Did your breastfed children develop allergies?
amicus
10 years ago
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susanjf_gw
10 years agoKathsgrdn
10 years agoRelated Discussions
Feeding your children
Comments (6)I hear you tom8olvr. My 4-yr-old daughter has shown an interest in my garden. Well, for a few minutes at a time anyway. After a few minutes out there, she usually retreats to her swing set. I hope that her interest will be better held once we have actual plants in the ground and we're doing something other than spreading mulch or pulling weeds trying to get the beds ready. This year, I think I'm going to put her in charge of a plant. It will be a hybrid roma grown in a five gallon bucket. I chose this one because I had the seeds, it is a small plant and it did fairly well last year when in the ground. I've planted in this home made, self watering container for the past two years and have yet to see a tomato from a container plant. I get lots of leaves and blooms, but no fruit. I've tried Black Krim one year because I heard they did well in containers and NAR because I had it left over last year. I hope we get fruit from it as to not discourage her. Next year, I hope to have her start her own plants from seed and see the process the whole way through. I know that nothing would excite her more than knowing she grew dinner for us....See MoreWould You Want Your Children to Join the Military?
Comments (27)As a wife of a military member (Air Force Guard enlisted) who has served 15 years, is a veteran of the Iraq war, and is currently still serving in the military, some of these responses are so different from my own experiences with the military. I'm not a parent, but I would support someone's personal decision to serve in the military, including my own childs. The military is a very large organization, just because you're in the military does not mean you will see or experience combat up close and first hand, even in times of war. In fact there are probably more jobs that support missions than people who are actually out there involved in doing the missions. My husband was deployed over there during the war and never left the base he was stationed at, never once saw combat, as did other military members stationed over there at the base he was stationed at. The military is also so much more than just fighting in wars. They do a fair amount of humanitarian missions, and are mostly national security. I do think being in the military in some ways can be what you make it, you do have some options as to career, officer/enlisted, guard/active, and branch of military. If you know how to use your time in the military, the benefits and training they offer can be an advantage for someone's future career, when they decide to get out, however unfortunately some go in without future plans in mind and then get out with no direction. My husband switched his career field in the guard from satellite communications to computers and is now working full time as a IT contractor at US Strategic Command, along with his part time one weekend a month job in the guard. He wouldn't have his current full time job had it not been for his connections, volunteer deployments, and training/schooling through the guard. As far as benefits, in my personal experience with the military, my husband received 40,000.00 for college (GI Bill), which he has used with no issues for his bachelors degree and there are additional military grants for guard members that if they attended a state school in the state they are serving, their tuition would be waved. He also has received two associate degrees which he earned in the guard through their training and schooling at no cost. We used his VA loan for the house that we currently live in, which can have some perks over traditional loans and was nice to have in a time when banks got strict about home loans. If he stays in 20 years, he will receive retirement benefits. There are benefits on base that are nice, free gym, tax free shopping, inexpensive hotel lodging, HOPS (flights), etc. During the times he has been federally activated (which for the most part have been volunteer deployments, his choice to be a part of, not mandatory) we received full benefits, they paid 100% of our housing, and medical bills along with his active full time employment pay. While he was deployed the FRG was in contact with me often along with someone from his unit to make sure I was taken care of while he was gone. And by law his current full time employer kept his job and it was waiting for him when he returned without any issues. His mandatory deployments lasted no longer than 3-6 months, usually less than that though, and a couple of his state side volunteer deployments/missions and training/schooling I got to travel with him so we weren't apart. The reception my husband has received from others being a military member and a vet, has been nothing but kind and supportive, from gracious hand shakes and thanks yous, to people buying him free drinks, paying for meals at restaurants unexpectedly etc., also lots of military discounts from various places of business, recently we got 500.00 off our car purchase at a dealership. However I realize this is not always the case for every military member. My husband told me last night that the military is trying to provide more mental health programs and are very aware of the PTSD and suicide issues. He said that his base and unit have received a lot more training on mental health in the last few years and more programs are being made available for military members and their families. Some of it has to do with budgeting, and the cuts in military spending though, decisions made not by the military but by our government. Also being someone who has been diagnosed with PTSD from a trauma that happened to me in college, I know it's not always easy to ask for help or seek help even when it's made available, there can be feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment involved among other difficulties and emotional struggles. I'm not sure about the idea that the military shouldn't be all volunteer but equal responsibility, there are some people I wouldn't want to have to depend on fighting in a war, and having people serving in a war that had no choice at all to be there (didn't volunteer) could be dangerous in certain situations and cause loss of life. For some they are proud to serve, they want to serve, they feel honored to be a part of the military. They know and accept that there are risks that can come with the job. As can be similar risks for any other service job like police, fireman, EMT, etc. Some of the service men and women I know wouldn't be happy at a desk job working 9-5, they like the excitement, the travel, feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself, and the comradery of their fellow service men and women. They do not all come from poor families, many could have just gone straight to college, like my husband, but wanted to serve their country instead. My experiences with the military have been more good than bad, I know it's different for everyone though, and I'm sure DH being in the AF guard instead of active and not gone as much on mandatory deployments and having a fairly "safe" job that he choose is part of that. I'm sure if he was on the frontlines fighting, I would probably have a very different outlook on the military....See MoreWhat do you feed your children/grandchildren that they LOVE
Comments (49)I've never heard that "SWAN" but really that's it! They nickname it "Happy to Starve" in gastro school (per my gastroenteroligist) And many call it "Putnam's Syndome" but that's just a nick name as well given that Dr. Putnam has spent so much time analzying kids with this problem. They tell me it's a great deal like when you're told your child has died of SIDS. There is always a reason children die, but systemically they can't find the reason and so you get SIDS. With us, we got Putnam's or SWAN I guess (Dr Putnam is our doctor as well) :o( Eating disorders normally happen with children who have special needs, like autistic children, children with brain disorders, etc., but we don't have any of those problems so the fun part of this is dealing with insurance companies for treatment, when he has no official disease (his actuall diagnosis is Fail to Thrive without reason). The insurance companies seem to want him to go ahead and "Fail" and we insist that isn't the route we want to go. I learned abut the Kennedy Kreiger clinic on feeding disorders and while reading realized they were describing my child to a T! They do work with kids with much more significant issues involved in their eating problems (ie cleft pallet or inability to swallow etc) but they also have a place for the Jesse's of the world who just won't eat because it hurts. Somehow we need to figure out why it hurts before we begin treatment....that's the hard part. But fortunately we're going to do more poop testing first, instead of anything that will hurt him. Thanks for SWAN. I'm going to have to keep that on the tip of my tongue because I'm tired of having to explain this over and over and over to people who want to hear a name fancier than "Happy to Starve" (Which actually fits him to a T as well)...See MoreHow DID we survive as children?
Comments (39)I survived, but not unscathed. Some didn't. The saddest funeral I ever attended was for a little boy I babysat; his mother didn't secure him in a car seat. He was thrown from her car and killed when a drunk driver hit them. When we had children I knew that I could not protect them against every bad thing, but I could take reasonable precautions. My mother didn't want to be inconvenienced by having to use car seats for my children, so I solved that problem by not letting them ride with her. Once I was 10, my parents rarely knew where I was during the summer or on weekends, since they played golf frequently. Sometimes Mom would forget to leave the spare key in its hiding place and I'd be locked out. If I had money I could ride my bike 3 miles to the DairyQueen to buy a Coke, but if not I'd get a drink from a neighbor's garden hose. There were worse consequences of their inattention, but I won't go into that here. None of us worried about sunblock, although we did use baby oil to keep from drying out while we baked. Everyone in my family has (or had) skin cancer, as do many of my friends. The ones who continued baking as adults now have skin that looks like tanned leather, dotted with light spots from the removal of melanomas. There was a lot of underage drinking, as well as a lot of partying by some of the parents, but I was too afraid of mom's beatings if she caught me drinking so that was postponed until college. Back then, the legal age was 18 in many places. There was also a lot of pot, in the schools as well as at the beach. Some people experimented with hard drugs; a few had very bad results. One dear friend, who was in my honors classes in high school, was artistically and musically talented while his siblings were focused on science and math; that didn't go over well at home. He self-medicated the emotional pain, then spent the next several decades in various psych hospitals. My mom nagged me about befriending a certain crowd at the country club, not knowing that the most "popular" kids were also the biggest dealers at the beach. In college (a good Jesuit school), the drug of choice for most students was quaaludes and I'd guess that at least half the students indulged in both pills and pot. Keggers in the Quad were common Friday afternoon events, with various student organizations hosting a party almost every week. Despite the lack of restrictions on drinking, there were other strictly enforced rules, and several girls from my dorm were sent packing for having guys spend the night. The guys' dorm was much looser, and RAs looked the other way when girls were there after visiting hours. I never saw a pregnant student on campus, but I did know/know of several girls who suddenly transferred to the state school back home. This was before folks knew about HIV, so physical barrier precautions were scorned and the Pill was popular. My last roommate graduated a semester early, filled with deep hatred toward all men and a nasty case of genital herpes (which freaked me out, naive as I still was.) It seems like people were less informed about drug interactions or concerns about mixing certain Rx drugs with alcohol. A friend died because she didn't realize that she should not mix alcohol and her Rx. The authorities guessed that the combination made it difficult for her to recall if she'd taken her proper dose and she accidentally over medicated. I know that some warning labels seems like too much CYA litigation prevention, but I wish the health care industry had shared more information with patients sooner. My husband grew up in the midwest, and his experiences or recollections are worse/scarier than mine. His family lived in an affluent bedroom community of a large city, and all of the kids attended various private schools. He had a devoted and loving mother but she was so busy with a very large number of children that she couldn't have supervised all of them adequately even if she thought it necessary. It just wasn't common for parents to be so involved in the '60s - '70s, for better or for worse. The kids did enjoy a lot more freedom and seemed to become independent sooner, but there was a downside as well. Underage drinking was one problem, but drugs were much worse. When I look at my children's generation, I wonder how many of their medical and behavioral issues are related to their parents' drug use. When I got to college, I was stunned to learn about the extent of drug experimentation (cocaine & LSD, among other things.) So I am one of the lucky ones, just because I'm still alive. But I have scars, both emotional and physical, that will never completely fade. I tried to find a balance between being too lax and hovering with my own children, but what I thought was being prudent was seen as overly protective by my parents and in-laws. Yet my kids still climbed trees, rode zip lines, shot pellet guns, went white water rafting & kayaking, flew in ultralights, tried snow skiing & snowboarding, etc., and I have plenty of grey hairs to attest to their exploits. ;-)...See Morechloecat
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