Eating

I haven't blogged in a while - mostly because we had a fantastic trip to the US, and it's been a bit hard to get adjusted to life back here. I haven't been too inspired, unfortunately.

Today, it's Sunday in the middle of the week (Tuesday - it's National Day, so we have the day off work), so I'm a bit lifted. Overall, since we got back we have been busy. We had visits from Erin and Joe, and Talia and Andrew, and they were all great. We got to do fun tourist things, and Sam loved the extra attention (as if three adults and one cat isn't enough...). We haven't had too many visitors, so it was really nice to share our life here with friends. Talia's coming back tomorrow for another day or so, and then I don't believe we have another visitor until October or November.

Once our visitors left (for Thailand and Bali - poor them...), we have tried to get back into life. I've been going to yoga, after a really long break since I was in Bangladesh, India and the US for six weekends in a row! We have relaxed a lot, and we have finally started to see some Singapore friends again.

Today we did our favourite hike (I have written about it a few times) around Macritchie Reservoir with Therese and Vishal. We saw a few monkeys and a flying lemur or something on a tree, and we had a really nice (and to be honest, a bit difficult for me to keep pace with the others!) walk. Sam was super happy for all of it - except for when she was sleeping. She was a champ, as it was HOT HOT HOT!

Enough catching up - so Sam is ten months. When we went to the doctor when she was five months, the doctor said that Samara was ready to eat. She said it would take some "pumping pressure off" if she got calories from food, so she suggested starting feeding her. So we did. And we did this everyday since Sam was five months. Until today (minus about three or four). Sam did not eat. There were two times when she brought papaya to her mouth. But other than those, literally, Sam has never taken food from a spoon. She has never taken a cheerio in her mouth. She has gagged, thrown up, flipped out and overall totally just never eaten solids.

I tried to not worry - babies do things at different times. But then I got home and "someone" told me that we might need to see a therapist and that this is not normal. Then we saw a pediatrician at Michigania, and she sort of laughed it off and said (like my pediatrician here) - KEEP trying.

We always put music on. We danced. We smiled. We sang. We made rhymes. We counted. We looked at colours. We have tried super pureed foods - baby foods, phase 1 and 2, we ground our own food. We gave her overcooked vegetables (at least five different kinds). We tried salmon. We tried many different types of fruit. We mashed. We boiled. We left whole. We seriously tried everything. No success.

A week and a half ago, I got more worried, so I called the pediatrician here, and they said to bring her in. Samara was diagnosed with Oral Sensitivity. She also said that Samara can get all that she needs from formula for a long while, so rather than focusing on how much Sam eats, we should focus on getting a variety of tastes and textures.

So, of course, I google (bad idea if you're a mom or pregnant). Many babies or kids with this don't take hot or cold. They don't put things in their mouths. They don't brush their teeth. Sam's totally not like that. She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth (except food). She likes cold teethers. She doesn't care if her milk is cold, warm, room temperature. She loves brushing her teeth. When she sees the toothbrush, she basically sticks out her cute little teeth. She didn't seem as serious as most of the babies, but there was definitely still a problem.

I think that Sam listened to Dr. Belinda and didn't want to be like that. That was last Friday, and since then, she has almost turned a corner. She put a spoon with yogurt on it in her mouth multiple times. (we don't really try to feed her anymore - we don't want it to become a control thing - so we let her do it herself). She put papaya in her mouth. She ate watermelon and kept going for more. She even ate a bit of baby food for the first time. Today she even ate a french fry. Even though she's still not getting nutrients or calories from the food, at least it shows us that she WILL eat, she does not need to gag all the time (only minimally!), and most likely, she will be totally fine.

It has been a wee bit stressful, though.