Mommy worry and solid food

When presented with the probability of becoming a mommy, no one plans to be the continually worrying type of one. We initially refuse to obsess about such mundane things as diapers and their content, strained peas or even ridiculously cute baby clothes. We steadfastly vow not to let the baby slow us down. We certainly won't fret about every little thing.

We tell our bachelor friends our plans, and they commend us. "Babies pretty much take care of themselves anyway," they remind us. "After all, what do they do except sleep and eat?" We take heart.

We tell our mommy friends our plans, and they smile and nod. "Sleep when the baby sleeps," they tell us more often than not. We laugh and say we're already sleeping terribly thanks to our giant tummies and tiny bladders and assure them it can't get any worse. They go home and get the last laugh in private so as not to hurt our feelings.

And then we're plunged into the thick of mommyhood with nothing but a sea of pain and hospital food to transition us. We're shown how to bathe a newborn and sent home with a small pamphlet on how to take care of a baby.

This is often the extent of our preparation for mommyhood.

We leaf through the pamphlet a week later and notice, to our shock and dismay, that Juniorette isn't following the carefully bulleted (but not proofread) guidelines. Now what?

And so the worry begins.

Eight months of intense sleep-deprivation later (that's right, Kalina has lapsed into her former ways of waking at least once during the night), and I'm a chronic mommy worrier. Can you blame me?

For instance, my day is now planned around whatever I think will make the baby sleep through the night. Having at least skimmed every mainstream book on baby sleep, I have a virtual checklist I go through each day, making sure she gets enough floor time, walking time, Mommy time, Daddy time, learning time, naps and quiet time. And heaven forbid she catnap between sleep periods in the carseat.

Really, it's a lot of pressure: one toy too many and the baby is too overstimulated to sleep through the night. One toy too few and she's not tired enough. Is it any wonder she wakes up? I never knew babies were so complex.

All while hearing over and over "there's not much you can do, really, but try these few things..."

Which brings me to my next point: there's the one thing that all the old wives swear will help Baby sleep through the night, that all the scientists say is hogwash: solid food.

Secretly, I believe the old wives. So when Kalina refuses to eat any solids, I understandably begin to worry. (Freak)

When we started Kalina on solids, she loved them. She'd eat anything we dished into her little mouth, even the occasional accidental cat hair. This continued for a blissful month or so.

Sometime after her half birthday, however, Kalina decided she was done with solid foods. "That was fun, guys," she seemed to say. "But really, haven't I had enough?" And she'd clamp her little lips tightly closed, turn her head and give us every sign in the world that she wasn't letting the spoon in.

I wouldn't have been so desperate to feed her had not the introduction of several rather large solid-food meals every day corresponded nicely with the advent of sleeping through the night--something she held to for almost two weeks before reverting in the worst way. The old wives chattered amongst themselves, and I couldn't help but overhear: could solid foods be the root issue?

But the books told me not to force the issue, and that it's fine if Kalina only eats a bite or two of solid food a day. Fine for who? I wanted to ask/scream. I would imagine that in order to write a book, the authors were getting somewhat more than a couple 1- to 2-hour stretches of sleep at night. Then again, these same books swear there's no correlation.

And so, like many desperate mommies across the centuries, I tried to force the issue. We pureed anything I could possibly puree. We tried finger foods. We tried adding cinnamon. We experimented with temperatures and consistencies. We tried eating while playing. We tried taking bites off of Mommy's banana. We almost tried cake, but my better sense got the best of me.

Kalina is a force to be reckoned with, however, and would still have none of it. Well, almost. She would happily eat the occasional large solid-food meal. For all I could figure out, the incidence of this is entirely, unnervingly random.

I discovered that when I pretended I didn't care whether she ate or not, sang to her or recited nursery rhymes or read to her in Spanish from the back of the Cheerios box throughout the meal, bribed her with Cheerios and spread a veritable feast of possible foods to try across the table, I could get the baby to eat a few extra bites. And so I did. Mealtime turned into a huge occasion--sometimes we even sent cards and exchanged gifts.

Then better sense got the best of me and I plunked her down at the table while Matt and I ate. That night she dined on chicken, peas, carrots, brown rice and cottage cheese. It worked!

The next day it didn't (nor did anything else). The day after that she happily ate a bowl of baby oatmeal with pureed banana.

And that brings us to this morning, and back to the original point: until all babies sleep peacefully through the night, eat everything we give them, poop uniformly, maintain a constant, safe body temperature and never topple over while learning new tricks, and never so much as get an itch in the middle of their back they can't scratch nor tell anyone about, there will be mommy worry.