Monday, July 29, 2013

Mommy's New Diet

On Friday hubby and I had big plans... none of which actually happened.  Instead we had our first non-well baby visit to the clinic.

My poor little baby had been really fussy and having some issues with bright green poop.  We took him in to the closest clinic for a weight check and he was up to 9 pounds 5 ounces!  So he is still gaining weight!  (Yay!)  But he has been very fussy, especially after eating, and has been having some very green poop.  Lime green.  Poor little guy.  I did my research on KellyMom (which is an amazing website with all kinds of new mommy advice) but I was still nervous that something could be very wrong.  KellyMom said that the issues could be due to a foremilk-hindmilk imbalance, but I was able to rule that out because we already do everything the way they had listed to fix this problem.  The next culprit that was listed could be an allergy.  They said the most common allergy for infants is a protein in dairy products.  I was on a mission to cut out dairy from my diet.  This is really hard.  Almost everything that I eat seems to have dairy in it.

It had been a few days of kind of trying to stick to my no-dairy diet and there hadn't really been results.  It had been almost a whole week of the fussiness and green poop.  I kept wondering if maybe something else was wrong.  I called to ask the nurse if I should really be worried.  She said the doctor was a bit concerned, so it would be best for us to come in and have our little man checked out.  They squeezed us in for an appointment.  I will admit that I was a bit of a crazy mess while we were in the appointment.  The doctor was checking him over.  Cameron was crying, like a heartbreaking "why isn't my mommy saving me!?" kind of cry.  So I cried, too.

There is just nothing like not being sure if something is wrong with your baby.  And I'm already an emotional person.  Want an example?  I cried at the horse commercial that Budweiser had for the Superbowl.  Sobbed, actually.  I could try to blame pregnancy hormones, but clearly that had nothing to do with it.  You can watch it here, if you want.  (Go ahead and laugh, but I am sure if I watched it again I would cry just as much as I did the first time.)  Anyway, I'm not surprised that an unexpected baby appointment would make me cry.  I would be more surprised if I was able to make it through the appointment without shedding a tear.

The doctor didn't find anything wrong with Cameron.  What a relief!  However, she did agree that I should definitely cut dairy out of my diet.  But that's not all!  She also told me to cut out processed meats (she actually said "no processed foods" but her focus was on meats, so that's where I will start).  No more lunch meat.  No more hot dogs!  No ice cream.... no cheese... I basically left the appointment wondering what in the world I am going to eat.  If you've been following my blog, you know that the only thing I ever really wanted to eat throughout pregnancy was a cold lunchmeat sandwich (with cheese on it, obviously).  Apparently me and sandwiches are just not meant to be.  I am convinced that this will be the healthiest I have ever eaten.  I guess there is no time like now to force myself to learn how to cook.

I am very thankful that some of our veggies survived our garden flood.  It makes it easier to eat non-processed food when I can run down to the garden and pick veggies.  Hurray for lettuce!  We have an abundance of green beans, so I guess I will be eating a lot of those, too.  I'm a little bummed that all but a few of our snow peas were washed away in the storm the weekend Cameron was born... And the ones that survived aren't looking too good.  I've also discovered unsweetened almond milk, so at least I can still eat cereal.

We will see how this goes.  I don't have any intentions of switching him to formula so it's really good motivation to stick to a strict diet.  So if you hear me complaining, which I'm sure I will, just ignore me.      



I love snuggles with my baby and puppy (she's a big puppy, but she's still a puppy to me!)

2 comments:

  1. I had to cut dairy out for 6 months with Will (I should have done 8, but dinked around with it for the first 2 months of his life, poor kiddo). It made a HUGE difference in fussiness once it was out of my system (supposedly it takes 2 weeks), but man was it hard! I feel like its especially hard with the typical Midwestern farm diet, because so much of what we eat is dairy based!

    Anyways, it will get easier as you go on. The hardest is eating out, and eating at other people's houses. A of times they just don't think about the dairy in something (milk in bread, butter in sweets, etc). We ate a lot of the same things, I just didn't use dairy products - substituted guacamole on tacos, etc. Actually, I ate a lot of avocados. They're good for you, and they add a lot to sandwiches (can you still eat tuna? avocados on a tuna wrap is really yummy!).

    Good luck!

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  2. Omg I totally cried at that commercial too! Crazy postpartum hormones! Ugh I am not jealous of your new diet! Check out the blog honey we're healthy- she is big on clean eating! All things g d has some good recipes too!

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