1st Attempt at Solids = Success

And I'm not surprised since Nathan's such a healthy eater. It was messy, but he ate all of his rice cereal and didn't think twice about it.

Day of fun

Well, for the most part since our day started with therapy at 8:15 this morning. Surprisingly it was a very productive session; J drank about 90% of his Pediasure from his sippy cup which he's never done before. Of course it took him just over an hour to finish, but that's still progress. So going forward Hillary wants us to try his first 2 feedings from a sippy cup. His 3rd feeding can continue to be from the bottle while we're transitioning. She also wants us to start feeding him solids before his first bottle/cup of the day to see if he'll eat more.

After therapy we headed to Great Lakes Crossing to shop for summer clothes for the boys. We found some good deals and also splurged on a few things for our future niece. I'm so going to go broke shopping for this little girl, lol!

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and the boys had a ball while trying out their first kids meal at a restaurant. J willingly munched on french fries and chicken tenders, YAY!



After lunch we let the boys have at it in the play area.





Needless to say both boys were worn out by the end of the day.

Today was a good day

J was an eating machine today. He ate bacon and hash browns for breakfast, chicken for dinner and grazed all day on various snacks (Goldfish, puffs, cookies). It was really exciting to see him actively seeking out food. Hopefully he keeps this up and then we can move on to eating more volume wise, but for now, just the fact that he's even interested in trying new things is music to my ears.

1 step forward, 2 steps back

Since Justin really despises his high chair we've been letting him "graze" which really doesn't work well when you have a very active child. So yesterday I decided to try out the booster seat and it was a big hit, Justin was all smiles while in the seat. He took several bites of last night's dinner of turkey roast and pasta from me and even fed himself. He also drank from his sippy cup.



Of course it was short lived. During today's mid-morning snack he reverted back to his old ways. He was not feeling the booster seat and went back to clinching his lips and wouldn't allow me to feed him ANYTHING. I'm hoping it was just the yogurt that he didn't like and not the booster seat. So we'll try again at dinner tonight and see what happens.

Justin wants ice cream

That's good, more please!


Brrr, it's cold!

Failure to Thrive

That's the official diagnosis by GI. Hearing that really hurt; failure to thrive has such a negative connotation to it and it makes me feel as if I've somehow failed Justin. Oddly enough I find out this information, not from GI, but from the occupational therapist who just called to schedule sessions for Justin.

Justin was being seen by an occupational therapist at Children's Hospital, but our insurance only covers 20 visits so J's last session was last September. I wasn't concerned because he started receiving occupational therapy through Early Intervention around the same time. And although their focus is not on feeding, the OT has been very helpful and given me lots of advice/tricks/tips on getting J to eat.

Spaghetti... its not so bad

Hopefully mommy and daddy can keep up with giving me new foods, baby food is so bland.

20 month appointment

Weight: 18 lbs 6 ozs
Length: 28 3/4 inches
Head circumference: 43.5 cm

Although weight gain at this age usually slows down, Dr. Hirsch is now concerned with Justin's lack of weight gain since we still haven't seen his catch up growth. I felt bad, but at the same time I pretty much saw it coming because we haven't been as diligent with his solid feedings as we should be. In Dr. Hirsch's words we've been in "survival mode". We made sure that he got his main source of nutrition from 3-4 bottles of Pediasure daily, but making sure he got enough solids each day was hit or miss. Justin gets picky, especially when it comes to breakfast, so when we try to feed him he refuses. Home cooked meals were few and far between due to my pregnancy so we got kind of lax with introducing new foods. And when he did get solids it was baby food, which unfortunately is not that high in fat and calories.

We got some additional tips and tricks to get him to eat more so after Carl dropped Nathan and I off he went grocery shopping to buy some new foods for J to try. We're both hoping that the change in diet helps and we realize we definitely need to be more diligent in ensuring he's getting 3 meals of solids daily. Carl is off for 2 weeks and then my mom will be here for the next 2 weeks, so hopefully we can get into a routine during my maternity leave and keep it up once I return to work.

Feeding progress

Justin's been making some real progress when it comes to solids. Although he's still on stage 2 baby foods he's doing really well with finger foods. He's mastered the Gerber baby puffs and has moved on to goldfish and vanilla wafers. We've also been putting other finger foods (cheese, apples, carrots) on his tray to experiment with, and although he won't eat them, he is picking them up and putting them in his mouth. Yesterday he grabbed a piece of waffle off of my plate and actually ate it, I was so proud!

Justin still gets the majority of his calories from Pediasure via a bottle and will continue to do so more than likely until he turns 2. But to get him used to drinking water and juice we reintroduced the sippy cup. He's doing so much better this time around with solids and the sippy cup, which makes me think he just wasn't ready before.

Self feeding...

is such hard work, I need to get more comfortable

What's Justin up to these days

Gross Motor Skills
Justin is sitting unassisted, can pull himself to stand in his crib, and can get himself into a seated position from both his stomach and back. He's still not crawling but is starting to scoot on his stomach.

Feeding
Justin's eating 6-8 ozs (30 calorie Neosure) per bottle 4 times a day. He's also eating stage 2 solids twice a day and we're also introducing him to other foods to get him used to different textures. He's had ice cream, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, crackers, celery, carrots, and pickles just to name a few. Although the last 3 he's not really eating, just gumming on. As soon as we finish the stage 2's we have we'll be moving on to stage 3 foods.

Talking
Justin is finally saying mom and mama. He's babbling quite a bit, but no other really distinguishable words. He's on month 2 of "Your Baby Can Read" and loves it. He's not saying the words just yet but you can tell he's totally grasping the meanings/concepts. Just yesterday he shook his head no when they asked him to and he also loves when they do "arms up".

Sleeping
Justin continues to sleep through the night. He takes 2 naps during the day, anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. He gets a bath at 9, then a bottle, and on a good day he's asleep by 10. But most nights he's not falling asleep until 11, sometimes even midnight. For now it's not that big of a deal because I'm off so I can sleep in with him, but I'd really like to move up his bedtime by the time I go back to work next month. I've already adjusted his nap schedule and don't let him nap past 6. Now I need to start waking him up earlier since he normally sleeps until 9 or 10. Maybe I need to shorten his nap times too.

Other
Ty C taught Justin how to hi-5 this weekend; it's so cute. He loves playing with his toys and is starting to understand cause and effect. No teeth yet, but he continues to drool and put everything in his mouth. I really wish they would just break through already.

We're making progress

Today Justin ate 5 of the Gerber graduates puffs during his OT session. I know you're probably thinking "so what, big deal" but this is HUGE for Justin. Until recently he gagged and threw up whenever anything thicker than pureed foods touched his mouth so it looks like the mouth stretches are working. Hilary (his occupational therapist) was very happy with his progress so now the focus is on getting him to feed himself.

Well wouldn't you know he fed himself when we got home from OT. He's been grabbing the spoon and putting it in his mouth since we started solids but he's never grabbed/reached for finger foods. But I went ahead and put about 6 puffs on his tray and he grabbed and ate 3.

Here are some pictures from dinner time. Note to self: don't leave a bowl of food on the tray if you actually want the food to get into your child's stomach.

The feeding saga continues

The Zantac isn't working, well not completely. He's not throwing up as much, in fact, he hasn't thrown up in the past 4 days. But his desire to eat hasn't gotten any better. He's capable of taking 4 - 5 ozs a feed, he just doesn't do it consistently. On Wednesday he took 4.5 ozs at 2. At 5 I tried to feed him and nothing. I tried every half hour for the next 3 hours until finally he took about 2.5 ozs at 8. But even then it took him an hour to take that. It's hit or miss with each feeding, you never know how much he'll take. Part of me wonders if he just has a small appetite and he's really full. But even if that's the case, is it enough for him to develop properly, probably not. I asked Dr. Hirsch how much he should be eating and she said somewhere between 5-6 ozs per feed, which sounds like a lot.

So Dr. Hirsch is calling peds GI at Children's Hospital, but she said they're always busy and it may take a while to be seen. She's hoping that by calling herself she can get him seen pretty quickly because he's "complicated". Hey, whatever works. In the meantime she upped his Zantac to the maximum dose for his weight. I forgot to ask for something stronger, but I don't think she would've been comfortable with trying something else anyway. When she first called she said that she didn't know what else to do and she needed help. It'll be interesting to see how much he weighs at his next appointment, but that's not until March 5th.

Eating Problems

So Justin’s eating, or lack thereof, hasn’t improved. For his weight he should be eating between 20 -25 ozs daily. His daily average is 12 -15 ozs, not even close. And the addition of juice hasn’t helped make him any regular. If anything it’s caused more problems because he gags and chokes on the juice because it’s so thin and he’s throwing up more. But a post on a preemie message board I frequent got me thinking that maybe Justin is lactose intolerant. I called his doctor yesterday to discuss but she wasn’t in the office so I left a message and hopefully she’ll call tomorrow. But someone needs to figure it out because I’m tired. Tired of Justin not eating, tired of fighting to get him to eat, tired of wasted formula, tired of not knowing what’s wrong.

I Still Don't Get It

Eating - We, or should I say Justin, was doing so well with his feedings. In early December he started taking 2.5 ozs per feed. And shortly after I came back from NY he started eating 3 ozs per feed. But this past weekend he started back tracking, sometimes only taking 1 oz. On top of that he sleeps all day and only wakes up to eat 4 times a day. I know he should be taking at least 6 bottles a day so we started waking him up to eat but he fusses and refuses to eat. So we're lucky if we can get a 5th bottle in there. Maybe it's time to switch formula, but last time I asked the NICU doctors about it they didn't see the need to change since he's been on Neosure for so long and has been tolerating it well. Maybe I need to switch to a fast flow nipple, but he's been able to get his food from the medium flow nipple when and if he actually sucks. But if he's not fussing he just likes to play with the nipple. Fortunately we have an appointment with his pediatrician tomorrow so we'll see what she says.

Sleeping - So Justin is capable of sleeping through the night (STTN), he just doesn't do it consistently. He actually started STTN a few months ago. He started off sleeping from midnight to 6 and then we decided to try putting him down at 10 pm and he would still sleep until about 6. But that stopped right as I was going back to work (perfect timing isn't it) and from that point on it's been hit or miss. Some nights he'll STTN, other nights he'll wake up once or twice. I can't really complain, most times it's just for a diaper change and then he'll go right back to sleep.

I Just Don't Get It

Justin had his last bottle at 9 o'clock last night so you would think he'd be starving when he woke up this morning. But he just barely took the 1 oz bottle with his meds and only took 1/2 oz of the remaining 2 oz bottle. And I had to revert back to the tricks used when he first started nippling in the NICU (rubbing his cheeks, holding his chin) just to get him to take that last 1/2 oz.

I just don't get it, for his weight he should be taking in somewhere between 14 and 18 ozs /day. On average he's only been taking in 11 ozs for the past week and it's been a struggle to get him to eat. He gets really fussy and starts crying at the top of his lungs so I thought his reflux was getting worse. We took him to the doctor on Halloween and they took x-rays to check his digestive tract, checked for thrush, and drew blood to check for infection. But nothing was found so the only thing they could think of was that because he's getting my frozen breast milk he could be reacting to something that I ate and recommended using infant gas drops. That has helped in terms of the fussiness but he still doesn't eat much. He is growing, slowly, so I guess that's all that matters, but it just doesn't seem right.