Eating, eating, eating and no reward!

(Alex with a teething cookie)

Well, I continue to make my own baby food for Alex. I add Saffflower oil to it to boost up the fat and calories (per CHOP nutritionist). I try to nurse her 4 times a day. Alex eats like a champ but drinks very little. She drinks little when I nurse and by the sippy cup. Forget the bottle. The result is a weight gain of under a pound in 4 weeks...Better then what she has been gaining recently but still not good. The missing oz in Alexandria's weight gain are in the milk she is not drinking. Alex now weighs 12.14 lbs. She should weigh at least 15 lbs. for as long as she is (25 3/4 inches). We saw a G.I. today and the nutritionist. Alex had some blood tests done and is scheduled for an upper G.I. test on June 16th. The G.I. doc said there could be many reasons for Alex not gaining weight. One could be that her body is not "taking in" the food she is eating - there is medication we could give Alex for that. Another reason could be that the food she is eating is not being digested quickly enough leaving Alex not wanting to nurse or drink - there is medication we could give Alex for that. He wants me to keep a specific log that CHOP created with all that Alex eats for 3 days and then fax it over to him. The Nutritionist is annoyed that our pediatritian told me to give Alex cereal and baby food so early on instead of working on getting Alex to nurse more. She gave a couple more possiblities of why the weight gain may be so small. We won't know for sure what is going on till the test results are in. If these tests don't show the reason there may be more tests. If we can not figure out the reason or if the medication we give her does not work and Alexandria's weight continues to be low Alex will need to have a feeding tube put in until she catches up with her growth. She needs breast milk or formula in order to grow and get the nutrition she needs in this stage of her development. Breast milk is prefered over formula. My breast milk supply is going down since Alex is not drinking...She has been nursing for about 3 minutes at a time recently and then blowing bubbles and grinning at me...She won't take more then an oz out of a sippy cup. In all, our estimate is that Alex drinks about 6 or 8 oz a day - at most. This has been going on for about a month. She should be drinking AT LEAST 20 oz per day...Sooo...I am to try and nurse Alex every 4 hours and do it before I give her baby food. I will have to once again record how long she nurses for each time. We are on a waiting list for a nursing baby scale - I will have to weigh Alex after she nurses to see exactly how much milk she is taking in. I will also need to pump in between feedings or after feedings to increase my milk production unless I want to give her formula which I do not. I am open to formula if I can't get my milk supply up for when Alex starts drinking again but would rather not go that route. I will also have to put this special powder called Duocal in Alexandria's baby food 3 times a day - this will give her an additional 25 cal per feeding - at least untill she starts drinking again or gets a feeding tube put in. The nutritionist will speak with Alexandria's G.I. doc to see if they can come up with anything else and that they are on the same page. She will also contact the rest of the feeding team (she is a part of it) to see if at this point an evaluation by the whole team is needed (if you remember we decided against that during our last visit since Alex seemed to nurse well and enough at that time). Please pray for Alexandria's feeding issues, her growth and weight gain as well as for my milk production. Thank you!