Everyone Poops

Watching Jayde grow can sometimes be overwhelming and emotional at times. This last week has brought so many changes. I’ve gone from feeding Jayde on my breast everyday to watching her eat cereal from a spoon in her highchair. I have gone to sleeping with her snuggled next to me every night to her sleeping in a separate room in her own bed. I have been able to watch her turn her big smiles into the sweet sound of laughter. Although these things make me happy, sometimes I feel as if Jayde is growing too fast. I found myself laying in bed crying the other night; thinking about all of the things Jayde has accomplished, I am so proud! I love watching Jayde grow and reach all of these wonderful milestones and I can’t wait for her to advance and do other things too. But, sometimes I wish that I could just stop time for a little bit so I can enjoy her how she is now for a little bit longer. I know that before I will be able to realize it, she will be running around, able to do everything by herself and these days of her relying on me to do absolutely everything for her will be in the past. I never thought I would be saying this, but when her days of independence come I know I will miss her depending on me like she does now. The advice I have for all new and expecting mothers out there is to enjoy them while you can. When those days of constant crying and need start coming to an end, you will wish you can go back a few months and start all over. I know that it sounds ridiculous, but you will know exactly what I’m talking about when your baby gets to be around 5 months, too.

Jayde has officially started eating rice cereal! I will tell you that it wasn’t a simple thing like I thought it would be. I didn’t think that the cereal would be much different from what she usually eats since I was mixing in my breast milk so the flavor would be familiar. Also, I was making it very thin. I was mixing one tablespoon of rice cereal with 4-5 table spoons of breast milk, which in my opinion is really only milk. In Jayde’s opinion, she was very confused and disgusted by what was going into her mouth. I don’t know whether it was the taste or the texture, but she would make a disgusted face and then immediately spit the cereal out of her mouth. If I tried to feed her more, she would close her mouth as tightly as possible and keep turning her head away from the spoon. Eventually, after me trying to get her to eat it she would just get annoyed with me and start crying. The first time Keith tried to feed her was hilarious! After failed attempts to feed her, he pretended to eat the cereal and enjoy it to try and trick her. After pretending that the cereal was delicious and then trying to feed Jayde a bite, she would look at Keith as if she was saying, “No thank you, you can go ahead and eat that stuff if you like it so much.” Keith and I were laughing so hard! Finally after about 5 days of me wasting valuable breast milk on something that wasn’t going to be eaten, she gave in. Now she has been eating rice cereal three days in a row without a problem. I found that the only way she was going to eat her cereal was for me to let her chew and suck on her spoon before feeding her. I don’t know why her chewing on the spoon makes such a big difference, but it works. Jayde went from rejecting the cereal to eating a whole bowl everyday!

 The facial expression I got at the first attempts to feed her cereal- DISGUTED

Happily eating her cereal after finally getting used to the new taste and texture

The doctor said that I should wait to start feeding her purees until she is about 6 months. However, today I took a "Introducing Solids" class at the Day One Center and the baby nutritionist there said that if the doctor said she could start eating cereal, there should be no reason for her not to be able to eat purees. So, I think that for the first time in history that I am going to veer away from "the book says" and "the doctor says" and try some real foods. I am so excited! I plan to make all of Jayde's food by scratch so she gets to experience the freshest and healthiest diet available. This coming week, I plan to go and by the Baby Brezza baby food processor so I can start the whole food making process. On a side note, for all those parents about to start their baby on solids, I highly recommend taking the class that I took at Day One. It is very informational and makes you feel a lot more confident on starting your baby on purees, especially if you plan on making their food by scratch.


A video of Jayde eating and enjoying her rice cereal for the very first time after many failed attempts:

When the doctor tells you that starting solids will change a baby’s poop, they aren’t lying. Today I was concerned because Jayde hadn’t had a bowel movement in two days. Because I am a “paranoid mother”, I called the advise nurse just to be 100% sure that it wasn’t anything serious. Of course immediately after, Jayde decided to take the biggest poop of her life. Happy that I knew for sure now she wasn’t constipated, I took her to her changing table to change her diaper. After taking off her pants and seeing what was inside her diaper, I stood there in surprise for probably about 2 minutes just staring at her poop. After months of having watery stools, suddenly I had a diaper filled with poop that had some consistency. The only thing that I can think of to compare it to right now is thick gravy. (Sorry if I just ruined all your Thanksgiving dinners for the rest of your life after that comparison.) Basically what I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t hard with a shape, but it wasn’t the watery poop that I have come accustomed to over the months. It also had a noticeable scent to it. I’m not saying that my daughter’s poop smelt like roses before she started solids. What I am saying is that the scent of it is a lot stronger than what it had been before. One last note is that there was a lot more of it, I’m not lying when I say her entire diaper was filled. I don’t know if this was caused by the missed days of pooping or her cereal, but I literally went through about 10 wipes instead of the usual 2-3.
　　
Lastly, I decided to get Jayde’s ears pierced! After giving it way too much thought than necessary and stressing out about it for no reason, I finally decided to just do it. I knew that I was eventually going to get it done sooner or later, so I might as well just choose for it to happen sooner and get it over with. I got them pierced at Zebras in Walnut Creek. After picking out the earrings and paying I found out that there was a 30-45 minute wait. Jayde fell asleep on Keith for most of the wait and I just sat there with anxiety constantly asking Keith, “are you sure we should do this? Do you think she is going to be OK?” After what seemed like forever, our buzzer went off and it was Jayde’s turn! It actually ended up being perfect timing because Jayde had just woke up and was in a relaxed mood. I let Keith hold her while I tried to distract her by talking to her and making her look at her toy. The first ear wasn’t too bad. She did cry for a quick second but then got over it quickly. The second one, however, was horrible. Keith had to hold her down tightly so she wouldn’t move. At that point I think she was more scared by the fact that there was someone not allowing her to move. As the needle went through her ear she jumped and then started crying, it was so sad! I took her from Keith, gave her a hug and kiss, and then she was over it. After that point she has never shown any discomfort by them, I honestly don’t even think she realizes that she has earrings in her ears. The only difficult part is cleaning them twice a day, she just will not stay still!

Jayde's very first picture with her ears pierced!