Friends, my prayers have been answered. Since my last post (http://naman-ki-ma.blogspot.com/2010/07/from-hand-to-mouth.html), Naman has miraculously turned into a not-a-very-fussy eater. Well, not really miraculously. Did a lot of thinking to answer the big question "WHY (does he not like to eat)". The villain, it turned out, was the bland food that I was forcing on him. Poor thing, even a glutton would go on a hunger strike when given no other option. Well, but how was I to know? Babies are supposed to thrive on bland food, right? But my guy is a desi baby all the way, seems to like spicy food with tons of ghee! Yesterday, I cooked brown rice pulao for him. I fried carrots and peas (organic of course) in ghee. Sprinked crushed jeera and cardamom. Added brown rice (reminder: soak the rice for 30 minutes before cooking next time), continued frying for another 5 minutes. Then transferred to a pressure cooker. Cooked on low for upto 3 whistles. Mashed this in a blender and voila! dinner is ready. Now, I HATE brown rice, hate the smell, hate the flavor and anything to do with it. But brown rice is infinitely more nutritious than white rice (http://www.mydesibaby.com/2009/12/switch-to-brown-rice-when-your-babies-are-young.html ) and I do want my son to get all the nutrition he can. With serious apprehension in mind, hubby dear (bade me from feeding this to him because of the twisted, contorted, gagged expression on my face) extended the spoon full of rice to his mouth and lo and behold, the little monster seemed to relish it and smacked his way through. Phew! What a relief! Did a lot to boost my confidence. Never has cooking for someone felt more rewarding and satisfactory (notwithstanding the "hmmm interesting" comments I occasionally gather from hubby).
Knock on wood, my little man seems to be less fussy about food ever since and it is almost as if he waits for dinner time to see what delicacy mommy has come up with today. Awwwwww :) Anything for my sweet cuddly bear!
Lately, I have been bitten by the "My son is not eating enough" bug. It seems, all I can think of is how to make him eat his food with no fuss. SIGH, the days of "no solids" were so much more easier. And to think that I had been looking forward to this time with the false expectation that solids will help him sleep better. What a fool! Alas, his sleep issues have only changed for worse, if that were possible. He now wakes up every hour in the night. Hurray!! And the moment he wakes up, he is on all fours and wants to get going. Where? The Lord knows and the funny thing is, he does not even has his eyes open!! The other day, we had a shock. I walk in the room to check if he is sleeping ok (an hour or so after he was put down to sleep) - lo and behold, the little monster has pulled himself up, holding the crib rails and was trying to touch the fan. We had to lower the crib soon after that. Oh well, but that is an old matter and hubby and I have given up any hopes of sleeping through the night in the near future. We have heard about CIO (cry it out) methods and how it helps kids sleep better. But neither of us has the heart for it. He will eventually get there, there is hope. RIGHT?
Anyways, coming to the topic of the post, feeding him is turning out to be quite a tedious exercise. I remember our pediatrician's advice before we started him on solids - "Don't force him to eat, try 2 or 3 times, if he does not show interest or fusses over it, stop feeding him then and try again later. Do not dance/sing to make him eat". How does one do this? We sincerely tried not to go against this advice for a while. But we gave up some time back. Who has the time and energy to try later? Right now, feeding him is usually accompanied by any kind of entertainment we can come up with. I have no problems with this, the only thing is, he seems to be entertained by each "item" for a few minutes, eats couple of spoons and is again bored. It is as if he expects us to come up with something new every minute. We cannot do this kind of a thing for every feeding for long, can we? I don't want to turn into the mom who runs with her kid up and down the elevator to get him to eat. When I did hear about her, I thought why would she do something like that? If the kid doesn't want to eat, then so be it! Starve him and he will come to you eventually. I know better now. I have decided that from now on, I will try really hard to follow the ped's advice. Oh God! give me enough patience and perseverance or better yet, bless Naman with a good appetite!
I was talking to my friend in India the other day. He was asking me how it was with the baby and stuff like that. While describing to him what my normal day looks like with Naman, I happened to mention to him how Mahesh (hubby dear) and I split the responsibilities. How I usually take care of his bathing, feeding needs, how Mahesh usually changes his diapers and how he liked to call himself CBO (chief burping officer) and so on. He was quite shocked to hear about what Mahesh was "made" to do. He remarked that I am a very lucky girl!! Well, I don't deny for a second that I am indeed lucky for having Mahesh in my life but not for THIS reason. This attitude reflects the gender stereotyping aspect of our society, especially so, with our culture. I have known very few Indian men who are interested and involved in house-hold chores of any kind. Our generation, I hear, is a whole lot more improved. But such a comment from my friend makes me wonder if this is really so. Parenting is so much more fun when it is a team-work and guys who opt out of this really don't know what they are missing out on (I am sure Mahesh concurs with me on this).
Since being a mom, I have this irresistible urge to talk about nothing else but my little monster and life as a mommy. Naman this, Naman that, oh! he babbles these days (that has to be the cutest thing ever!), he crawled today, he is trying to stand up on his own, uff - his tantrums these days !@# - you get the drift right. My past experience and common sense tells me that these tidbits, however important or cute they may be to me, may not be of any interest to my friends/colleagues. Everyday, before I set out for work, I promise myself not to bring up anything remotely related to Naman and that is turning out to be plain impossible. That brings me to why I am here! This will be my space, a vent-space if you will, to share everything I want to about Naman, about motherhood and such.
Tune in if you want to take a peek at my world or Naman's updates.
