A sick Monkey Or Lucky after all

Oh no!

The time has come that every first time parent dreads: Our child is ill. What do we do?

The Monkey has had a cold for a while, which seemed to be clearing off and hasn't been a big deal. However, there was a tiny bit of bloody wee in his nappy, indicating a urine infection. Sadly the first hospital we went to didn't do a thorough job and sent us home, more or less along the lines of: all is well. Unfortunately the long wait of three hours next to a teenager with a tummy bug who was throwing up in the waiting area was going to come back to bite us in the butt. Or was it?

All wasn't well as became apparent roughly one and a half days later when the veggie baby started vomiting in the night. I shall not go into detail of the long drive and long night we had following his being unwell. The long and short of it is that he has some sort of bug which causes vomiting and diarrhoea. However, had the Monkey not got this bug, we wouldn't have gone to a (different) hospital where he was not only treated for his bug, but also diagnosed the urine infection, which was missed at the last hospital and could have caused a lot of damage if left untreated as the bacteria can travel up into the renal area and affect the kidneys. Lucky after all! Yes, I am trying to look on the bright side.

Now what?

A course of seven days worth of antibiotics is now making its way through the veggie baby's gut flora. Sure, it has to be that way to get rid of the urine infection. But it means we need to do everything we can to build up his gut bacteria again. After all a healthy intestine often is key to good overall health.

Millions of bacteria

We will be adding half a probiotic capsule to his breakfast (in addition to lots of live yoghurt) and his dinner to keep the damage under control. When we have researched some more into which probiotics might be particularly good I will write a little post about that. For now we are keeping our fingers crossed that the tummy bug passes, that the antibiotic does the trick, and that our efforts of keeping our baby healthy will be successful.

Starting the day the night before

... or so it seems, since we had to prep this brekkie in the evening.

Cold fruit porridge

This is actually a breakfast I make for myself with various different fruit and fruit juices. The rolled oats have to be soaked in apple juice (we freshly juiced this for him, what a lucky little baby he is) over night for the fruit porridge to be nice and soft. I grate some apple into it, and add small pieces of soft pear into it. For myself I often use sultanas (or raisins), but banana is also a really nice option. Make it your own by experimenting! For some extra sweetness a tiny splash of maple syrup was added. 

Although we had soaked it over night, our little monkey wasn't too sure about having to still do a fair amount of chewing with those four teeth of his and those gummy gums. Because he has been teething and not eating all that well, we chose the way of least resistance to get the calories into him without too much fuss: add yoghurt and blend. 

Green power stuff

Broccoli leek pea soup

Nice one, another one for the whole family.

Ingredients are:
Broccoli, leek, pea, little bit of celery, potato, half a teaspoon veggie stock and we added black quiona for extra substance.

Recipe from 330 Vegetarian Recipes for Health


Some nutritional fact
Broccoli for example is full of good stuff: Broccoli is very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Folate, Potassium and Manganese. It also contains a good source of Protein, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin, Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Selenium. These food facts are for raw broccoli. To keep as many vitamins as possible slow cook only, and don't boil.
Taken from here.