Pressing on with solids

Well Gabrielle still continues to hate the bottle and the spoon. We are still trying to spoon feed her 3 times a day. On occasion she will take a few bites. I think she likes the different tastes, but she is still reluctant to eat more then a few bites. She loves anything that is crunchy and full of salt. We found some organic crackers that she loves. They are just her size and she can pick them up and put them in her own mouth. Daddy determined that they are each 2 calories so he counts how many he gives her in a setting and adds that to our daily intake log. She will generally eat 10 or so at a sitting so it does help to get a few calories into her. We have also added baby yogurt to her foods. She seems to be doing okay with it so far. We are going slowly though. After we started the hypoallergenic formula she seemed to do better with her bottles so adding milk back has to be a slow process. We are hoping that she tolerates it so that we can add things like cheese to her diet to give her protein.

As for the new formula we did get it approved by the insurance which is wonderful. It costs $200 for 6 cans and we use a can every 3 days so if you add it all up that would have been about $400 a month. We are trying to think up creative ways to flavor it so that maybe she will drink more of it.

Brie has started cruising over the last few days. She is even getting brave and taking a few steps only holding on with one hand. She will go from the sofa to the coffee table and back. She loves to stand and now spends most of her day standing and pulling toys out of her toy box. Too bad she does not know how to put them back!

We are also finally gaining weight again. Last night she was 15 lbs 12 oz. She had been taking about 24 oz of formula a day, but we have backed off a little on the formula and are trying to give her more solids. She has now been taking about 20 so we are hoping that she will accept more solids now. We have also spaced her bottle out more to make sure she is hungry when they are offered. She will play with it for a few minutes awake and act like she is sucking on it but after 15 minutes she has only taken an oz. At that point we get her to go to sleep and then she finishes the bottle. Very frustrating.

Brie has been working with a speech therapist for the last few weeks. She was also accepted into early intervention and will get an OT to help with feeding issues starting this week. Hopefully between the two of them we can figure this out. Mommy and daddy are also starting to consider entering an intensive feeding therapy program. The programs we have researched are behavior based, but seem to have success. At this point we are thinking her refusals are behavioral in nature. Her reflux seems under control and her endoscopy was normal. Hopefully things get better in the next few weeks and we will not have to enter one of these programs.