‘Vai-chose-to-be-hungry’ week
Now that it’s all over (I hope!), I’ll write and share a little bit of what happened last week. Or to be exact, from Wednesday to Sunday.
It all started last Wednesday morning when Vai just suddenly was NOT interested in ANY meals. I mean, he’d look away and completely REFUSE to open his mouth. He’d SCREAM and CRY whenever I insisted.
And if I somehow managed to get some food (however fresh, soft, tender or yummy) into his mouth, he’d spit it out immediately, OR kept it in his mouth, un-chewed, and let it DRIP slowly out of his mouth soon after.
Mealtimes were such a struggle! (for both of us, I guess).
And frankly, I’ve lost count of the many different approaches I’ve tried, just to get him to eat something.
Over the five days (wed – sun), the total amount of food that went into his tummy was closely equivalent to the amount he’d usually eat in 1.5 days! It was really bad.
Over those five days, his meal portion would be something like:
Breakfast: boiled egg (half of it)
Lunch: 10 – 15 pieces of ONLY green peas!
Afternoon tea: two small cubes of papaya
Dinner: two spoonfuls of rice and vegie
The only thing that he really welcomed was breastmilk! (He completely refused formula too). Throughout the day AND at night, he asked to be breastfed SO often that I decided to pop an extra dose of my usual multi-vitamin!
He’d wake up crying at night pretty frequently and became more clingy.
He came down with a rather high fever (over 39 deg Celsius) last wednesday too. After I gave him some paracetamol, twice, once in the evening and another the next morning, he was completely okay.
And oh, the drooling! It was SO excessive that at times it’d just drip down like a water tap that wasn’t properly turned off!
The whole going-hungry thing got slightly better on Sunday evening. AND, on monday morning he was completely back to normal. He even asked for food, saying ‘Mum-mum…’ pretty often throughout the day.
Formula was still not well received (but wasn’t as bad as last week!). The drooling went back to normal too!
Really. It was just too weird!
And my verdict: it’s his teething phase!
Now, since last Monday, he’s eating well again. Err… mealtimes are still VERY messy though because he strongly insists on self-feeding, using his hands, a spoon and/or a fork, moving his food from one bowl to another!
[And so I now spread out sheets of newspaper below his babychair. It makes cleaning up after his super-messy mealtimes so much better!]
Ah. I’m just happy he’s eating and getting the nutrients he needs again.
PS: [top photo] Vai’s finishing up his pasta earlier today (and judging from the amount of mess on the table, he just started his meal NOT that long ago).
Nowadays, whenever he’s having pasta or noodles, he’d usually eat about 70% of it all by himself. The mess goes all over though. Including his face, arms, legs, hair, you name it.
