Caleb had a feeding clinic appt this week. He showed off his new eating skills like a little pro. He even chewed and SWALLOWED mandarin oranges for them. Little show off! They were all amazed and impressed. They weren't too thrilled about his weight gain (23 pounds, 2 oz and 32 1/4 inches), but he's still on the stupid growth chart which made them happy. They really couldn't believe that he was the same Caleb they've been seeing for almost a year. They want to get him off his night time bottles (don't we all??!!), however his dietician calculated that 30-40% of his daily calories are still coming from his formula/bottles. They decided that they would pow-wow and come up with an outline of what he needs to eat during the day so that I can gage if he truly needs the night bottles and slowly try to wean them. I was anxious to see what they came up with since I know his mainly "noodle diet" doesn't give him a whole lot of calories. Well, we waited over an hour to see the GI doc and she came in very excited with the "plan" they had come up with. She proceeded to tell me that the plan is for me to "get him to eat as much as I can during each meal, so that he doesn't need the formula and will sleep through the night." I couldn't believe it. What on earth do they think we've been doing for the last 18 months, cutting him off before he's full? I didn't even know what to say. They know the struggle it's been to get him to eat anything and how hard we've worked to get him where he is now. We've ALWAYS tried to get as much into him as possible, even when he was just on bottles. You can only push a kid so far. (Especially one that "likes" to vomit.) Plus, I am not sure how much more he can really eat during his meals anyway. Of course he has his moments, but for the most part he's eating really well for me. I don't know for sure, but I doubt there are a lot of "normal" toddlers that will eat an entire scrambled egg with cheese and some fruit, plus milk in one sitting...how much better can you get?! So anyway, I was very frustrated and was ready to get out of there since their plan was worthless and Caleb was screaming (we'd been there almost 3 hours at that point). But, the GI doc wanted to sit and talk about getting him ready for his new brother. She went on and on about getting him a doll (done), reading him books (done) letting him play in the baby's room (done) talking to him about the baby (done, done, done!!), and for me to read books myself about getting him ready (yah right, like I have time for that!) I told her we had been doing all of that stuff since we found out we were expecting and really how much can a 2 year old understand until the baby's actually here? She wasn't even listening to me, which made me even more annoyed. When she was finally done lecturing me, his nurse came back and gave me paper work to schedule his next appt. I was tempted to not even schedule one, but they want to repeat his video swallow test to see his he's able to swallow correctly without thickening his liquids. This means we'll be at Children’s at least 4 hours that day (and at that point I will have a 6 week old to worry about). I really would like to let him drink "normal" things, so I did schedule it. Maybe I'll just bring him in for the study and then "forget" we had a feeding appt afterwards:)
My patience was tested again today because Caleb was supposed to get his RSV shots, and his nurse didn't call me to schedule them. They have to be given within a certain amount of days from the last shot, otherwise it's like starting the series all over again. I think they have to get them every 28-34 days. I decided to call her and she told me he was going to get them on Tuesday (which would be day 35). After telling her that was unacceptable she finally she agreed to come on Monday.
Maybe I'm overreacting and easily annoyed this week because I am just getting over a nasty stomach virus. Everyone kept telling me that's what happens right before you go into labor. So on top of being miserable, I was a nervous wreck about having the baby. I am sure it was just the stomach flu since it lasted 4 days. It really wiped me out. I was pretty scared on Monday night though because I was having braxton hicks contractions every 2-3 minutes for most of the night. My doc assured me it was because I was dehydrated. Thankfully my mother-in-law came over to watch Caleb for me, since I really don't think I could have done it. I am on the mend now and I think our little guy is content right where he is! And everything looked great at my appt this week....37 weeks....YAHOOOOOOOO!
I wanted to end this on a positive note, but now blogger won't let me add pictures or do a spell check....HOW ANNOYING!!!!
2 comments:
We get the same thing...just cut out the bottle and she'll eat. Yeah, right. Maybe she'll eat if it were non stop french fries, but since she appears to have a limit of 2-3 french fries, that gets us 23 calories (frightening, huh? I imagine that we eat that in one millisecond without difficulty) and one huge vomit on fry number 4. Meanwhile, the kids we've got have stomachs that will take in 4 ounces of relatively low-calorie puree---and that's on a good day. Honestly.
Anyway, congrats on 37 weeks...you are so going to term...indeed you are already at term. YAY!
Blogger hasn't been letting me do a spell check either....and I really need it!
I'm so sorry that you've been sick, and that those feeding clinic people sound like idiots! I cannot stand to be at an appointment for that long! I say keep up the great work that you've been doing with Caleb, and eventually he WILL be eating enough on his own to cut out the bottles. Remember he is still pretty new to this eating real food thing. And congrats on 37 weeks! No NICU for you baby!
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