Gluten Free - month 1, week 1

<p>Well, we have to decided to put Wes on a gluten free diet.&#160; After we had 3 complete freak outs, I decided it was time to do some research.</p>
<p>Now when I say complete freak outs, I'm not talking about the normal toddler temper tantrum.&#160; I know those are unavoidable. While I do feel like maybe we have a few more of those and at an earlier age then most, this is still not what I'm talking about.&#160; We had three of the most excruciating screaming fits I have ever witnessed within a week.&#160; The first happened in the middle of the night, leading me to believe it was a night terror.&#160; When he woke up crying, it was around midnight, and lasted until well after 1.&#160; He would not let us hold him, console him, rub his back - nothing.&#160; You could see in his eyes he wasn't totally "there" or even awake.&#160; One of the most scariest moments as a mother I have ever experienced.&#160; This proceeded to happen 2 more times in the following week.&#160; It was time for me to scouring the internet.&#160; The first search I did was for behavioral specialists, I'm not going to lie.&#160; Then an article came up in my.facebook newsfeed called "the gluten made her do it" with a picture if a screaming baby.&#160; Hmmmm, could this be the answer??</p>
<p> http://www.anchoragepress.com/news/the-gluten-made-her-do-it-how-going-gluten-free/article_39e2478e-4585-11e2-a80c-0019bb2963f4.html?TNNoMobile </p>
<p>So here we go on a new adventure for this home cook.&nbsp; For a kid who loves toast in the morning, any kind of noodles, and is basically a carb-o-holicike his mama, this quest is sure to hold some major challenges.&nbsp; But if it works for Wes the way it did for the girl in this article, I am 100% committed!&nbsp; Like the mom from this blog, I plan to do this in a series of 3 months.&nbsp; The first month, we will go cold turkey and cut out every bit of gluten possible.&nbsp; I know some will sneak in as I am still learning where all these "glutens" lerk, but I am giving it my all.&nbsp; Then we will go back to our regular diet for a month and see if the behaviors return.&nbsp; The 3rd month, provided this works as I assume it will, I would like to slowly add a bit of gluten here and there to see.the side effects.&nbsp; This way I will know if I need to warn every caregiver we ever come across, or if a few "treats" here and there won't make a difference.&nbsp; </p>
<p>The biggest challenge I see so far is the fact that I am 38 weeks pregnant, ready to pop at any minute.&nbsp; This means he will be spending time with grandma and grandpa's and who knows who else in the near future... So my experiement may go ascew.&nbsp; None the less, everyone seems to be on board.&nbsp; Luckily with grandma joys celiac disease, I at least know he will be in good hands at their house, and they are aware if what to watch for.&nbsp; </p>
<p>So here is my findings for the first week:<br>
In the first few days, we did have 2 little drama episodes, but they were scaled way back to about 15 minutes, and didn't include much of the kicking and fighting, yay! Towards the end of the week I have noticed a slight difference in his overall behavior.  Even the normal temper tantrums seem to be getting better.  There is one other major factor in that though, and that is that daddy has been home.  He seems to listen to daddy better then me, and he has been around to help more the last week.  So I really can't say for sure if that is the cause or not.  Time will tell.

Since I haven't given an update lately on our EC journey, I will add that in here too.  Since around 18 months, as long as he is naked and at home, we are nearly at a 100% catch rate.  He started taking himself to the potty (we have a musical potty in the living room at all times) and as long as it is accessible, he seems to make it the majority if the time.  Now as soon as we put underwear or pants on him - its a different story.  We only get about 50% of the catches, actually probably even less.  So this is still a work in progress.  However I feel very successful and I think all our hard work certainly paid off!

However here is the interesting part.  We went through a "potty pause" as some like to call it from about 9, 10 months old until he was 18 months where he refused the potty quit often.  I was still ECing as an oppertunity arose, but it would be nothing to go a whole week without a single catch.  This is when I really started looking at his diet.  On an EC chat board I belong too, a lot of moms suggested his diet may be the cause of his potty pause.  This to me however was not near as serious as the behavior problems and I chose to keep our diet the same.  We rarerly eat processed foods and I try to keep refined sugars to a minimum and this was good enough for me.

So here's the moral to this part of our GF journey.  Yesterday we spent the majority of this rainy Oregon day inside.  If course whenever we are inside at home, he is naked and goes potty freely.  I don't even have to remind him anymore.... Until yesterday.  After a week of our gluten free diet, we had the first "potty pause" in 4 months.  Now I'm not certain the diet change had anything to do with it.... Maybe he's getting sick (As my husband is currently sleeping in his chair with the nasty flu bug going around) or maybe he.could be teething.  Or he may finally be realizing mommy isn't carrying around a basketball in her shirt and a really baby is coming! All I know is that we had very few catches.yesterday, which really bummed me out. 

All in all, in conclusion of our first week of going "gluten free" I must say I feel like we are seeing some improvements in Wes' behavior.  I am excited and scared at the same time to see where this takes us.  This carb-o-holic mom really may have to change the way she cooks which is very scary! But I will do anything for my babies, and if this avoids any traumatic trips to scary unknown "behaviour specialists" that would probably just want to drug my child, I am all for that!