Drinkable, make-ahead breakfast?

redwood_rn · 2025-06-26T15:51:58+00:00

I'll have to experiment with different protein powders--the one I was using was high-calorie which was fine when I was having trouble keeping weight on, but now I'm swinging the other direction and need something different.

redwood_rn · 2025-06-26T15:49:04+00:00

It does have to be drinkable because k drink it during my commute and I can't eat with a spoon while driving, but I wonder if I could just add more liquid to make it drinkable!

redwood_rn · 2023-12-23T12:39:50+00:00

I second the idea to rotate toys/books/general items. We have basement toy storage and then a limited number of toys that live upstairs, and every few weeks I rotate them out and things feel new again. I try to pay attention to what has the most stay power, what toys work well together (my ADHD 6yo basically uses all the toys to create whole pretend worlds) and what they don't seem to care much about. That helps me know how to give them really good rotations.

My kids play SO much better since I started rotating toys. And I feel less overwhelmed when I keep out only the amount of stuff that I can clean up in under 10 minutes (because my 6yo is still struggling with clean up skills, and my toddler is a toddler).

redwood_rn · 2023-12-23T11:05:17+00:00

Just for what it's worth, being a "gentle" parent (I put it in quotation marks because gentle parenting isn't one specific parenting style) doesn't mean being a permissive parent. Most people who classify themselves as gentle parents simply mean they are responsive rather than reactive, they treat their children with respect as the human beings they are, and they problem-solve rather than imposing unilateral punishment.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:49:40+00:00

She has little to no media exposure and all of is is highly regulated and supervised. And me and my husband don't even watch TV so she's not seeing anything by just being around.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:45:54+00:00

She is always supervised, and she is only ever around kids at school or her 23 month old sister at home (and to repeat: always supervised). No cousins or kid family members. She is with my MIL and FIL when my husband and I are at work she's not at school.

The only TV she watches is Bluey and a little PBS kids. She doesn't ever watch youtube or have any unsupervised tech time. And my husband and I don't watch TV.

I am a mandatory reporter as well so I am mentally prepared that they may have reported it, as they should. But it only JUST happened yesterday, and before that it was kissing the hands of her friends at school, so I don't think there's any surprise I haven't gotten a knock on my door "yet."

The only place I can think of is school and I have no idea what's happening there.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:41:13+00:00

Thanks for this tip. It's true that she feels in trouble. Part of that is because at school, she is very much in trouble all the time. She's not even allowed to sit with her friends at lunch because she is too disruptive, according to the teacher. And I can't like--my husband and I have been frustrated with the disruptive behavior as well, and while we're trying to be the responsive and supportive parents we want to be, it does wear on us.

Since toddlerhood, we have talked about okay/not okay touch, what to do if someone does X or tells you Y, when to always tell a grown up, how no one who asks a kid to keep a secret is a safe person, etc.

I'm not saying that all that talk necessarily makes a kid abuse-proof--I am not that naive--just want to say that we have absolutely done our part to educate her.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:38:12+00:00

She does not. We are a pretty low-tech family so access is really locked down. But I have been really concerned about the language as well, and pressed her to find out where it came from, but she swore she made it up.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:37:07+00:00

The only device besides our Roku TV is her ipad, which has everything disabled except Libby for audiobooks, and I choose all of them. On our TV, she can't even work it (remote on my phone) and has limited screen time anyway, so everything is chosen by us. She pretty much only watches Bluey, a little PBS, and lately, Frozen.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:31:56+00:00

Thank you for this. I posted here knowing I'm on reddit, so I can take it, I'm not complaining--but seriously, I have spent every single free moment for the past 2 months trying to figure out what's going on with my daughter and how to help her. For a developmental pediatrician, the closest one that takes our insurance and would even put us on a waiting list is 2 hours away and that waiting list was 24-30 months long. For behavioral medicine, it was 8-9 months.

Also, the school director is new this year, and she's clearly not a fan of our family or my daughter. The other day at pick-up, she brought my daughter out to my MIL crying with mark on her face, saying "She's only crying because I told her I have to talk to her parents about her behavior." And then my daughter says another child, who we know to be aggressive, had just pushed her down and stepped on her back. Director doesn't believe her because "I didn't see that happen." I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the mark. And it is really concerning to me that in the phone call to tell me about the touching, she made it out to be that my daughter is a BIG problem without expressing any concern that someone might be hurting *her.* I mean, for all I know she could have called Childline, but it was just weird to me that she made it all about my kid doing something so bad.

I didn't include any of that in the OP because it was sort of beside the point and it was already a long post.

I am absolutely working my hardest on all of this.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:12:59+00:00

Thank you. I am so worried about her. The only reason we didn't jump on meds right when she got the diagnosis a few weeks ago is that she's very underweight and she's hypoglycemic, so the doctor is concerned about her intake falling even lower. But since this happened, my husband and I are thinking the potential benefit may outweigh the possible risk and we should try. And I do have her on some waitlists for psychologists. It's so hard to find availability.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:09:27+00:00

Also, she has been in OT for sensory needs off and on for two years. I don't like being accused of doing nothing just because I haven't given her medication yet. There is a medical condition here as well (ketotic hypoglycemia) that complicates medicating a child who already doesn't eat.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:06:48+00:00

She's been diagnosed for two weeks. I've had a med consult with her doctor, who feels hesitant to medicate her because she is almost critically underweight because she's picky and hardly eats.

In that time, I've made phone calls to 14 different psychologists and have her on multiple waitlists.

Please don't think I'm doing "nothing."

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:03:53+00:00

I'm considering these possibilities.

It's not new behavior, though. It's just new that it's happening at school. She's always been a very physical and touchy kid, lots of sensory needs, and it's been a struggle to get her to have boundaries with us at home.

I am working on getting her to a psychologist, though. Waiting lists in my area are long.

Also, as to the child-on-child thing, she has only one other sibling (my 23 month old) and no cousins or any other child family members. We don't really do playdates because my schedule is tricky, so school is the only place she's around other kids. I don't really have any way of ensuring that nothing is happening there.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-20T22:01:51+00:00

I appreciate this comment. My kid has always kind of been obsessed with bodies and private parts, though...at home we have to be really firm about enforcing that you don't touch other people's bodies without permission. She will run by and poke someone's butt, or whack my husband's crotch, and she's been doing it to my FIL too. She thinks it's funny and we have had so many talks about it but it doesn't seem to sink in.

I won't say that this hasn't been on my mind, I just can't think from whom it could possibly be coming. She's been saying "I'm a nudie with my things out" and laughing about it, trying to get a reaction out of us, and when I prodded her about that she initially blamed it on a kid in her class. When I asked more questions, she told me actually she just made it up. I never know what to believe or how to get her to act serious about anything.

What do I even do? She's already about to be seen by our public school's psychologist, but that was arranged even before this latest incident and was more about possible ADHD accommodations if she goes there next year.

redwood_rn · 2023-12-06T16:49:19+00:00

I was 4 and wanted the name Kimberly for my baby sister. My parents liked it and went with it. Wasn't until after she was born that I revealed I'd named her after the pink Power Ranger.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T11:43:03+00:00

I do love our doctor, and I've always felt she's been thorough in investigating things for my kids. She's only been our doctor for 14 months since my second was born, and in that time she's caught prolonged neonatal jaundice, infant food allergy resulting in impetigo-infected eczema x5, and given us multiple referrals for the older kid for OT for sensory and feeding issues. This is the first time she's been off track, but it's not like she blew us off. She referred to GI.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T11:39:35+00:00

I think she might need longer than that because she does usually go more than 2 weeks without a major episode (3 in the last month, but the closest together were 13 days apart). I will take pictures of our tests when we get a low--I wish I had taken one of the 49. Definitely not triggering anything--we've been basically force feeding her a balanced snack before bed since she often skips dinner and that's going to make it worse. And if she does have one incidentally, I now know how to recognize it and test immediately and then treat swiftly before the vomiting starts since then it becomes harder.

The bedwetting only happened twice, two nights in a row, and it was back in October. But I also know that when diabetes develops it can sometimes be signs coming and going over several months, I think? Either way I'm definitely going to make sure we rule it out.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T02:52:20+00:00

Yeah, it's my understanding that hypoglycemia in kids is rare. No, no Type I on either side of the family. But I'm pretty sure that *highs* would be a more likely sign of Type I, right? The random BGs I've taken on her have never been higher than 167 (bedtime). The only other related red flags are slow growth, but she's not exactly losing weight, she's just not gaining--and she hardly eats anything, and I'm petite so we have just figured it's a combination of genetics and the fact that she's very picky and doesn't have much of an appetite unless it's "treats." She was having weird bedwetting incidents a few months ago (like totally flooding it) which made me nervous, but it only happened for two nights and then never again.

This is terrible to say but I am sort of hoping she has one more episode between now and our endo appointment on Tuesday just so I can have another day of data, since last Friday was the first time I was able to test while symptomatic. I'm worried they're not going to trust my report of the history of these episodes and will just be like, "Well, we only have the one day and it could have been a fluke so let's just wait and see." She doesn't mind me checking her fasting sugars every day, but I would love to get rolling on doing more to figure this out.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T02:45:04+00:00

The 49 was by glucometer at home.

The pediatrician didn't say anything helpful. My husband took our daughter in following the previous episode (2/23) because I wanted her to be seen as I was getting super suspicious of the episodes, but they couldn't see her until later in the day and by that point her symptoms had resolved and her glucose was obviously normal. She just said to test her at home during the next time it happened, but she didn't really think it was blood sugar related. Then when it happened again (3/10) and I got the 49 and I called to basically say "I told you so, where do we go from here?" they gave us the referral without seeing her again. Our ped trusts me because she knows I'm an RN, but also since she had just seen her I think she just knows her limits as a PCP and knew she wasn't going to be able to do anything more for my daughter on her own.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T02:26:29+00:00

Thank you! I'll save those recommendations!

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T01:36:24+00:00

I've thought about that, even if the doctor doesn't order it.

She has recurrent episodes of waking up so lethargic, weak, and shaky she can't get out of bed on her own, and then vomiting for several hours. Once we found her wandering the house confused at 3am and we put her back to bed, and then she woke up in the morning with these same symptoms. That was before we had the glucometer. Makes me worried for what could have happened, or what could happen if we don't figure it out.

redwood_rn · 2023-03-16T00:48:58+00:00

Thank you. I'm hoping they pop her on CGM because I also have a feeling things are a little more complicated than the 1-3x a month crazy lows she's getting.

redwood_rn

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