Feeding Team Report

Yesterday, four months after the referral was made, Ian finally saw the feeding team, which was comprised of a speech therapist, occupational therapist, and nutritionist. I had weighed Ian yesterday morning at home because I had a feeling he was losing weight due to how much he's been throwing up lately. Sure enough he had lost about 1 lb in the past 3 weeks. He weighed almost exactly the same as what he did three months ago. Three months ago he was at the 70th percentile IF you compared his weight to his length, but he's fallen down a lot since then because his length has increased, but his weight has not. He had peaked around  the 40th percentile for weight at 10 months old and has been falling down ever since then. His weight is now at less than 10 percentile for his age. Boo hoo! In light of this weight loss, I called the Pediatrician and asked for a prescription to be called in for his reflux. I figured that it was better late than never to start him on that. The Pediatrician was concerned when he heard what his weight was at the hospital. We won't have any insurance coverage for prescription drugs when we return from the cruise. That was another reason I wanted to get it before we left. We didn't have to pay a penny for it, but if we didn't have insurance it would have cost us $60 (which in the grand scheme of things is cheap when it comes to medications). I'm hoping that this acid reducer might help him not throw up as much, but at the very minimum it should make it less painful for him when he does up-chuck.

The feeding team gave a variety of recommendations. I am to encourage him to put more toys in his mouth, have him put foods in his mouth that he can't eat (such as Twizzlers), etc. They gave me a special brush that I'm to use in his mouth many, many, many times a day. They said it's going to take a long time to get him over his defensiveness related to his texture sensitivities. They tried to get him to eat a cookie. Needless to say he didn't have any. They also said that kids who have these issues usually turn into very picky eaters. Sigh. They told me to give up completely on the Gerber Puffs. I am now letting Nadia eat them so they don't go to waste. The happy news is that he ate 4 ounces of yogurt on Thursday. I didn't think he'd eat any of the cruise ship's food, but I guess he will eat some of their yogurt. YAY! I am really hoping that through Early Intervention we'll get more assistance with his feeding issues. The feeding team also wanted him to see a Pediatric Gastroenterolgist (sp?). PSU's insurance doesn't work with this hospital so our Pediatrician got Ian an appointment in Hershey for next month. Ian will have been to three different hospitals in the first two months of 2011. They think that the reflux is also causing a lot of his feeding problems. It makes sense that if eating makes you throw up that you wouldn't want to eat.

The nutritionist said that since he's not eating much baby food yet, I should switch back to formula (you were right, Regina). We stopped at Walmart on the way to my parent's home last night and bought some formula. She also said that if his vomiting doesn't decrease that we need to increase the calories of his bottles by putting in an extra scoop of formula in each bottle. Once we return I'm going to start tracking his weight more closely. After we return I'm also going to call the GI doctor and ask to be put on their cancellation list in case that might enable him to be seen sooner.