During skin-to-skin time, when my preemie was just a couple of days old, he mustered all his strength, picked his head up, opened his tiny mouth wide, and dove for my nipple.
He missed.
His whole face scrunched up in outrage and he opened his mouth again to wail with frustration. My new-mama heart almost collapsed in on itself. And since then, since the beginning, he has remained what you’d call food-motivated.
My full-term baby? Well, she’s another story.
People often talk about how different their children are, and were from the beginning. I figured mine would be the same. My son is a quiet observer; perhaps my daughter would be a joiner. He was a late walker, so maybe she’d be on the earlier side. I didn’t think about the mundane things, like appetite. But this difference in them has really thrown me for a loop.
My daughter latched on with a bit of help and encouragement, but was extremely sleepy the whole time we were in the hospital. This is common and I knew the tricks to keep her awake, but she was just not that interested. She slept for five hours straight her first night on earth. I didn’t really sleep, but she was out and I couldn’t bring myself to wake her. I thought of this three days later, at our first doctor’s visit, when they declared she’d lost too much weight. We were told to feed her every two hours for the next 24 hours and then return for a weight check.
I had failed. Immediately and continuously. I basically let her starve that first night.
On some level, I’ve felt this way ever since. She’s 15 months old now and eating has never gotten easy.
Once my son got the hang of it, he was a champion nurser and also had zero problems with bottles. What he did have was extreme reflux, requiring three daily doses of a proton-pump inhibitor. I gave up all dairy and soy so I could continue to nurse him. Before we made those changes, before the medicine, he was miserable. But he still wanted to nurse…even though that was causing the pain! He had obvious and dramatic reflux symptoms, but weight loss was not one of them.
My daughter has never (and I really mean never) nursed for comfort. She didn’t reliably drink from a bottle until she was almost one year old. And for most of that time I was working. When something is bothering her, the first thing she does is stop eating. I discovered this when she got her first cold at two months and nursed so little that my supply suffered greatly. This has happened every time she’s been sick, but also when teething, overtired, or annoyed. The pattern carried over to solid food and continues today.
We started both kids on solids in a similar fashion. Lots of flavors right off the bat, including spices and herbs. We paid no mind to “kid food.” Our son happily ate curried salmon and blue cheese. He tested us every now and then but we held firm. “This is what we have to eat! And that’s all we have for this meal.” It largely worked. He’s still a pretty adventurous eater.
My daughter—well, she found bananas disgusting. No way to avocado. Hard pass to rice cereal plus vanilla and cinnamon. For a while she would eat shredded cheese but not sliced. Never sliced.
We quickly realized her assumption about all food offered was IT’S POISON. Every now and then, if she tried it, she’d decide it was indeed food—but even when she liked something, that was no guarantee for next time. She’s still the baby who often won’t try things. And I mean simple things. I have never seen the child put a kernel of corn in her mouth. We offered her scrambled eggs approximately 25 times before she tasted them and was like “Huh, those aren’t bad.” Now she eats them about 75 percent of the time. This is a huge win. Also she currently eats all kinds of cheese and I’m pretty sure this is the only reason she’s growing.
This all makes for some amusing anecdotes, and I hope to one day laugh at every memory. But right now it is seriously stressful. My daughter has a few things she’s likely to eat, but nothing is certain. The hardball approach that worked with my son—here’s what we have, this or nothing—doesn’t work with her. She will just refuse multiple meals and get really cranky. Also, because she has remained on the small side, I’m always worried about her caloric intake.
Sometimes it feels like every meal is a battle, and the food that goes to waste is nothing to sneeze at.
Luckily, when my son’s around, he’s happy to eat what she’s discarded.
