More about the feeding clinic...sorry for the delay in updates. Charlotte went to the feeding clinic on Jan. 15th. A nutritionist, occupational therapist and psychologist talked with me extensively before the actually watched Charlotte eat. Sara was nice enough to come a long with me to help keep Charlotte entertained while I was talking with the team. Charlotte ate breakfast while we were there, and the team and Sara were behind a see through mirror for the feeding. Charlotte did many of her usual things, gagging, pushing food away, refusing to eat certain things, distracting herself, etc. So, I feel they got an accurate example of how our meals really are. Their main suggestions for us were to change her schedule of feedings around a little bit, and to feed her her "meals" first, then bottles immediately following the meal. They warned us that things may get worse before they are better, and that this change may not help us at all, but their goal with the change is to get her to take in more volumes of food at one time.
We are to follow up again with the team this week, and we have continued to keep track of EVERYTHING she eats/drinks, calories & total volumes to give the team the most accurate information. I know the caloric value of cheerios, goldfish, mashed potatoes, yogurt, vanilla pudding, formula and butter by heart. So far, things have gotten a little worse, but the gagging/vomiting has gotten much worse. We try to offer Charlotte foods that she "likes" but inevitably anything that we find she likes eventually turns into a food that she vomits, gags on or refuses. It is so frustrating every day just trying to come up with food to feed her because I dread that moment when I see her gag and have all of the food that I worked so hard for her to eat come out. (On top of that, she usually refuses to drink her bottles when she vomits during the meal time). We are not sure what the outcome of all of this will be, but I can say, we are doing all we can to help her. Hopefully when we return to the feeding clinic on Friday this week they will have more tips/ideas to help us.
On a positive note, Charlotte acts like she feels fine, which makes this all the more puzzling. She is happy most of the day despite her cutting 4 molars and vomiting nearly once, sometimes twice a day. She has become very loving, and knows 2 new phrases. "Get down" since she pulls up on almost everything and has crawled into our dishwasher, and "Give Momma Hugs", which is my favorite. She will bury her head into me and let me give her a squeeze. This is quite a step since Charlotte has never really liked to cuddle. I am hoping to turn her into a cuddler yet.
The Hawns
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