<p>Eh, I’ve heard of parents giving their kids much worse things than pediasure just to make them semi-rational. If it’s getting you over the hump right now I wouldn’t worry about it too much. The greatest danger is habituating her to sweet drinks, but you can start weaning her off it pretty quickly. Just start mixing some milk with the pediasure, a greater proportion of milk each day, until it’s nothing but milk. You can give her a little solid food - toast, banana, etc. - at the same time you give her the milk, and that will add some extra calories.</p>
<p>If you continue to notice a big difference in her behavior with pediasure vs. milk you should discuss it with her (new) pediatrician, as there are some (very rare) glucose metabolism disorders that can affect behavior. Seems really unlikely though. Most likely she is waking up thirsty and hungry and you’re right to get something in her stomach right away. Some kids wake up cheerful and some need to be nudged into cheerfulness. I had one of each.</p>
<p>My picky eater is now 21 and calls me to tell me what she’s cooking! Half the battle is learning what works and what doesn’t for each child, and they’re all different. Sounds like you’re figuring it out, so congrats and keep up the good work.</p>
<p>My mom used to give me Coca Cola! (I don’t remember that, but I heard stories about it later). I have no idea why – she passed away when I was in my early 20’s, before I ever had kids of my own and gave much thought to it, so I never had a chance to ask. As a kid I was pretty much allowed all the soda & sugared drinks I wanted and it never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with it. </p>
<p>Somehow I survived and I actually don’t think I was a particularly heavy sweet-eater as a kid – and I didn’t give soda to my kids or even have it in the house. </p>
<p>So among other things, I think the “if you do X it will result in more-X” doesn’t always hold true. I saw my own kid go in and out of food preferences along the way. </p>
<p>I DO have a grandchild on the way… and I think I will do my daughter-in-law the favor of not offering any advice unless asked. Though I have already kind of broken that word with my stroller-purchasing advice. (I’m trying to get through to the kids that they don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy baby equipment – my experience was that the cheap, simple stuff was also the most serviceable. )</p>
<p>calmom - that’s a good philosophy. I will attempt the same when the time comes and promise not to cringe!</p>
<p>When my kids were small, I had a lot of issues with them that would make me crazy. My dad thought giving his 6 month old granddaughter ice cream was a good move. My brothers had no problem feeding Oreo’s to their toddler nieces. I finally told my brother if he gave my 20 month old one more Oreo he was changing the diaper (chocolate didn’t agree with her). Looking back - my kids grew up anyway and were not permanently harmed.</p>
<p>I was allowed very limited sweets as a child- ( I could make a sugar daddy sucker last for over a month) although my younger sister and brother didn’t have those limits, and I see that they have problems with their weight and with healthy food choices, whereas I don’t- I think my taste buds are different</p>
<p>I also have seen kids get used to not having to deal with texture- and it is very difficult to get them to put effort into their eating.</p>
<p>My kids were both breastfed for years, even the premie who was two months in the hospital and four months before she was even big enough to nurse, I think that helped because nI didn’t even know how much they were or weren’t eating, so I didn’t worry about it- (except for the one who looked like a two year old when she was four- but she was healthy) The premie started solid food when she was around 6 months or so, but the younger one started grabbing food off my plate when she was 4 months old)</p>
<p>Issues around food are one of the biggest for parents-
one friend of my daughters had been force fed when she was a baby- because her mothers culture demanded that babies look like the Campbell soup kid, and if they didn’t you weren’t a good mother.
So this poor kid was fed so much food, she would spit up because there wasn’t anymore room.
Luckily for her mom, she had an easy going personality, if she had been * my younger daughter* that mom would have been a weeping puddle on the floor!</p>
<p>Thank you. I was crabby in my responses this morning, but I shouldn’t have been. I do want to wean her off the pediasure, and we’ll start doing that. I’m still thankful it helped her to calm down enough to eat these last few days, but it’s true that she doesn’t need it.</p>
<p>PhysicsMom, you daughter sounds a lot like my son – when he was little he would not eat when he first got up – and the longer he didn’t eat, the less he wanted to eat and the crabbier he got. We found that a sippy cup of diluted kool-aid when he first woke up really helped. It gave him enough umph to be willing to eat something else. He is still the same way today (including get less hunger and crabby) and he is twenty years old. He does not want to eat when he first gets up until he has something wet with just a little sugar – but we did find that watermelon or just about any kind of melon works, so does tea with little bit of honey. The key was wet and slightly sweet. Milk doesn’t work – it isn’t wet enough. </p>
<p>At over fifty I am the same way. I need something to get me going in the morning before I can really eat anything. Both S and I are hypoglycemic and our family doctor thinks it is a combination of dehydration and low blood sugar. The key to it is eat something of with more nutritional value as soon as possible.</p>
<p>I’ve skimmed through this thread and must say I agree wih Lololu. It does sound like Physicsmom’s little D probably has low blood sugar in the morning. I and both of my Ds are hypoglycemic. I can remember having to force down breakfast as a child. My mom would not let me or my sibs go to school without eating. I felt nauseated most mornings until H.S. I could get orange juice to go down pretty easily, I guess because it doesn’t need to be chewed. The OJ would get my blood sugar to rise pretty quickly. If I managed to get to the breakfast table quickly enough, I could wait for the juice to kick in and then I could get some solid food down without feeling sick. Most mornings, I didn’t have time to eat at a leisurely pace, so I literally had to force down my cereal. Now that I’m no longer a growing child, morning hypoglycemia is no longer a problem. I do watch my diet and am careful to start every day with a high protein breakfast to keep my blood sugar level on an even keel. I still occasionally have a bout with some very unpleasant low blood sugar symptoms, but never first thing in the morning!</p>
<p>I did not know that my older D was hypoglycemic until she weaned at 35 months. Apparently, as long as she nursed at will, she was able to keep her blood sugar level even. The last nursings to go were the one before D went to bed and the one in the middle of the night. As a toddler, D would climb into my bed in the middle of the night, nurse for a few minutes, then go back to sleep. She’d wake up cheerful in the morning and be hungry for breakfast first thing. Right after she weaned, I noticed that she was grumpy in the mornings, she frequently complained that she didn’t feel good when she woke up, and she would often refuse to eat breakfast until she’d been up for a couple of hours. I’m sure that she was suffering from low blood sugar. I started giving her a high protein snack before bed, for example, cheese, peanut butter on whole wheat toast or crackers, milk, or yogurt. The snacks helped tremendously. As soon as I started giving her more protein in the evenings, she felt better in the mornings. In hind sight I could see that D had had a physical need for her middle of the night nursings. She wasn’t nursing just for emotional comfort as some of my relatives claimed.</p>
<p>I have just learned something new about my (25 year old ) child here! It never occurred to me that he might have a blood sugar problem because he was always so easy to feed (he ate anything), and his digestive problems were more of the intestinal variety but these descriptions sound just like him. As an infant, he would wake up screaming bloody murder until he was fed (thank God I breastfed him. I can’t imagine trying to get a bottle ready under that kind of duress). To this day, he won’t eat until mid-day or later because he says eating in the morning makes him feel sick. And, he’s super cranky when he wakes up. I’ll pass on the tip to try something “wet and sweet” in the morning and see if it helps. Thanks, moms!</p>
<p>Hi PhysicsMom,
I’m glad that some other parents brought up hypoglycemia. My daughter (now 10) sounds incredibly similar to yours. She would wake up a hysterical mess in the morning from hunger. She was so hysterical she didn’t realize that she needed to eat to feel better. She was also extremely picky (which continues, but she does eat now… just not a wide variety of foods). We try not to battle over it.
Anyway, Pediacare sounds reasonable to me, just to get the day off to a decent start.<br>
My daughter is still somewhat hypoglycemic at age 10, but has been outgrowing the problem a tiny bit every year. So keep that in mind as your daughter gets older… she may need more frequent snacks than other children… snacks with protein are better.
You sound like an amazing parent!</p>