The Reality of Following Baby Feeding Schedules: A Mother’s Journey

The road there was difficult, as many things are when you have an almost six month old baby. We had forgotten the vaccination cards, but we had had a disastrous night and not only that. In the morning my daughter refused her bottle of breast milk and if anything could hurt me deeply, it was that. That you have, with great trust, connected to a breast pump for several minutes, carefully frozen everything, reheated it later just as carefully and then it was rejected. Your liquid gold. Won during the – I dare say – energy production process. You can then just relax, because reheating twice is out of the question. I couldn’t handle that very well. I’ve never been a fan of the ‘pump and dump’ phenomenon. It might have given me some joie de vivre (read: glasses of wine) if I had enjoyed it, but I thought it was a mortal sin to throw away milk.

Well, that consulting group. Despite the forgotten vaccination cards, my daughter was allowed to be vaccinated, which brought tears to her and my side. In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a hero. As usual, we received a packet of brochures when we left. One booklet in particular really surprised me. It was a menu. Daily menu for babies from six months. I was scared. At four months we carefully started with practical snacks. Most of these practice snacks were met with much dismay. We didn’t have much work to do on that yet, because we weren’t eating more than a spoonful at a time. I once crushed a variety of fruits and vegetables into an ice cube tray and froze them, and we’ve been enjoying them for almost two months now. And by pleasure I mean trembling, terror and nausea.

Burning circle

Now suddenly there was that daily schedule. And there was a lot of it. It was really a day’s work: in the morning there was a big plate of porridge to eat, an hour later there had to be a moment of fruit, around lunch it was necessary to eat bread, in the middle in the evening it was time for a snack, a few hours later, dinner could be served (vegetables, potatoes / rice / pasta, meat / fish / other meat) and we could also start have taken water and weak tea. I almost fell off my chair. I couldn’t even get a mashed carrot into this kid’s mouth. They might as well have told me she would have to jump through hoops next week.

A food company

Besides the fact that I seriously doubted that my child would eat all of this, I was very surprised at how long it all took. Because this entire menu would have to happen on top of the bottles she already had. And I already had a day job doing all the pumping and feeding. Not to mention everything else that comes with having a baby. I thought I wouldn’t be better off just quitting my job and starting a catering company, because catering was what I was doing all day anyway.

Arrested by the health clinic

It’s now five months later and I actually quit my job, but that was for other reasons. I also did an amazing job sticking to the daily schedule and every daily meal plan after that. Or rather: my child didn’t stick to it very well, because she didn’t eat most of it. Bread has only recently been introduced and when I even think about introducing porridge, she knocks the spoon out of my hands with such bloody force that the top could be white again. A new visit to the clinic is scheduled for this week and I’m already resigned to the fact that they might arrest me. I have already put the vaccination cards in my jacket pocket. Can I show immediately during the exam that, despite my incompetent behavior, I am very capable of learning from my mistakes. I may be discharged early and live to see the day when my child eats a full meal. In about twelve years.

Tara (29) is mother to daughter Rosie (1). Her mother continued to live through Instagram.com/tarastokdijk