This post may be a bit.....jumbled and unclear, because it's difficult for me to put all of my thoughts in coherent order, so forgive me.
Over the past couple of months, Tyler and I have been incorporating 'big people food' into Alex's diet, so as to transition him to eating regular food instead of baby food after he turns a year old. He will be a year old this Friday. Alex loves eating 'big people food' so much, though, that he has pretty much stopped eating his baby food. He turns his face and screams when I try to give him something pureed. This would be fine and dandy in my mind if he would eat his fruits and veggies adult style, but he just won't. Well, he will his fruits, but not his veggies. He's a lot like his mother in that respect. So the pureed version that we have (which he has always loved) is his only option from me. Plus, it's cheaper for me to give them to him that way because I get it through WIC and I don't have to pay for it. So in other words, when you're poor, you eat what you have.
So, here's the dilemma. I'm trying to teach the little bugger that he's to eat what I present to him WHEN I present it to him, or else he can just go ahead and be hungry until the next meal. This is difficult to do for a couple of reasons: 1) I previously would just try to find something he liked until he ate, so he has gotten used to being catered to, and 2) It absolutely BREAKS my heart to make him be hungry. It kills me. I literally was on the verge of tears this morning. I love my little man, and I don't want him to suffer like that, but I also love him so much that I don't want him to learn to be a little brat just so he can get what he wants. To further the dilemma, he only does this when presented with baby food that has been pureed. If it's baby food that I pay for that I can't get through WIC (anything with chunks in it), he'll gobble it up. He just hates pureed food. BUT, he needs to eat it for health and financial reasons.
As a result of the things listed, I keep going in a loop of thoughts in my mind. It pretty much goes like this; "He needs to eat his fruits and veggies, but he hates to eat them this way even though he's almost ALWYAS had them this way. So why is he too good for them NOW? I should just buy whole fruits and veggies and prepare them differently for him, but we can't afford to do it that way. Well, not daily, anyway. We could do it three times a week, I guess. Does he need to eat fruits and veggies more than three times a week? Tyler wants me to teach him to eat what I present to him, and I want the same thing, but if he can't verbally communicate with us, then I hate to force anything like that on him, because he can't tell us exactly WHY he won't eat it. But I'm also confused because he won't eat the containers of pureed food, but he will eat the pureed food out of the pouches that he can suck on, so what's the difference? The delivery?"
It's quite the conundrum. So, I need opinions and advice to sift through until I find something I feel will help. Please let me know what you think.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
"Bad Parenting"
Yesterday while in the Goodwill, I was told that I was a bad parent by an older woman roughly in her mid sixties. Now, before I tell my story, it's REALLY important that I give some background on my son Alex and my parenting style.
*Ahem*....
Alex is very intelligent. He has ALWAYS been a mimicker. He mimicks sounds we make, faces we make, and things we do. It's all a game to him. However, this amusing trait of his has actually helped him to become verbal at a very early age. Since he was ten months old (he is now 11 months old), he has been able to communicate with Tyler (my husband) and myself verbally, though it's very limited (what else can you expect of a 10-month-old infant?). We have taught him to say the following words and he understands their meanings: up, please, yay, I did it, boo, hi, bye. So, when he wants us to pick him up, we have him say, "up, please." He WILL say it. Often times he'll say it before we even ask him to. Other times we have to coax him to say it. Sometimes he throws a tantrum before he finally says it. If he doesn't say it, we don't pick him up (if he is injured or if something is wrong, we don't follow this procedure. We simply pick him up and console him). I don't want my son to learn that throwing a tantrum gets him what he wants.
SO.....that being said, here is my story....
Yesterday, my younger sister, Clara, and I were at the Goodwill. Alex was sitting in the basket (because he weighs 21 pounds and I'm pregnant). After a few minutes, he decided he wanted out of the basket. I didn't want him on the floor, and I didn't much feel like holding him, nor did Clara, because he is SO FRICKEN HEAVY, so I gently told him that he was not allowed out of the basket. About five to ten minutes later he was still a bit whiny and putting his arms out to be picked up, so I decided that I would hold him. I told him, "Say 'up please.'" He got frustrated, squirmed and starting whining louder. I gently told him 'no' and asked him again. After about two minutes of this, I looked up to see a woman in her mid sixties staring at me with a look of absolute disgust on her face, as if I had just slapped my son. She looked me right in the eye and said, "He's just a baby!" I responded by saying, "Oh, he's really smart. He can say it, he does all of the time." She then said very nastily, "You're not training a DOG, it's a BABY." I decided this was going nowhere pleasant, so I proceeded to walk away from her. My younger sister, however, got into a nasty argument with her in which the woman told her I was, in many different words, a bad, emotionally abusive mother, to which my sister responded by saying that she was an old hag that needed to mind her own business because it wasn't HER child to be giving pointers about in the first place. Much more was said, but I don't recall the exact details.
So, in a nutshell I was profusely offended by her remarks, because I did nothing harmful in any way to my son. I never raised my voice at him, I wasn't physically rough with him, I didn't even ignore him. I just asked him to verbally communicate with me in a way he already knows how so that he will learn to get what he wants in the appropriate way. I though I was teaching Alex valuable life lessons. Apparently all I was doing was training him like a dog.
My bad.
*Ahem*....
Alex is very intelligent. He has ALWAYS been a mimicker. He mimicks sounds we make, faces we make, and things we do. It's all a game to him. However, this amusing trait of his has actually helped him to become verbal at a very early age. Since he was ten months old (he is now 11 months old), he has been able to communicate with Tyler (my husband) and myself verbally, though it's very limited (what else can you expect of a 10-month-old infant?). We have taught him to say the following words and he understands their meanings: up, please, yay, I did it, boo, hi, bye. So, when he wants us to pick him up, we have him say, "up, please." He WILL say it. Often times he'll say it before we even ask him to. Other times we have to coax him to say it. Sometimes he throws a tantrum before he finally says it. If he doesn't say it, we don't pick him up (if he is injured or if something is wrong, we don't follow this procedure. We simply pick him up and console him). I don't want my son to learn that throwing a tantrum gets him what he wants.
SO.....that being said, here is my story....
Yesterday, my younger sister, Clara, and I were at the Goodwill. Alex was sitting in the basket (because he weighs 21 pounds and I'm pregnant). After a few minutes, he decided he wanted out of the basket. I didn't want him on the floor, and I didn't much feel like holding him, nor did Clara, because he is SO FRICKEN HEAVY, so I gently told him that he was not allowed out of the basket. About five to ten minutes later he was still a bit whiny and putting his arms out to be picked up, so I decided that I would hold him. I told him, "Say 'up please.'" He got frustrated, squirmed and starting whining louder. I gently told him 'no' and asked him again. After about two minutes of this, I looked up to see a woman in her mid sixties staring at me with a look of absolute disgust on her face, as if I had just slapped my son. She looked me right in the eye and said, "He's just a baby!" I responded by saying, "Oh, he's really smart. He can say it, he does all of the time." She then said very nastily, "You're not training a DOG, it's a BABY." I decided this was going nowhere pleasant, so I proceeded to walk away from her. My younger sister, however, got into a nasty argument with her in which the woman told her I was, in many different words, a bad, emotionally abusive mother, to which my sister responded by saying that she was an old hag that needed to mind her own business because it wasn't HER child to be giving pointers about in the first place. Much more was said, but I don't recall the exact details.
So, in a nutshell I was profusely offended by her remarks, because I did nothing harmful in any way to my son. I never raised my voice at him, I wasn't physically rough with him, I didn't even ignore him. I just asked him to verbally communicate with me in a way he already knows how so that he will learn to get what he wants in the appropriate way. I though I was teaching Alex valuable life lessons. Apparently all I was doing was training him like a dog.
My bad.
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