Huge milestone at our house! The baby bottles are GONE!! As you know, since Caleb was born we have struggled with his weight gain. He's a terrible drinker (He never learned to drink out of a bottle correctly and we've had to cut the nipples on all of his bottles because he "chews" the nipple instead of sucking on it. And he's never been able to drink more than 4 oz at a time out of a bottle either). He is not great at sippy cups and even worse at open cups. He still doesn't swallow correctly...he swallows 2-3 times with one little sip. (His old ST with the feeding clinic assured me that he'd outgrow this as he got better oral strength, but didn't have any way to help him gain that strength...) And even when he says he's thirsty, he only takes a couple sips of whatever he's drinking. (As opposed to Isaac who will drink entire juice box in one breath!)
So because of his low volume intake and poor weight gain, we've allowed him to keep his bottles. He would drink about 3 oz of milk in the AM when he woke up, before his nap and before bed. If nothing else, they were keeping him hydrated. And because Isaac wants to do everything Caleb does, he too would drink a bottle in the mornings. This just started recently, but how could we say no to him and yes to Caleb?
Lately we noticed that Caleb had started coughing a lot while drinking his bottles (every time, only while drinking them, and then the cough would stop). This is the classic sign of aspiration. It was probably happening because the nipples are getting old/stretched out since we cut them and he bites on them. And he was probably getting too much milk out, wasn't swallowing it correctly, and some was going into his lungs causing him to cough. (He had this issue as a baby/toddler which is why we had to thicken his liquids). So we decided enough is enough and told the boys that we were going to throw the bottles away. They are too old for them and I wasn't going to buy new nipples so Caleb doesn't aspirate. They actually took it very well and it hasn't been a major issue....yet. So now I am trying to figure out a way to get C to drink those 12 oz of lost fluid during the day and also watching him for signs of aspiration pneumonia because after the last bottle he had, his cough never went away. Always something, right??!!
2 comments:
Wow, what a big step with the bottles. I hope that it continues to go so well. I hope the cough goes away quickly. Would it be wrong to start prophylactic chest PT?
Caleb and Hallie are pretty much the same kid, separated by a few hundred miles, gender, and a bit of age. She also requires her milk for growing and so we have exactly the same struggle with getting rid of the bottle as you did. And, like Caleb, Hallie is a nipple chewer (I've thrown out upwards of half a dozen and have vowed not to buy more nipples for my four year old). We do still thicken Hallie's bottles, but less than we used to, so we're avoiding aspiration (I think). And, like you guys, we find it hard to get the younger sib off the bottle while the older sib still has one. So we've been hemming and hawing around here. Please let us know what tricks work for getting Caleb to drink (if you find them) because we're definitely going to need to use them too.
Good luck with this!
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