Look out Ivy leagues here we come!

Well Brie continues with her behaviors during mealtimes. She has now taken to throwing everything on the floor. We will tell her no sternly, she will cry and then she will do it again. It is a vicious cycle. After two weeks of this we have seen no improvement so we are changing tactics. We are going to try and ignore the behavior. If she throws something on the floor she does not get it back. Once she throws three things in a row on the floor she is done. We will take her out of the highchair and put her somewhere safe and continue with her dinner. This will upset her of course, but after she calms down she will rejoin us at the table. Tonight was the first night we tried it. She actually got to stay at the table and ate a few bites of chicken fingers and french fries. She of course wore more then she actually got into her, but she tried.

After spending some time with Nancy today we are going to stick to foods we know she enjoys and work on the behaviors. Nancy is also going to talk to a behaviorist to seek some more advise on how to deal with these behaviors.

Little miss independent

Brie enjoyed some of mommy's apple and pear. Of course they are much better when she can hold them herself. Prior to these two pieces of fruit she ate 1/4 of my banana as well. She loves to take her own bites off of fruit. It is the only thing she actually asks for more of. At least she likes something healthy!

Crunchy it is!

Brie seems to be doing well with crunchy finger foods. She loves to munch on cheese crackers and other junk foods. We are working on getting her to try things of different textures that are good for her. She seems to like fruit that we are eating. She will take bites of apples, pears and nectarines that we are eating as long as she can eat it like mommy and daddy do.

We have been seeing two therapists one a speech and the other an OT for Brie's feeding issues. Hopefully we will see some progress soon. She has been taking her bottles awake which is wonderful. She generally falls asleep while drinking, but at least we can start her bottles awake. We have spaced her bottles out more so that we can work more solids into her. The goal now is to get rid of the bottle and get her eating all table foods by a year of age. We finally found a sippy cup that she likes. She will not drink anything but water out of it, but it is a start.

As far as growth Brie hit 16 lbs tonight. She seems to be getting taller as well. Her little legs are starting to hang over the edge of the car seat. It will be interesting to see how long she is when we go to the ped next month.

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.