Could I Have Some Unbiased Advice Please?

I am starting to lose whatever faith I might have once had in the American Academy of Pediatrics. I think it’s really sad that the “preeminent” organization of pediatricians cannot be relied upon for unbiased advice on how to care for our children.

I came across this article today on CNN. As I read through, my thoughts were very skeptical. A sudden need to double the amount of daily vitamin D intake? Millions of kids needing to purchase supplements? What about spending more time playing outside? It seemed kind of ridiculous to me.

Then I got to the last paragraph, which reads, “Several members of an academy committee that helped write the guidelines have current or former ties to makers of infant formula or vitamin supplements.”

I looked on the New York Times, which has the same article, but without the informative disclaimer at the bottom. The fact that people who set the guidelines and the standards for our children’s health and nutrition have sold themselves to corporations, at the cost of parents’ pocketbooks and the health of children makes me very, very sad.

From what I understand from the current recommendations – you must buy sunscreen and that means you also have to buy vitamin D. Also, you must buy either formula or vitamin D.
On wikipedia, I read that the lack of vitamin D isn’t “a defect in the evolution of human breastmilk but is instead a result of the modern-day infant's decreased exposure to sunlight.” I also read that “a sufficient amount of ultraviolet in sunlight each day and adequate supplies of calcium and phosphorus in the diet can prevent rickets. Darker-skinned babies need to be exposed longer to the ultraviolet rays.”

Why isn’t anyone talking about the easiest and cheapest solutions – spending more time outdoors and using sunscreen only in very bright weather, making safe places to play outside, constructing sidewalks and bike paths so that people aren't tied to cars, eating foods that contain calcium and phosphorus as part of a healthy diet? Because these solutions wouldn’t make money for the baby industry, which unfortunately seems to be the AAP’s priority.

I wish I did have a source of professionals who could provide good advice in the interest of parents and children. But since I don’t, I’ll have to go on being an independent researcher so that I can make decisions in the interest of my son and not corporations. We’ll continue to take daily walks (15-30 minutes a day is enough Vitamin D exposure), we’ll eat milk products and fish, but I won’t purchase another bottle of vitamin D supplements.

I'll have the same thing as baby

My mother-in-law recently sent me this article from the New York Times, saying that we are in the vanguard of parenting. If I’d known it was newsworthy to feed a baby the same food I eat, I would have written an article myself!

Like the author, we’ve been feeding River the same food that we eat (minus refined sugars or white carbohydrates) since he was six months old. I started with the slow introduction of cereals at four months, then vegetables per current guidelines. Then I met baby Mirena and her parents and saw she was already eating bananas with avocado. At around the same time, I read an article, which told of an Indian woman living in America who ignored most of the U.S. guidelines and had a 13-month old son with very sophisticated tastes who was happily munching on a raisin, walnut bread in a NYC café.

I began to think that small children in other countries eat very spicy food and they must get used to it from a young age. I thought how the extreme pickiness I hear of seems to be largely a U.S. phenomenon and wondered if the bland early diets encouraged a taste for bland foods later on. I realized that River wasn’t at particular risk for allergies. And should he have a reaction to any dish I’d serve him, we could narrow it down to 3-4 ingredients and figure it out from there. I no longer saw the need to introduce things one at a time.

We had used spices since the beginning of the non-cereal foods – carrots with ginger, green beans with basil, peas with mint. So I just ramped it up a notch and started to puree (in a food processor or blender) whatever I was making. Early on he had turkey and blackeyed pea soup with collard greens. He loved a chicken, kale, tomato and corn tortilla casserole. He goes bonkers over borscht. Spaghetti squash with a beef and pancetta tomato sauce – yum! When I was eating spicy palak paneer and didn’t have his food ready yet, he ate mine eagerly rather than wait. He eats collard greens with red pepper, is comfortable with garlic and onions and has even had a taste of jalapenos.

Just in the past week or two, he has begun to reject some items – sweet potatoes and squash that he liked before, pureed roasted vegetables that he ate happily whole. I began to worry. I would really, really like to avoid having a picky eater. My husband (who had a very limited diet over many years of childhood) won’t eat anything that’s been touched by vegetables and refuses most fruits, no beans, baked or mashed potatoes and is unexcited by wholegrains. He has plenty of wonderful qualities and I know a picky eater is not the worst thing that someone could be. But it does make it very hard for us to eat together, and very boring for me to have to eat the same pot of soup day after day after day. It’s been wonderful to be able to share things with River.

I finally realized that River’s rejection was not coming from the taste, but that he’s getting sick of purees. I was giving him whole foods as snacks or desserts, but I tried to incorporate them into the meals.

On Friday night I made a chicken with vegetable tangine for guests. For River’s next two meals, I mashed the vegetables from the tangine (spiced beets, parsnips, potatoes, olives, eggplant, garlic, raisins) only slightly with a fork, together with some cooked brown rice. He loved it. Today I was running errands with him over his lunchtime and didn’t have any baby food with me. We stopped at a restaurant and figured I’d share my meal with him. I ordered a cup of cream of spinach soup and alternated bites with him. He danced with excitement. Then I got some tilapia and filled him up on chunks of fish, eaten in bite-sized pieces. For dessert he had the lemon slice from my soda. It was a healthy meal for him, and easy for me – no advance preparation needed.

I’m crossing my fingers that River’s culinary openness continues, especially when he sees what daddy’s diet is. Since dad does recognize the importance of example-setting, I’m hoping he’ll also work on eating healthier when River is around. In the meantime, I’m thrilled to share my cooking with an appreciative audience and glad that River is able to gain a good amount of vitamins and minerals from his food.

For those of you who were more adventurous in what you fed your baby, did your child continue to be open to various foods as s/he grew older?

Photos: going after the couscous at 8 months and later the same day, lemon num-nums.

If I Had to Do it Over Again

If I had it to do over again

If I had the opportunity to go through pregnancy and first childbirth again, knowing what I know now, these are the things I would do differently, and the things I would do the same.

Things I would do over:

• I would restrain my intake of sweets and other junk food during the third trimester and after the birth. Then again, maybe that indulgence was what got me through the experience emotionally. However, it also left me with some extra fat cells that are feeling at home in my body.
• Start pumping earlier – I didn’t start until six or seven weeks, when my supply was probably already established at just the level River needed. As a result, I never had excess and I didn’t get much pumping. I imagine it would have been hard to return to work and continue breastfeeding at 12 weeks. But I did enjoy the one-on-one time with baby, without having a machine attached to me as well. Maybe I’d start a bit earlier if I had it to again, but not a lot.
• Get a hospital grade pump right away – I didn’t research pumps and didn’t even realize there is a difference between hospital grades and those you can purchase in stores. I’d buy one used on ebay (as I ended up doing when River was 8 months old). Lactina Selects are now running about $350 used and seem to maintain their value pretty well.

Things I would definitely do again:

• Hire a Doula
• Have a good swing available from day 1
• Arrange for household help for the first two months – especially, someone to pass the baby off to in the mornings after sleepless nights
• Use cloth diapers
• Do prenatal yoga
• Treat myself to prenatal massages
• Get out of the house and continue on with life, taking baby along for the ride
• Have at least five months maternity leave
• Involve my husband in as many aspects of the experience as possible.