away the 3am feeding first.  Then we'll start weaning the daytime feeds.  I imagine in a month or so we'll be done.  It's a bittersweet feeling. 

We don't need to go back to the allergist until Jake is 2.  He plans to do a patch test again at that time with the foods Jake had FPIES reactions to and the foods he had reactions to with his first patch test.  It will be interesting to see what the results are. 

Interesting happening this week.... I ate a sandwich from subway that unknowingly had rice and oats in the bread.  Jake had a bad diaper.  Undigested food, acidic, yucky.  Only one though.  I've had that sandwich before.  Only a handful of times.  This is the first time I really looked up what was in the bread.  Anyway, I'm wonder if any of our other bad diaper experiences were related to a subway sandwich, or actually the food trial we were doing at the time.  Just a thought. 

Making passes...

I can't believe I will write these words but...

JAKE PASSED WHEAT!!

And because he's an over achiever like his siblings... I'm calling eggs a pass, too.  We've been trialing it off and on for a while.  Baked in treats, straight up scrambled style... We only had one incidence of a bad diaper.  We'll chalk that up to an "unknown" ingestion. 

Eggs and Wheat. 

I'm almost brave enough to try soy.  Almost.

We have our allergist appointment next week.  He's going to fall over when I list our passes.  I'm leaning towards asking for a patch test for the few things he failed when he was 8 months old.  Although the good old breast milk test seems to be working for us.   He's practically eating what we eat (slightly altered, of course). I really need to trial chicken. That's the other biggie we eat that he's just had bits and pieces of here and there. No real trial. However, chicken.. turkey... aren't they kinda the same? Nevertheless, he's doing great with his food options.

I see an end to our nursing coming soon.  There have been days I've only nursed him 2 or 3 times.  Most days we nurse 4 times. 

Update on our iron intake... he doesn't really like beef.  So I've been giving him his iron supplements.  I mix it into his yogurt or applesauce and he just makes a face.  It really makes his food taste like metal.  But he eats it.  We go back to the ped in two weeks for that test.  However, I think I'll ask the allergist to do a quick test next week to see if his numbers are any better. 

Side note:  Jake's becoming a pro at spoon feeding himself!  It's messy, but he's learning.  I know I've wished this year would hurry up and pass so he could be "normal", but man, I'm missing him being a baby.  He's growing up too fast.  *sniff*

Second side note: He now says "thank you" when I give him food.  double *sniff*

Supply down, Confidence up

My supply is going down.  It's obvious.  Jake has stopped nursing at night.  We're down to 4 or 5 times a day now.  At least half of the time he nurses he stops and says "More?" and signs more at the same time.  *sigh*.  Part of me wants to do all the tricks to increase supply again.  The selfish part of me says... finally.  I like nursing, I do.  I like nursing babies.  But he's a toddler.  With really sharp teeth.  It's starting to be really uncomfortable for me.  And he has plenty of dairy now.  I wish I could get him to actually drink regular milk... we're working on it. 

We don't go back to the allergist until June 1st.  I wonder if I should be supplementing?  While his menu is not large, it is well rounded.  I personally am not worried about his food intake right now.  But I am not a doctor. 

Jake's getting two top molars and two bottom incisors.  Ouch.  He is cranky.  Double Ouch. 

After our strawberry fail, I've been thinking a lot about corn.  Yes, corn.  So if strawberries were a fail... which I'm positive that they were... we only had a really bad diaper.  Had we continued, maybe it would get worse, but it was only one bad diaper.  He recouped quickly. 

I've been questioning his possible corn intolerance.  Looking back when I thought he was reacting to corn in my diet, I hadn't eliminated quinoa, which, according to his patch test, was a fail.  Corn was not.  I ate a lot of quinoa at the time.  But what about the ascorbic acid fail?  Was it corn?  The allergist said ascorbic acid could be derived from pineapple?  Gerber never got back to me on what their ascorbic acid is made from.  Was it cross contamination?  Were those pears processed on the same equipment as the oatmeal?  Or the chicken and rice?  So many unanswered questions. 

I've ramped up my corn intake.  No signs of tummy troubles.

Yesterday, Jake had some kettle corn. 

He was happy.  (minus the teething)

Today he will have some kettle corn again.  Maybe I'll pick up some Kix to help us continue this trial. 

I feel like getting aggressive with the FPIES after our minor fail of strawberries and our MAJOR pass of dairy.  Maybe our fails are not going to be as bad now that he's getting older? 

It seems like when I post something like this it bites me in the rear the next day.  I hope this time it doesn't happen.

Nighttime Nursing

The truth is, it's been over eight months of nursing around the clock.  Every 2-3 hours.  Day and Night.  While Jake gets up 3-4 times a night still, his nursing sessions are shorter.  He nurses only 5-10 minutes.  Is he really hungry?  I'm starting to wonder if we are just in the rut of a very bad habit.  Yet, being the FPIES mom, I wonder how to make up those extra calories he'd be missing at night, if I were to stop.  However, he's a big fat baby.  I know it's not PC, but that's what we call him around here.  He has more chub than his siblings did.  And he's ACTIVE.  Crawling, cruising, and getting into everything.  He eats solid food three times a day, but nursing is still his main form of nutrition.  I've been toying with the idea of eliminating the nighttime feedings.  Mama guilt.  And then there's the torture of teaching a baby to sleep through the night.  I don't know if my heart can bear it right now.  Decisions.

In the meantime, we've put trialing on hold for now.  Jake's body needed a break.  I mentally needed a break.  The ascorbic acid really threw me for a loop and now I'm scared.  However, I did make it to Whole Paycheck  Foods this weekend.  I found the freeze dried pears (Crispy Greens).  Oh my goodness, he LOVES them!  I like them better than the Parent's Choice apples.  They seem to melt in your mouth much quicker.  I also picked up some Just Apples. I found Organic Prune juice that is JUST prune juice.  No ascorbic acid.  I have blueberries in the freezer, white potatoes in the pantry and now prune juice.  I have plenty of foods ready to go.  I just need the confidence.