Laying Off the Solid Foods for Awhile

Baby Ava has had first tastes of egg yolk and mashed avocado and banana in the last 10 days. She was doing well eating with a spoon with the new textures. She even pulled at the little bowl with the food and opened her mouth for more. She especially loved the banana that I mashed and mixed with breastmilk (see the pictures). She didn't like the avocado. She spit it out and it looked like guacamole coming out of her mouth. With the 4th bite, she gagged and it was so hard that she threw it up and the milk from her last nursing session.

But then on Saturday, she developed small spots all over her body. They seemed to go away, then last night when I picked her up from daycare, she had much bigger red spots all over her arms, legs, chest and even her cheeks. They seemed to move around even in the short time that I picked her up and nursed her at daycare. She didn't have a high temperature or seemed bothered by the spots. I didn't noticed that she was itching them either.

But I decided to take her to the after-hours medical care. The doctor thought it was an allergic reaction because it was changing and moving. She said her ears were clear. I didn't expect her to have an ear infection since breastfed babies rarely get ear infections for a variety of reasons (the harder sucking from the breast, antibacterial properties and the antibodies in the breastmilk itself). The doctor said to ride this out, unless it worsens and she suggested to lay off the solid foods for some time. I'm thinking I'll wait another 3-4 weeks. She's gaining weight, growing well, and perfectly satisfied by breastfeeding in general. Some babies seem really hungry.

My baby likes to graze. In fact, I have this really cool iPhone App called Baby Geek that I'm using to see her sleep and feeding schedule and it showed that we nursed for 4 hours EACH day this weekend. Woh! It kind of scares me to know now how much time we're devoting to it.

I felt a peace of mind to know that she's fine. I don't plan to give her egg again until after she's a year old just in case that is the cause of the allergy. We don't think the allergy was due to laundry detergent since at daycare and at home we're using the same products as before.