I'm Back

Back from what you may ask? No I have not gone on any fabulous trips as of late, I am back from spring craziness! Although I am no longer doing my garden maintenance business I did do a few annual jobs, four to be exact, to make some extra cash. So it may not seem like much but it took quite a bit of juggling. All the while squeezing in family visitors, brief couch surfers and normal house hold /baby duties. I am back(!) and today after putting Breeze down for her nap I actually thought to myself. "What should I do now?" I  didn't have a million things to do before she wakes up. Ok well there is laundry, but its down stairs and easy to ignore!
     In my last post Breeze was almost 6 months and we were about to leave for Florida for 10 days(yes it was as good as it sounds!) She just started to to eat solids. Well I am happy to say that Breeze eats all kinds if food! Anything I give her she eats, it truly is a blessing! Lets just pray that it continues.  I stopped giving her rice cereal cause she just didn't like it. I tried it, terrible stuff. So I switched to the oatmeal, which is good and started adding fruits to it. I follow the four day rule, a new food every four days in case of a reaction. So as of now she has had mango, blue berry's, banana, pears, peaches, yellow, acorn, butternut squash, sweet potato, roasted garlic(yes really), white potatoes, brussel sprouts, apples, cauliflower, So delicious coconut yogurt,avocado, prunes..I think that's it. I am always looking for something new, oh and cinnamon! Yes she ate it all and with gusto. Next on the list is beets! I have been using this great website called www.wholesomebabyfood.com tons of great information. 
       So giving Breeze solids is the same as starting any other baby on solids, as you can tell from the list. Although I am giving her the coconut yogurt instead of dairy. You don't see peas on the food list, nor will you. They are very high in phe and not even worth giving.  The goal right now is to give her 60 mg of phe a day from solids. I use my scale and I weigh out food for her meals and write in down in a log that I have. So for example for breakfast this morning she had 1 gram of oat meal(6.3 mg phe/g) 30 grams of mango(.17 mg phe/g) and 32 grams yogurt(.16 mg phe/g) So then I just calculate the grams times the amount she ate for every item and add it together to get her total phe for the meal. So that meal was 16.5 mg/phe so now we have 43.5 mg left to get from food for the rest of the day. Now one thing to remember is there are no emergencies with PKU, and if she is still hungry and she has had all her "allowed" amount from food, I don't cut her off. She leads the way in this journey, if she starts eating more I give her more and we bump up her allowable amount from food. Nursing and formula will  adjust themselves. But it is still very important(as it always will be) for her to drink her formula, and breast milk. So she gets that first.As you can tell it would make things more difficult if she was a picky eater or wouldn't finish food she has started cause I would have to recalculate.
        Since starting solids her levels have been with in range to even a little low. I am going to start doing the blood draws myself so we no longer have to go into the hospital. Over all Breeze is doing great. Her little personality is blossoming and she is very talkative and happy. She is so much fun and I am lovin every minute of it! I think I hear her now...chatting in her crib.