I’m convinced Avery, and probably a lot of other babies are all aware of yo-yo dieting! Maybe babies were the ones that actually started the whole fad diet! Most likely (and realistically) not, but maybe…
As defined by Dictionary.com:
yo-yo dieting
How often do you and others around you make a comment about baby’s chubby legs, Michelin Man arms, or fat cheeks? I know Going Mom and I are guilty of saying something like this about Avery every day. To us, it’s cute, but to them, weeeelllllll maybe they are really concerned about their figure.
In being so concerned about their “chubby” figure, I think that’s why babies refuse the bottle, real food put in front of them, and sometimes even the boob. One day they will be eating like champs, but the next day you’re lucky just to get them to eat anything! Uh oh, did you mention something about their giant cheeks some time in between?
Okay, again, this sounds pretty farfetched, but doesn’t it feel that way sometimes?
Avery has days where she’ll happily and easily accept the bottle from me and we’re all good. Then, other days, she’ll start out fine for like a minute, and then push out with her tongue and turn her head side to side. I eventually get the message and reluctantly give up.
Just the other week she was tearing through herbottles to where everything Going Mom left for us in the fridge was gone. I was feeling pretty proud of myself and I was even happy to get up early in the morning when she was crying for food.
Kelley is an awesome mom and gets up in the wee hours to feed Avery even though she has to go to work. On occasion, I will go to feed Avery a bottle instead so Kelley can get a little more rest, and it can be a hassle. Trying to feed a squirmy baby with a bottle in the dark is hard, but when they refuse the thing, it’s down right impossible!
So, that was last week and we had gotten used to thinking she’s going to be eating more from here on out. Rookie parents here, checking in! Avery is now back on her bottle boycott and we fight to the last ounce just like times before.
All of this fluctuation in eating is apparently a normal baby thing, but I’m holding out and saying there’s a .000328% chance that babies know about and practice yo-yo dieting.
Which brings me to my other speculation about babies and eating; introducing solids. We recently started to introduce Avery to solid foods through baby-led weaning with zero success so far. The first day we blamed it on her being too tired and fussy, but the second try she was awake and was happy. Then we put her in the highchair.
If you look close enough, I think you can see two horns starting to poke out of her forehead.
We’ve tried a few times since then all with no luck. Being the college-educated parents that we are, we knew it couldn’t be the food that’s making her mad, so it must be the highchair. Deductive reasoning at its finest!
With our revelation, we tried offering food with her in the best baby seat in the house hoping for better results. I even showed her how fun and exciting a green bean can be!
She wasn’t buying it. I mean, c’mon, doesn’t it look exciting? No? So maybe she just doesn’t like green; I’ll try a pretty carrot!
Crap, we’re running out of things to blame it on other than that she’s a baby and doing anything new takes time…….and A LOT of patience!
Although we really don’t like the highchair we have, I guess we’ll stop making up reasons why Avery isn’t immediately taking to new food. So we’ll have patience and keep on trying, and as some of you have commented, maybe I’ll give in and offer something sweeter. 🙂
But seriously, we are thinking about returning our Chicco Polly highchair to get something else. The tray is just annoying at how it slides off, and on and the crotch strap under the tray catches Avery’s feet when we try to slide it on.
What kind of highchair do/did you use? Please let us know what worked for you as maybe it will at least help Avery figure out this new way of eating!
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Hehe, you know, I think you may be on to something with this whole yo-yo dieting being an idea started by babies 😉 All jokes aside, though, it *is* totally normal. I find that the “down” periods usually coincide with the end of a growth spurt (or the beginning of a cold).
With regards to the highchair. We bought a fancy schmancy one (the Graco 3-in-1 or something like that) and I loved it…until the little guy actually started to eat solids. There are so many nooks and crannies; it is really hard to get it cleaned properly. If I were to start over, I’d go with a basic all-plastic chair that I could just hose down outside (I’ve heard IKEA’s Antilop high chair is great in that regards).
Yes, babies just might be behind more than we think! 🙂
Thanks for the info on the highchair, I think we’ll be looking for an Ikea soon! And hey, maybe she’ll actually eat in it!
Ikea antilop. It was really cheap, and you can literally hose it off (outdoors).
She’s fairly normal, it can take a while for them to get the hang of things. My advice would be to relax and enjoy your meal, keeping an eye on her, but just letting her interact with the food on her own.
There’s a saying “Food is for fun until age one.” She’ll be getting nearly all her calories from milk. I think our guy didn’t actually swallow much food until he was maybe 8 months or so, and even now at 9 months he doesn’t eat much.
The first foods he actually ate were avocado, banana, and the cheesy insides of tortellini. Not all together though, that would be weird lol.
Okay, with you and the other commenter mentioning Ikea, I think we just might do that. First we need to figure out how to return what we have…hmmm
I do get really uptight when it comes to food, but I’ve become a lot better now that we have Avery. So yeah, I’ll take your advice and just relax more; thank you! I keep forgetting we’re still giving her breast milk and she doesn’t “need” solids right away. Guess it might be time to break out the avocado and bananas soon!
He-he Yo-yo
Inspiring post and adorable. Love it!
Thank you, always good to see others enjoy my posts! Appreciate you reading and commenting! Hope you can enjoy future posts as well!