We are going to have our hands full

Well after our visit yesterday with Nancy we have decided that most of Brie's feeding problems are behavioral. Nancy was trying to feed her and Brie kept throwing the food on the floor. Nancy told Brie no and Brie looked at her smiled and proceeded to throw the food on the floor. Nancy said she has not seen a baby Brie's age do this. So we are persevering and trying to change the behavior. Nancy's last comments when we were leaving on Thursday were to stop sleep feeding her. If she falls asleep and has not eaten let her go. Well today I have done just that. After a few hours she was fussing and actually willing to take a bottle awake. Now it does take me walking her to get her calm to take it, but she actually started every bottle awake today. She did fall asleep midway through all of them, but it is a start. Hopefully this will teach her what hungry and full feels like. Solids are another story. She will take a few bites of anything crunchy and seems to really love veggie sticks, but anything mussy or on a spoon and she wants nothing to do with it.
Her weight tonight was 15 lbs 12 oz so no gain this week, but we have been giving her less formula in an effort to increase her solid intake. She has been averaging about 20 oz per day. So it is not enough to gain weight, but she is not losing. Hopefully she will start eating solids better and we can move away from the formula.

Visits to the Pediatricians

Well today Brie went to see her general pediatrician. Overall she is very happy with how Brie is growing and developing. She feels that Brie is on target developmentally for her age. Yesterday Marcus took her to see the developmental ped and their neurologist and she did very well.
Their only concerns were that when she walks holding our hands she is on her tip toes. Other than that they could find nothing wrong. We are to encourage her to walk with her heels flat and they discouraged us from putting her in her exasauser because it allows her to be on her toes. Brie loves her exasauser and spends a little time daily in it so mommy can get some things done and take a shower so that is one recommendation we will likely ignore.
Brie is now able to get into a sitting position on her own. At the ped office tonight she asked me if she was able to do it and I said I had not seen her do it and then as if on cue she got from her belly to sitting. Sunday morning she also said mama for the first time. Marcus and I were both there and it was pretty clear so we think that is officially her first word.
Her latest stats at the ped office tonight were: height 25 inches (<3%), wt 16 lbs (3%), and head 17 in (18%). The percentiles are for 10 months. We did not figure out what they are for her adjusted age. Dr. Stefurak is happy that she is following her own curve and has moved up on growth chart in all areas except her height. Marcus and I are pretty sure she is not going to be tall so we are not worried.
As for her feeding we are about the same. We tried a few days of yogurt and on the 5th day she vomited a portion of almost all of her bottles. Today we did not give her the yogurt and she did not vomit so it looks like milk products are going to have to be avoided. We will likely trial them again in a month or so.

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.

Well we thought Brie was doing better with taking her bottles awake, but we are back to refusing. She will allow you to put the bottle in her mouth and will act like she is sucking, but she gets nothing out of the bottle. After about 10 minutes of nothing she gets frustrated and starts screaming and you have to get her to sleep to take the bottle. Hopefully she will start sucking again on the bottle. We have not been very good about her therapy because of the holiday and so many visitors so mommy and daddy are hopeful that once we get back on track with the therapy she will start taking bottles awake again. She has been taking more on a daily basis and is finally gaining some weight. Last night she was 15 lbs 5.5 oz. She is still not doing well on solids either. She does like things that are crunchy like Cheerios and puffs, but there are only so many of those she will take in a sitting.

As far as physical development, Brie is doing wonderful. She "inches" across the floor on her tummy and rolls where ever she wants to go. She is pulling up to stand on everything and is cruising. Standing and walking are her favorite thing right now. She was a little spoiled over the holiday and thinks that she needs constant entertainment, but hopefully that will be short lived.

Brie had a great Christmas. She received visits from Grammie and Poppop Smithgall the day after Christmas and on Christmas Nanna and Pop Green along with Great Nanna and Poppop Miller and Aunt Kristy. She had a great time visiting.

Best Christmas present ever

Well something has changed over the past few days since we went to see Nancy. Brie has started taking her bottles awake! She at times does not take the entire bottle awake, but when she is hungry she lets us know. Additionally she has been taking 5 oz at a time. Previously we were lucky to get 4 oz into her at a time. We are now consistently getting her to take 20
+ oz a day. Hopefully she will start to gain weight. She is even waking up at night wanting to eat. Mommy does not even mind getting up at 3 am to make a bottle when Brie sucks the entire thing down in 10 minutes and goes right back to sleep!

For Christmas we are spending the day at home. We visited with Mommy's family on Saturday and Brie had a good time playing with her cousins. The picture above is Brie held by Cali and Brandon, who is the same age as Brie (adjusted), held by Christian. Yesterday Aunt Shelley came to visit and spent the night. Brie had a great time opening presents and loves her new clothes and toys.

feeding therapy

Today we went to a speech therapist in NJ that specializes in children with feeding difficulties. Nancy spent 2 hours working with Brie to evaluate and figure out new ways to feed her. She feels that a lot of her problems have to do with her suck. She basically does not suck on her bottle. We are going to work on some techniques at home to get her to develop a good sucking pattern so that she can effectively drink her bottle. We are also going to start working on more finger foods because Brie seems to really enjoy chewing on finger foods. Also Nancy suggested that Brie may not like baby foods. They do not have much taste to them and she seems to like things with alot of flavor. Today she ate cheese curls, pretzels, nutrigran bar, rice crispies and some other finger foods. She sat in the high chair for almost an hour letting me put them in her mouth. She also did some drinking from a straw and a cup. We are going to work on these items for the next two weeks. The pretzels and cheese curls are good because Brie actually sucks on them. Hopefully this will train her to suck better. We will see Nancy in another 2 weeks to evaluate her progress. Nancy also has another mother who she is going to contact that has a child with the same problem. Hopefully we can help each other through this rough time and get our little ones eating better. Over all it was a good visit.
Brie has actually been drinking her bottles better the last few days. She has taken on average 23 oz per day for the last 5 days. Today was not a good day for bottles, but she did eat alot of table foods in therapy and missed an entire bottle because of it. Hopefully she will start gaining weight again soon. She is so active that she burns so many calories. I am going to see if Nancy can suggest a pediatric nutritionist to help me with high nutrient foods and to see just how many calories Brie should be getting a day.

Just a quick pic with santa. Of course Brie would not smile, but at least she did not cry.