Monday, February 7, 2011

Walking on Egg Shells

Today Tricky had an “egg challenge”.

No, it wasn’t an egg and spoon race for tiny tots, much to Aunty Penny’s disappointment; it was part of the allergy study he is participating in.

Since he started solids, Tricky has had one teaspoon of powdered egg in his food, once a day. Well it might be powered egg. It might just be powered rice. It’s a double blind study so we’ll only find out when it’s all over some time next year.

To be in the study he had to meet certain criteria; the child has eczema, a parent has eczema or asthma or allergies. We tick all those boxes. I’m asthmatic and am allergic to everything (even after weekly needles for six months) and Map Guy has eczema. Tricky got a bit of a raw deal.

So today he had to eat one and half teaspoons of hard boiled egg.

No bacon or sausages with it. Just egg. 

Didn't steal this image, I had fun with a marker
They were surprised he ate it so quickly… Really? It’s less than two teaspoons, which is about two mouth fulls.

Next was the questionnaire asking how many eggs does the whole family eat a month and in what form, then they went on to ask about Tricky’s food:

“How many teaspoons of food does [Tricky] eat at each meal?”

“Teaspoons? Hah!”

“Oh so a few tablespoons then?”

“Um, a couple of cups maybe?”

The look on their faces was one of absolute shock and quite possibly horror - I'm not sure because I looked away, embarrassed. Apparently eight month old babies don’t normally eat this much.

At which point I start wondering why is Tricky so different? Am I feeding him too much? I was told to feed until he turns away and refuses… he’s never actually done that. He’ll turn away to look around – at Map Guy or at Sprocket or even just at the piece of food on the floor that’s left over from the previous meal… but he always turns back for more. I’ve just stopped feeding him when I’ve run out of food.

He currently has four breastfeeds a day and three meals a day. For breakfast he has two weetbix while for lunch and dinner he’ll have a cup of mixed vegies/meat/pasta/rice plus half a cup of yoghurt, and sometimes a small plum/nectarine/half a banana.

If we’re going by those height and weight charts he’s just under the 25th percentile for weight… but over the 95th percentile for height. He’s long and skinny. A Map Guy clone.

I realize it takes a lot of energy to grow up and crawl like lightening and coast around furniture like he does, but my mother-doubt is creeping in…

So I open it up to you – did your eight month old eat this much?

{On a side note, if you Google “Egg on your face” to try and steal images for your blog, the fifth result is a picture of Fifi Box. Weird.}

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Meet Glowless at the Aussie Bloggers Conference thanks to

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