Tag Archives: feeding

Feeding Update

I thought that I would give an update on how Duncan’s feeding “disorder” has been going. I realized I haven’t said anything about it since his weight gain of two pounds last month.

Since that weight gain and his pigging out eating towards the end of December, he has had really no problems eating anything. I haven’t seen him choke or gag on any foods since last month and he is drinking the amount of milk that he should be. Sure, he has days where sometimes he doesn’t want to eat or drink as much but, he’s a toddler right? We have to work through that aspect of toddlerhood as well as making sure he’s getting enough of food in him.

About a week ago, we through him on the scales just to see where he was at and were very pleased to see that he is now 22 pounds which is  a weight gain of a bit over a pound in just about a week and a half when we did it. Which means that he is gaining steadily now.

We have looked at some bell curve weight charts and we have found that is back on the charts. Mind you, he still is small and only at about 3% but the fact that he is back on the charts is fantastic. He needs to gain about 2-3 more pounds and he’ll be up to the 15-17% on the curve.

He is doing so well with his eating that it is surprising me. We give him foods not sure if he’ll eat it and he does. The other night he shoved a whole noodle (like rigatoni) in his mouth and we were waiting for him to spit it out but he chewed and ate it. He’s even chewing things like chicken meat and steak, steak is tough to do.

The only time I’ve seen him pull his little face of when he’s usually choking or gagging was when it wasn’t for that purpose.  He put a sour gummy worm in his mouth and pulled the face and just yesterday he took a sip of Jamie’s coffee and pulled it. He no longer wants Jamie’s coffee!

So, he has definitely decided to eat and drink normally. Now, it’s just a case of playing make up for the lost time and pounds.

Two pounds is huge

We thought Duncan was getting a little belly and baby boobs on him but, I’ve thought that before and when he’s gotten weighed there was no change. So, I figured it was just hopeful thoughts.

We went to his doctor’s office for one last time yesterday to grab his medical files and then get him weighed again for our sake since they can’t do anything because we leave a couple days.

Well, well, well, we put his little diapered butt onto the scale and up popped 20.8 on there. My eyes grew big and my mouth dropped open. He now weighs 20 pounds and 13 ounces. On the 15th he weighed 18 pounds 14 ounces which was only a 1 ounce gain from the time before.

Two pounds! Can you believe it? That is the most he has gained in a long, long time. We couldn’t be happier with that progress. I am hoping that it keeps up even though I am not seeing any signs of him slowing down on eating or the drinking. In fact, he is up to drinking 8.5 ounces a day for the past three days.

Also, when we went out tonight to grab some toys for the trip and snacks, Duncan ate 4 cookies. FOUR! I was amazed at him. He also has a new found love for shredded cheese and will say cheeeeese. It’s absolutely adorable.

Tomorrow is the day that we are spending doing last minute laundry, packing up the clothes, getting the snacks and toys into a bag for carry on, packing away last minute things in the room here, and I am sure there is going to be a lot of crying when I start to slow down.

 

Christmas is over!

Since it’s now 10 o’clock on Christmas night it is pretty safe to say that Christmas is indeed, over. This Christmas turned out to be pretty fun and more about the whole family spending it together than anything else. It’s always nice to focus on the time you’re spending with people than the things that are under the tree.

The little ones made out pretty good this year though and even Duncan got some toys that he’s having a blast with and that we’ll be able to squeeze into the suitcases when we go to Australia.

Duncan gave Jamie and I a present a few days ago that has continued through today and we really hope keeps going. He has started drinking his milk from his sippy cup, the one with the straw no less, and he has even kicked up his chewing and eating altogether.

Last night we had spaghetti and meatballs which is the Christmas eve tradition and this kid went to town on the spaghetti. I didn’t figure he would eat much of it because spaghetti noodles are a little awkward to chew sometimes, and that is without having a problem chewing. Well, he didn’t let that stop him because he ate quite a bit of the spaghetti and even was chewing on the meatballs. Everyone was absolutely thrilled. Earlier that day he had also ate some shrimp and really loved it. There really wasn’t a moment that this kid wasn’t either shoving food in his mouth or drinking from his cup.

Yesterday he drank 8oz of his milk. Yes, this is still behind on where he should be for an almost 20 month old. However, for where he was last week with barely drinking even a tiny sip, to drinking that much in a day that wasn’t from me, is fantastic. This was also without doing anything that the therapist told us to do.

The main thing that I did was took his cup into the bath with him and we sat there and every tiny little sip he took, I cheered. After that it seemed like he has been a drinking fool.

The drinking and the eating is the best gift that I could get this year. I am really proud of the progress that he has done.

We are going in to his doctor’s office on Tuesday to pick up his medical files so we can get a doctor in Australia and we’re going to ask if we can weigh him for our own sake and see if he’s put on any more weight from the 15th when he weight 18lbs 14oz.

So, I hope everyone had an absolute blast this Christmas. Next up is welcoming the new year. That is when we will be starting the new year in a new country, Australia.

Early Intervention – First session

Well, today was Duncan’s first (and probably only) session with the occupational therapist with First Steps (early intervention). We let her read the report from the speech therapist that did his feeding evaluation yesterday so that she could get a better understanding from another professional what was going on. It seemed that Duncan stumped her though because of his stubbornness on not wanting to drink but just wanting to eat.

She wants us to enforce strongly that he has to drink before eating anything which I get. Also, instead of asking him to drink we have to tell him to drink. He didn’t like this so much and threw a huge fit during it. He also didn’t sleep well for his nap which did not help matters at all.

One thing that she did teach us is to massage his mouth before meals and snacks to wake up his mouth and get ready for chewing as well as massaging during the process of chewing. I rather liked that tip but, she really did not tell us much more than what others have told us in what to do. At the end of it, Jamie and I didn’t feel we got much from it. She said that him feeding himself and everything else looked spot on, which we were already told that his other skills were at level or above.

Right now, we have ten days until we leave for Australia so there isn’t many more opportunities to get anyone to work with the feeding here. What the speech therapist, developmental peds, and the feeding team when Duncan was checked into the hospital have all told us is that this will take time to rectify but basically keep doing what we’re doing.

I will say though that today he drank around the family and altogether a lot more than he has and I am hoping that it is the start of more intake in fluids. If we can get him to start drinking more milk and fluids at the level he should be then we would be home free and the rest is just retraining. He also took bits of ravioli and beefaroni noodles and didn’t spit them out, so I’m pretty damn happy with that in the food chunk department of his feeding.

We’ll see if he does the same and a bit more tomorrow but, it seems that he is improving more and more each day.

Early Intervention Plan of Attack

So, this morning was the Early Intervention planning meeting with the lady. It went about as expected with us leaving in about two weeks. She’s going to try to get us a few appointments with an occupational therapist and see if we can get some tips on what to do about getting him to chew and eat more textures. She says that it sounds like a sensory issue which is pretty much what we thought too.

Sometimes Google can give you some information along side the professionals! I am hoping that the therapist will have a few openings and we can get someone out to the house and work with us for a few times and we will be able to learn a few things from it. However, who knows if they will have openings and get the doctors signature in time.

We’re working on limited time here though which sucks. Tomorrow is the appointment in Indianapolis and I’m just hoping that one goes well.

Fingers crossed!

Duncan’s First Steps Evaluation

This morning we had Duncan’s First Steps evaluation (early intervention). It was pretty good actually and Duncan did really well. When they first walked in, they caught the poor kid off guard. He had just sat down for some breakfast and then they came. He started crying like he does at the doctors office but, he quickly calmed down.

They evaluated him by playing and having him do different things with toys and talking to him and also a lot of questions for Jamie and I. At the end of it they told us that he barely made it into qualifying for their programs since he does have feeding delays but he does other things such as brush his teeth with no problems.

One of the ladies said that he had a small communications delay but it wasn’t a big deal. It’s just that he whines to get our attention and doesn’t pull on our hands or anything. However, he does actually do that to get someone’s attention but since they only see him for about an hour they couldn’t see that as well as him being super comfortable. She said not to really worry about that much and I’m not. Other than that, she said that he was really advanced on his cognitive skills and to keep the bar high for him, expect more because he is doing great.

Jamie and my mom both said later they always said he was a little prodigy but, you know you get those parent/grandparent goggles on when it comes to your own and of course they’re advanced! When a professional tells you that though, you get super proud and know you’re doing at least something right by your kid.

That was really awesome to hear and also good to know that he is hitting everything else except the eating, which we already knew. He is getting better though because now he is actually biting into crackers and food and moving it around in his mouth as opposed to just sucking on them.

We have another meeting with the lady who did the beginning questions next Wednesday to come up with a plan for him. However, with the upcoming holidays and other things happening that I’ll talk about later, we may not get much help from a therapist that is in their program. Even if we just get one visit though, it may give us some pointers on things we could do to help him start actually eating more.

Now, saying that, he has all of a sudden been eating like a hippo! He eats about half a pudding cup, at least a few tablespoons of mash potato/sweet potato mix and about half a cup of soup in one sitting. He also has crackers and a sandwich with his meals or hamburger, some kind of meat that he’s putting in his mouth and tasting.

Progress is the name of the game.

Duncan’s eating progress

Duncan has been eating pretty decent lately. His favorite thing right now is pudding. If nothing else, he will eat pudding like a mad man. Between yesterday at lunch and today for breakfast he ate a whole pudding cup. That is a huge improvement in itself with him. He also loves tomato soup and so we are going to try him on other creamed soups like chicken and mushroom to see how he likes those.

Today for lunch we went to Pizza Hut and he was eating pretty good there too. He was chewing on a piece of pizza. He still isn’t chewing and swallowing chunks of food but, he is getting there. He seems to be improving everyday with his eating.

He has even taken drinks of milk from his sippy cup and gone back for more of it.

During the weigh in today he is up to 18 pounds 13 ounces. I can’t really remember exactly but I am pretty sure that is up at least 5 ounces from two weeks ago. We haven’t received a call back from the doctor (the nurses just weigh him, we don’t see the doctor for these) so, I think they aren’t worried about it right now. That’s how I judge it.

However, we’re having problems finding a store that sells the Boost Essentials for kids so I’m going to do a internet search. You’d think Walmart would sell them but, nope. Perhaps Target?

I’m just happy there is a gain going on here! Let’s keep going in this direction.