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A Day In The Life
I’m keeping it short and sweet today. Just got home from a day of work and although I love being able to get in there, see a few patients and do a little teaching, I’m bushed. Especially since Eva is still recovering from her latest viral whatever and I’m feeling a bit sleep deprived. So I’m just going to share a few quotes from my day at work.
Me: It would be simpler to ask me when my children haven’t been sick in the last 6 months. I can tell you: the first 2 weeks of January.
Trainee ER doctor: Yeah, that Gina Ford. She’s kind of insane.
Trainee Pediatric ER doctor: my childproofing is pretty lame. I mean, you can’t protect them from everything.
My colleague: I finally just said to them, “Look, all my children are fully immunized. In fact, I don’t know a single pediatrician who hasn’t immunized his or her children. That should tell you something.”
I think you can infer a lot from those lines, can’t you? My children are perfectly average, having their 10 viral illnesses a year. There is no approach to parenting that works for every baby or every parent. Childproofing isn’t a guarantee anyway; I locked up the really dangerous stuff, threw up a couple baby gates and used masking tape everywhere else while they learn, “No.” (And they’ve got it! They stick their little fingers 2 inches from a safety-plugged electrical outlet and look over at me, heads shaking back and forth. Stinkers.) And I don’t think I need to say anything about that last line, do I?
Apple Juice. The Devil?
Okay. Well aware that I’m getting some nasty looks for giving fruit juice a bum rap. That’s probably because many parents believe that fruit juice is good for their kids. Can’t get him to eat an apple? Give him a box of juice. After all, it’s all-natural and has to have some of the goodness of real fruit, doesn’t it?
The reality is that excessive juice consumption has been blamed for malnutrition (either over or underweight kids), diarrhea, tooth decay, and a disturbing desire to wear Fruit of the Loom. Okay, I made the last part up. But the problem with kids drinking too much juice is a very real one for pediatricians. Juice is lacking in most of the fiber and nutrients found in real fruit. Fortified juices might have calcium or vitamins, but they end up replacing other foods in a child’s diet that contain “real nutrition.” (I could elaborate but I assume you’ve other things to do today.)
The problem is big enough that the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement on “The Use and Misuse of Fruit Juice in Pediatrics.” You can find it on their website: Here!
I’ll summarize for you: juice can be part of a varied and healthy diet, just like M&Ms can be. However, given their limited nutritional value, the following recommendations were made:
• No juice for infants younger than 6 months
• No juice in sippy cups or bottles
• Children 1-6 years should have no more than 4-6 ounces a day (1/2 a cup!!)
• Children 7-18 may have up to 8-12 ounces a day
Oh and by the way, we’re talking 100% pasteurized juice, not “fruit drinks.” And the AAP makes it very clear that they are providing upper limits of consumption, they aren’t actually recommending that children drink juice. So there you have it.
I am not stupid. I know that there will come a day when Eva and Zoe taste their first glass of Welch’s. But that doesn’t mean I have to hasten the process. Let them grow up thinking that juice is a seriously “sometimes” treat. If we’re on holiday or they get a glass at a friend’s house, I’m not going to freak out. It’s not the same caliber as letting them play near an open gun cabinet, for Pete’s sake. But I’m not making juice part of my weekly grocery list. Of course, this means that I should probably revisit my own diet soda habit…
Don’t Judge Me!
I talk a lot about having confidence in your decisions as a parent and about not letting others judge your approach to your child’s health and safety. But it isn’t always easy, is it? Even though I’m supposed to be an “expert,” I still get uncomfortable when I feel another mother looking at me with disdain. Okay, I know that my take on parenting is pretty relaxed and I’m aware that I probably do things that others find horrifying. A baby having a cupcake?! That mother didn’t wash off that binky before putting it back in her kids mouth?! Oh the horror!
I have an advantage over a lot of other parents: I can actually explain why I’m doing what I’m doing. I possess the scientific and medical knowledge to back up my decisions as a parent. That goes a long way toward letting snide comments or stares of horror just slide right off me.
But then there are times when I do things that I know aren’t really great. Like feeding my children chocolate to keep them happy and occupied on an international flight. Or piling them one on top of the other on a luggage cart, wrapped in my big winter coat for some degree of safety, just to keep them briefly contained while I struggled to get my suitcase off the belt. These are times of desperation; sometimes parenting is about survival and doing our best, not being perfect.
That said, I have never given my kids cough medicine nor do I let them drink my diet Coke, no matter how much they whine. They’ve also never had apple juice. There are acts of survival as a parent (chocolate on an airplane!) and then there are conscious decisions that aren’t in a kid’s best interest. Those decisions are what I try to steer you away from. But I’d never fault a parent for doing what needs to be done when the circumstances are extraordinary.
This is why I confess my missteps and mistakes to a public audience; It’s to let you know that no one is perfect and sometimes doing the best you can is really the best you can do, even if some other parent looks at you with disgust and superiority. You just have to know when it’s okay to let things slip and that you’ll get back on track once things have gotten back to normal. (That’s right, I refused them when they demanded chocolate for breakfast. It’s not Grandma’s house, kids!)
Bite Me! Part 2
I’m sure many of you have listened to me say, “Teething causes teeth, not fevers or diarrhea,” and thought, “Oh, yeah, just wait until Eva and Zoe sprout some dentition.” Well, I’m here to tell you that I have run a controlled experiment in my house and I stand by my convictions. Oh yes, these girls have plenty of runny noses, poop running up to their armpits (Thanks for that today, Zoe!) and their share of fevers. But teeth seem to just randomly appear. It’s like a game, looking inside their mouths to see if anything appeared overnight. You don’t believe me?
When Eva was 8 months old, I was concerned that we’d be buying the child dentures. Nothing. She was gumming pizza slices. Then one day there was a tooth. The next day I stuck my finger in there to make sure it hadn’t been my imagination and, guess what? There was another. And two more appeared two weeks later, just as suddenly and without warning as the first batch.
Right about the time Eva got her lateral incisors (the next group to come in), Zoe showed up with a little baby tooth. Pop! Pop! Pop! The next group came in over a couple weeks and the only one who seemed to be in pain was me. (Zoe is a biter.)
Now, I know what you are thinking: those Zibners girls just have good genes. They are the tiny proportion of children who don’t get sick when they teethe. But my children share zero genetic material. One born of my DNA, the other in my heart. The only thing they share is an idiot for a mother. (Well that and a bedroom, all their toys and an entire family.) Of course the other possibilities are that I’m extremely lucky or that I’m completely out of tune with my children, but I don’t like to think like that.
So there you have it. Teething causes teeth. Of course I can believe that it might cause some irritability and moodiness because teeth ripping through a gum have to hurt a little bit, don’t they? But there is absolutely no evidence supporting the claim that fevers, runny noses or diarrhea are the result of teething. It’s more likely that a teething infant chews on everything, meaning she comes in contact with more viruses and then gets sick. This is important to understand because if your little one really is ill, you can’t blame her teeth and send her off to daycare to infect other children, or not call your pediatrician if you suspect that she is really not well.
Why is all this on my mind today? Well it’s because Eva got her first molar this week. I looked in her mouth and thought it was milk and tried to wipe her gum. But instead I got jabbed by a sharp piece of enamel. I had to go look it up, (I thought she was too young, my little baby!) but yes, the first molars appear between 13 and 19 months. We’re right on time.
Travelling with Toddlers: Brave or Stupid?
Yes, I can still type although the rest of my body isn’t moving so well. Just got back from another wonderful trip to see Oma and Opa. We were celebrating Zoe’s 1st birthday, if you can believe that! The stinker was that the girls’ father had to change his plans last minute and couldn’t travel with us. Instead he met us at the gate in Germany and dropped us off there on our way home. Which meant I had to endure a 2 hour airplane ride with 2 toddlers and myself.
Word to the wise: check with your airline before traveling about their infant policies, what kind of seats are available and whether your stroller will be meeting you planeside or in the Arrivals Hall. And then another piece of advice: don’t believe anything they say and have a back up plan. This would be where I failed yesterday. Knowing that I couldn’t have 2 infants on my lap, we booked one “child” seat and one “infant.” European airlines don’t allow personal car seats on the plane, but instead offer a little tiny belt that loops onto the adult one. Needless to say, they weren’t impressed by my pulling the regular belt tight to the seat before strapping Eva in. So thank you to the nice strangers who answered the call for “A Volunteer Lap!”
Then there is the actual plane ride to deal with. On the way there, both girls fell asleep immediately and I had a relatively nice ride. Our return flight, however, was something else entirely. I am fully aware that it is probably not good parenting to allow your toddlers to eat box after box of M&M’s. But these were desperate times. I’ll leave it at that.
And then there was the stroller issue. Aware that Heathrow doesn’t bring strollers back to their owners at the plane, we had spent several hours on the phone trying to understand how I was to carry 45 pounds of children and my belongings all the way to passport control and then to baggage claim. The final “solution” was to arrange for a wheelchair to carry us through the airport. (I’m dead serious. I have two toddlers; I am clearly handicapped.) The problem was when we got off the plane and my “Assistance” took one look and said, “Oh, we don’t DO babies.” I should have made a big stink but instead I just took a big breath and hauled everyone and everything through the airport, stopping at Passport Control long enough to have both kids make a break for it, with me running around behind the Immigration desk while screaming at them to come back. By the time we got to baggage, I was literally soaking wet.
And that, my friends, is a little cautionary tale about traveling with children. It doesn’t mean I won’t do it again (in fact, we have tickets booked in March) but it does mean that I won’t stop at Plan A or Plan B. There will be a Plan C and probably a back up D in our future. Now I need to go find the ibuprofen.
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"WHAT I LIKED: This book is written in a funny, down to earth way that doesn't make you feel like an idiot. I really would have appreciated something like this when my kids were really little and I freaked out over everything they put in their mouths. It has a scenario/question and answer format, with clear answers on when not to panic and when to call 911."
- Chic Book Chick
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