Amy Storch

I have mentioned once or twice or a MILLION TIMES TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN, that my second baby is a wonderfully non-picky eater. I hope I will be given a pass from the Smug Mother Hall of Fame because I will also openly admit that I had practically nothing to do with it.

Exhibit A: The First Baby, who has lived on little more than dry Cheerios and air and the occasional pizza crust for about four years now. I’m not bragging. The universe just flat-out owed me, is all.

Anyway, at some point, after starting the baby on solid foods, we got…a tad too enthusiastic. My in-laws came to visit one weekend and my semi-careful introduction-to-solids plan went off the rails as we all treated the baby’s adventurous palate like a stupid party trick. Here! Have some guacamole! Have some stew! Try this flaxseed cracker and some chicken and some eggplant and this and this and this.

And then he erupted in hives.

I’d never seen anything like it before – The First Baby has never had a hive in his life, and while I’m pretty prone to them, I’d never had a whole-body reaction like this. (I’m allergic to nickel and no lie, totally not making this up: COLD AIR.) (It’s called cold urticaria. Look it up, tell ‘em I sent ya).

And so it was time to frantically backtrack on the foods and reintroduce all but the basics (sweet potatoes, green veggies, fruits) one by one, spaced out by three days, like you’re supposed to.

I kept a super-simple food diary. Food, date introduced, fields for three days’ worth of observations about possible symptoms. Eczema? Rashes? Gas? Excessive spitting up? Diaper rash? If anything suspicious occurred, a quick glance at the diary helped us start eliminating suspect ingredients without having to remember whether that soup we gave him had any onion it.

It turned out, for us, to NOT be a food allergy, but a stupid run-of-the-mill viral rash from a lingering, harmless cold. (The First Baby has had viral rashes, but they look COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from hives. How the heck am I supposed to get any better at this parenting thing if they keep changing the rules?) But the food diary was a still a good exercise and a reminder to be a littttttle more careful going forward.

(My husband never approved of my FOODS OF DOOOOOOOM! template title, so if you’re similarly anti-hyperbole you can go ahead and change that to something less hysterical and/or boring.)

Find more great tips and templates in the Slideshare Parent Toolbox!