I have so many thoughts on this I confuse myself. I want to be open minded about it and say that maybe he'll have some meat every so often... but I truly cannot picture myself putting a dead animal into my baby boy's mouth. Ugh. There just seems to be nothing good about it.
I am someone who doesn't make decisions about things like this until I've done a lot of research and reading. Of course I know what there is to know about vegetarianism, it's knowing everything about a baby's health that gets me. So I'll be doing some reading. But I think that I've already made my decision to feed him a vegetarian diet, what I need to learn, or really just verify, is the healthiest way to go about it.
One thing that I'm concerned about is that Sullivan feels good about it. I don't want him to feel different from his peers. I really don't want him to feel restricted either. I think this will lye in our attitude toward the situation. "We skip the meat because we make healthy choices." rather than "You're not allowed to eat meat." I'm wondering how to handle it when he visits friends at their homes. Do I call his friend's parents ahead of time? Do I send veggie dogs with him? Will their parent's grill him with questions like "Why doesn't your mommy let you eat hamburgers like us?" These social situations are what worry me.
I'm not going to give Sully all kinds of gory details about where meat comes from and freak him out. Also, if he really wants to try some, or ends up eating meat somewhere, I won't go ballistic. We'll have a conversation about what he thought about it, answer his questions, and move on from there.
Does anyone have any thoughts on babies on a vegetarian diet? Or any advise? I don't know anyone personally who has raised their baby(s) vegetarian but would love to hear from someone who has.
I have a while to really learn about it. He's 7 months old and I can't even get bananas past his clenched gums. He's still nursing and that's all he cares to include in his diet right now apparently.
5 comments:
Hi,
A friend of mine forwarded your link on to me. Do you mind if I share with you my story and an experience that I had?
I am vegetarian - have been from birth. When I was born, our family doctor told my parents that in order for me to be healthy, I needed meat. They politely refused. The doctor was sure I was going to be weak and sickly. So, through the years as I (and later my brother) went in for check-ups, he would carefully ask us about our diet. Eventually he saw that we were not weak and sick, but strong, healthy, intelligent kids. In the five or so years before he retired, he began turning to my parents for ideas on how to share the idea of a veggie diet with his patients.
Ok, now an experience. I am a teacher. One time, when I had a group of my kids meeting together for a weekend music clinic at a nearby highschool, a girl, about 12 came up to another teacher and I and asked why we were vegetarian. Understand, I am a person of faith, so I showed her how Adam and Eve and those up to the flood lived to be hundreds of years old, because they ate the diet God intended, fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains. After the flood, when meat was introduced into the diet, Abraham was considered to be an old man by the age of 90.
My son is 9 1/2 years old and a member of a national touring boys' choir. He is the only vegetarian (as far as I know) in his group. I asked him how he felt about it, and he was fine. Some boys have asked him about why, and he simply explains that he has been raised that way. He tells them that if he were to eat meat now, he would get sick because his body isn't used it. He generally has the respect of the other boys because he has stood for his diet (and his beliefs.)
I hope this helps. Please come to my blog if you have any more questions.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me!!! This is so very helpful! (I'd love to come by your blog but I tried and it says that it's not publicly shared).
Thanks again!
I an not a vegetarian but respect anyone that is and if I wasn't so unmotivated to learn a new way to cook - I'm sure I'd enjoy a vegetarian diet too!
Anyway I think the less you make of it the better. That way he will grown up accepting it as part of who he is and most of the time others will too. It doesn't always work like that but most of the time I think it does.
I was wondering how is Ryan???
Also, I tagged you. You'll have to check it out on my blog!
Hmm, not publicly shared? That is news to me. See if this works: http://www.gentlebreezes.blogspot.com.
Copy and paste that and see if you get anywhere. I'm glad I could help you out. Take care
Hey Kim,
I had to break the stalemate on that Sully poll.
While I'm light years away from child rearing, I have thought about this myself. I know I'm not going to feed my children meat (I wouldn't even know how to cook it)but when they get older I'll let them make their own choices on the matter, but know ther mother will never make them a hamburger.
You've got years until he'll be going over to friend's house's without you. I wouldn't pack veggie dogs, but suggest or bring something more of the other kids would eat, like cheese pizza.
My sister-in-law is a vegetarian and my brother is not, they have a 20 month old daughter who has been eating a vegetarian diet her whole tiny life and she's a totally healthy happy little girl who doesn't know the difference. SHE LOVES RAW CUBED EXTRA FIRM TOFU.
Don't get too stressed about it now, you've got a while to figure this all out, first foods are usually vegetarian anyway. Though I have seen jarred baby food with meats in the titles. double yuck, I can't even imagine that.
Post a Comment