Friday, February 19, 2010

Reflux Revisited

I took my sweet Lucy in for a weight check.

2 ounces in one month. Gained. That's it.

I was told by a doctor friend that it should be somewhere between 5-8 oz a month following their first birthday.

She's 15 months now. She doesn't choose to walk on her own, she has to be coaxed. I don't think it is lack of ability as much as it is fear or timidity. :) She looks so nervous when you try to get her to walk. She needs a little confidence! She is picking up new words fairly quickly, and I suspect she will follow more in her sister's footsteps in her verbal skills.

Getting her to eat is a struggle. At first, she was eating alright but not drinking whole milk. So, then I decided to go for dumping the Carnation Instant Breakfast in her whole milk to enhance the flavor and provide some extra protein. That worked. She started drinking more milk, but she started eating less food. I've even caught her with spit-up on her shirt a few times. So, the idea that she may still be struggling with reflux has resurfaced.

She struggled immensely when she was 1-3 months. She refused to nurse a lot. She wasn't much of a spitter, but you could tell she was in pain. We assume she eventually got used to nursing with reflux because we didn't keep her on the Axid for too long. Then, we began to introduce food, and she was not interested. She was more interested in what was on my plate than baby food, so I finally gave up with the baby food. But I notice now, most of the fruits and veggies she was getting from her baby food were probably quite acidic.

We moved to table food, and she struggled for about a month getting the skills to chew and maneuver it in her mouth. She was doing alright. But, then I was worried about her not drinking much whole milk. She was still nursing 2-3 times a day, but still...

Cow's milk is acidic. It is not basic, contrary to popular belief. Both milk and chocolate can really irritate someone with acid reflux. And I was giving her that chocolate Carnation in hopes of getting her more of what she needs. But then she stopped wanting food. Vicious cycle!!!

So, my 15 month old weighs a whopping 17 lbs 14 oz. I have shed many tears over this, but I think I am on my way to a happy place. I'm not truly convinced she NEEDS the whole milk. She will eat yogurt and cheese (and I may sneak heavy cream into her oatmeal). We have her on Prevacid solutabs for a month. We're going to see if it makes a difference in her appetite. If it doesn't, then we may do some testing to rule out other issues. We want to be as conservative as we can without missing something important. We want to do everything we can to help her. I hope whatever happens, we find out that she's just herself.

But I still feel like I need to enhance what she will eat so she can get the maximum calories out of it.

I took Mckmama's advice. I went to Whole Foods and bought a few things to boost her food. I got some flax seed, some flax seed oil, some steel cut oats (twice the fiber of whole grain rolled oats!!! and an extra gram of protein!), and some more tahini to make hummus. For breakfast, I made the kids some oatmeal with the steel cut oats, a tablespoon of flax seed, and of course water. After it cooked, I added some cinnamon, a little brown sugar (didn't have honey), and some heavy cream to thicken it up!

She ate half of it. And she ate a whole container of Yo-baby whole milk yogurt.

This is huge. After her meal, I offered her a sippy cup with milk. She knocked it away.

She is still nursing 2-3 times a day. I feel really good about that.

She may refuse lunch, but for now, she ate her breakfast, and I couldn't be more pleased. We may discover that reflux isn't the issue. I hope that she's just small and finicky and ornery. Please pray for her--pray that she will begin to eat more and gain more. Regardless of growth charts, I know she isn't eating enough. I see what goes in her mouth and what ends up on the floor. Thank you for praying.

If you have a reflux story you want to share with me, I would love to hear it.

5 comments:

  1. hmm... this is tricky. chloe was our reflux baby but outgrew it during the first year. she does, however, still have a sensitive stomach (but her mother's appetite, so no weight gain problems). any chance she could be lactose intolerant? the only reason i ask is b/c our lucy has always been tiny - and the older she got the worse her appetite got. she has always loved milk and all things dairy, so we tried to encourage that so that she'd pick up weight that way. as she got older, we noticed that, although she was thin, her belly was always big - even distended. she also had very firm and infrequent stools and very little appetite. i experimented and discovered that she was not digesting the dairy - so it was sitting in her belly and keeping her full so she never wanted to eat and had difficulty pooping. we took her off dairy and within a week, her belly shrunk and her appetite grew. something to consider...

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  2. you are doing a great job amanda.

    hang in there girl.

    God will not let you miss the mark on taking care of lucy.

    praying for wisdom and peace for you.

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  3. Sorry to hear you're having such a time with the reflux. I have it as an adult, and it's no fun. :P I agree the lactose (or other food allergies?) thing might be worth looking into. Also, I'm not sure what you're doing for nighttime, but a girlfriend had her daughter's crib mattress elevated at night to help with reflux. BTW, her daughter also outgrew it. Hang in there, mama!

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  4. ktNcompany - I do not know you but this sounds SO much like my #3 child.... I had never thought of her having an issue like this because she did not throw up like my #2 child (see below)hummm, you make me really think, but I am not sure what she would do if I took her milk away....

    Amanda - I struggled for a long time with Evynn, the problem was not lactose intolerance but cow's protein intolerance and her problems got worse once we switched her to real milk. It sounds very similar except our little one was always at the top of the growth chart. After much stress, many DR visits and a LOT of throw up... we also found that she was aspirating and we had to put her on honey level thickener. She did outgrow this but we took her off ALL dairy products (including those hidden in all different types of food) for almost two years. There is so much more I could say about this but do not want to go on and on.. I am praying for you and Lucy!

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