Fruits & Veggies

Since Evy was about 14 months old, his worrisome diet has been very limited, and has remained almost exactly the same as time has gone by: Milk, Toast with Peanut Butter or Nutella, crackers, bear paws, sometimes Cinnamon Raisin Bagels, dry cereal such as Vector, Cheerios, or Fruit Loops, Nutrigrain Bars, Squishem’s (for those who might not know, those are pureed foods in a pouch), yogurt, and more recently he started having half of my non-GMO certified protein bars every day (for the fat and protein content). Seriously, this is his ENTIRE food repertoire!!  You can only imagine how much worry this used to cause us! To our parental eyes, this extremely limited diet doesn’t seem sufficient; what about fruits, veggies, MEATS?!! Isn’t a balanced diet key for our health?

Well, a balanced diet IS key, this is absolutely true. But, when we saw a feeding clinic specialist at SSCY in Winnipeg last October, it came to our great surprise to learn that in actuality Evy is getting most of what he needs afterall! You might be wondering how on earth that’s possible…and I’ll admit that I didn’t quite believe this specialist at first either!…it just seemed so odd that someone could get almost everything they need from such a limited diet! However, as the months have gone by, she has seen him a couple more times, and we have seen him growing & progressing, so we know that she indeed was right after all. Iron, Protein, Vitamin C & D are what they call the “Core Four” in childhood nutrition, and Evy gets all of those: he gets his daily iron intake from 1 cup of healthy dry cereal, calcium from the homogenized milk, vitamins (such as C) from the Squishem’s, fat & protein from the non-GMO protein bars we pay a small fortune for (well worth it, by the way!!), and most of the time seemed to be getting a sufficient number of calories as well. I added in a liquid Omega 3 to his milk, and Poly Vi Sol (a baby liquid vitamin) to make sure that he was getting those extras as well. So, we breathed a small sigh of relief…but only for a very short amount of time…

Early in 2018, Evy decided to go on strike against those pureed organic baby food pouches we call Squishem’s. This meant that he now ate ZERO fruits and ZERO veggies. Yikes!! I didn’t even feel GOOD about his fruit & veggie intake before, when he was getting them in that pureed processed form…that didn’t feel “healthy” or “real” enough to me! So once he stopped eating them even in that form, I felt even worse. No more true source of vitamin C whatsoever. Needless to say, this has had us slightly stressed ever since…because, how can our little Bug’s brain grow and form new connections if he isn’t getting proper nutrition?!!

But guess what: it seems today that the strike is over!!

We got home about an hour ago, and I sat down with him patiently, opened a NEW kind that is made with beetroot juice and asked him to try it. At first, he pushed it away, but I kept calm & said “please try it sweetie, it’s yummy and so good for you”. He still clenched his teeth a bit…but I inserted the little nozzle towards the back of his mouth, just along the outer edge of his teeth, and squeezed just a tiny drop in. He winced his eyes, and kind of shook his head…but he didn’t get upset, nor did he spit it out or gag so hard that he would throw up (as he has other times). He SWALLOWED IT! My heart jumped for joy, and I wanted to shout “whoohoo!!!”!! But I didn’t want to startle him of course, so I smiled and gave him an encouraging “that’s my boy!”.  I continued, gently and slowly offering him tiny bits more. And now, he has eaten half of it. This may not seem like much, but after countless months of no sign of him ever entertaining the idea of purees again, this is a godsend!!

I could have literally danced for joy! (and I totally would have, had I not been so busy trying to keep the dog calm & quiet while workers finished cleaning our duct system, ha!!) Our little man’s development will only do better & better with some REAL fruits & veggies in his system!! What a wonderful gift today has brought 🙂

I never thought a simple pureed pouch of baby food could bring so much happiness!