Where is this all coming from? A weird, unexpected reaction to Alaina's 9-month check up actually. In general, she's doing really well. First, the fun stuff. She is 18 pounds, 11 ounces (44th percentile), 26.75 inches (21st percentile), and her head is 17.75 (78th percentile). So she really is a little lollipop. Which I have been thinking she kind of looks like these days. :) She did really well with her two shots. Snoopy band-aids, if you were wondering.
So what went wrong? Well, nothing really. But in the waiting room, we always get a "Bright Starts" sheet that talks about milestones and what we 'should' be doing as parents. They tend to be fairly helpful and a confidence boost--"yay, I have friends who are parents that I can talk with about my struggles," "awesome! we always use a car seat, every time Alaina is in a vehicle," "look at us! we only leave her with trusted providers"--but yesterday, I noticed "feed 3 meals of solid foods," "start introducing more table foods," and "use a sippy cup" and got more overwhelmed than usual.
Parenting is a lot of work.
I fret over things that ultimately do.not.matter. Because of all of her sensitivities, Alaina has only had about 14 foods. I have seriously lost sleep at night wondering how she will possibly ever eat normal food because clearly we still have so many to go through, using a '4-days between new introduction' paradigm. Goodness, trying to imagine her eating mashed potatoes at a restaurant is enough to send me in a tizzy--before doing so, she would need to have tried white potatoes, milk/cream, butter, pepper, garlic, other seasonings, potentially other things I'm not even thinking of right now...and I'm terrified of dairy. I need to just give the kid yogurt and see what happens but I feel like before I do that, I need to meet with an allergist and have her tested. Ridiculous. She is not going to go into anaphylactic shock from a cheese cube. I am completely confident in that. So why the hesitation? And so what if at 12 months old, she isn't magically eating chicken nuggets and toddler muffins...? But how will she transition to the 1-year classroom where they feed them meals and snacks? And what about her birthday cake? She can't have frosting if she's never had dairy.
Seriously.
Yes, I hear myself.
So those were the things going through my mind before even being called back for her visit. So on the medical side of things, unfortunately, she still has/or developed a new ear infection. This is concerning because it is possibly the third ear infection since Thanksgiving. So some doctors start thinking about whether tubes are necessary (our doctor is not saying she needs tubes, just to be clear). So the pediatrician referred us to an ENT in town next week. Personally, I do not think tubes are warranted. I really, truly think this is allergies (or whatever the equivalent to allergies is in a 9-month old since allergies don't happen to babies...)/sinus issues. Chad and I both have allergies so she got hosed on the genetic lot for that particular problem. What if her ears are infected solely because she has had chronic sinusitis? Hopefully the ENT isn't 'tube happy' and will consider this as an option. Obviously if he recommends tubes, we would seek a second opinion. For now, we started her back on Suprax again. It seemed to help last time, at least while she was taking it.
The other issue we discussed at length is her lack of mobility. Although her teachers says she will roll at daycare, she almost never rolls at home (and they note that she rolls with less frequency than her peers). She is not crawling and she does not try to pull herself up. I've said before, I'm really not concerned about this. Developmental stages have long ranges of "normal". Her pediatrician also is not worried. However, she did say it might be a good idea to get a developmental evaluation just to make sure she doesn't need physical therapy. That said, while in the office, Alaina was standing with assistance and sitting up, sometimes pulling her knees to her chest. The doctor laughed at this and said this was evidence that her lack of mobility is very likely a motivation issue (or focusing her energy elsewhere, like on social or communication skills) rather than it being a gross motor delay. She noted that she has great posture and flexibility and is very limber. Anyhow, I have a call in to SoonerStart, our early intervention program for an eval. I'm actually a little excited about this because during my residency/internship, I did a number of developmental assessments for kids ages 0-3 and I've always wondered where Alaina falls in the various aspects; obviously I'm not going to test her myself. But I am a huge proponent of early intervention so if she does need therapy, I am glad we are getting assessed. Hopefully we can get some exercises to use with her at home, too.
I am trying to increase her food now, too. She's just been getting 1-2 tablespoons of food each day. So, starting today, I sent food to daycare as well. I had delayed this because I needed to order small glass bowls with lids, which came in yesterday.
And I'm alternating sippy and straw cups at dinner now.
Progress. But ridiculous how one appointment can cause such self-doubt and "mom guilt." And I didn't even get into the long, ugly thought process about nursing and preventing ear & upper respiratory infections...
But back to the topic at hand. Most moms are far more than "good enough". Long discussions with other moms about how "terrible" you are is just co-rumination at its worst and will exacerbate stress. So while it's one thing to feel terrible, I am promising myself (and my friend and her husband) not to engage in this destructive self-talk.
Anyhow, that was a whole lot of random rambling. Clearly baby girl is doing just fine. She's even starting to help around the house... ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment