Feeding Help

[Anonymous]

Thais, thanks so much. From what I’ve looked into, we don’t have anything in province (or any other province for that matter). I pray this is the answer for you and Matthew. BTW, saw your pics of Matthew, and he is such a gorgeous smily baby!!! Where do the beautiful blue eyes come from?

[Anonymous]

Hey Lori…

i posted about you in the parent-2-parent.com/forum

so far, 2 people have responded who live in the Toronto area… i told them i was going to ask you to come by that thread and talk to them… they all got their help throuogh Sik kids or something like that… email me if you are interested…i really think that it may help to have some support around your area…

[email protected]

Hope you do not mind!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Thais! I’ll check it out tomorrow. We are already involved with sick kids- they’ve denied us for their feeding program because you need to be FTT, but it would certainly be great to speak to some people in the area. Thanks so much!!

[Anonymous]

No problem… the thread is in feeding aversions… there are 2 forums, one dealing with tube feedings and the other one with feeding aversions… it is the second one. Email me if you do not see it. The 2 people that responded are in Ontario and i am sure one of them is Toronto…. yes, both at Sicks Kids but they offered phone numbers and contacts and stough

Yes, matthew is a smiley… gets big and blue eyes from daddy… i am brown/haired, brown eyed…

[Anonymous]

Hi Ladies! I am very excited, found the Marcus Insitute in Atlanta and have feeding eval on May 17! After the feeding eval they decide to accept or not accept patients to 8 week intense program. I am just praying we get accepted. I feed Allye 8oz over an hour and getting her to stay put for an hour is so hard. I tried to feed her faster but she throws up if I do. I am getting more frustrated as the days go on. She is 10 months old and only on formula, can I put food through the tube? Why can’t she handle more in her tummy? GI doc said should be able to take 8 oz in 20 or 30 mins. I would love to have some advice on everything about tube feedings or links if you have them. Thanks again.

Laurie

[Anonymous]

Good news Laurie. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

SOUNDS GREAT!! YEAH!!!

We are going for our feeding evaluation on the 16th… so close to your appointment. Great they have intensive programs for babies that young… the place where i am going does them later on.

On your questions… sorry if i misunderstanding… you are feeding her Neocate… how many calories per ounce? We do 30cal per ounce, sometimes by increasing Neocate and sometimes by adding Duocal in there. Are you doing something similar?

We went to the GI a couple of weeks ago and she said we have to increase calories so right now we are doing 200ml (almost 7 ounces), 5 times a day (4 of them sitting and 1 at around 1am or so at night). We used to do continous feeds but if your baby moves as much as Matthew, it was becoming really dangerous with the tube getting around his neck, pulling it while the feed going on (we still have NG tube). That gets him around 1,000 calories a day + whatever he will take in solids by mouth (maybe 4 ounces in total, so no real calories from those). Some of the 1,000ml are by mouth, somtimes as little as 100ml per day and others 400ml or so.

Why do you have to get to 8ounces… just wondering. If we feed Matthew fast, he also throws up. We really have to entertain him a bit. If i cannot entertain him, i just syring the rest while he is in his exersaucer or while i am walking (this may not be possible with the G tube, i don’t know) — i have become a master at feeding him and holding him. ANother mom, Lauralee, puts her son on the bjorn and does the bolus feed that way.

I do not think that you can get solids in teh tube… there is other stuff you can get through it, but not for babies this young.

I am so excited for you… please let us know everything they tell you…

[Anonymous]

Hi! I am doing 8 oz every 4 hours because it seems like she needs that much to stay satisfied. She is just on the regular calorie Neocate (I think, I just follow the directions on the can) and she will drink maybe 2 to 4 oz of milk by mouth. How long does it take you to feed the 7 oz? Do you use a pump?

[Anonymous]

8 ounces every four hours… how many times a day?? Seems like a lot of volume maybe?? Don’t know, Matthew is never hungry.

You must be on 20cal neocate… so we are really doing about 32 ounces of formula but with the calories of 43 or so…

You may want to talk to your GI about teh calories…. that way you would only have to do about 5 ounces or so to get teh same calories into her… that woud help a lot with teh throwing up.

We do 7 ounces sometimes over 30miutes and sometimes over one hour… depends how much eh takes by mouth and his mood

No pump right now – easier to syringe while he is seating adn at night i get the 200mls in 10min

[Anonymous]

what do you mean syringe?

[Anonymous]

I know that for the G tube you can get a 50ml syringe, feel it with formula and slowly get it into the tube… ie rather than getting the formula ini the bag and then through the system (ie hooking it up to the tube) you can just use a syringe, rather than a pump.

For the NG tube, the valve is tiny, so i can only do 10mls at a time so i have to fill it about 20 times every feeding…

[Anonymous]

Ok, I tried that but it went in to fast, she threw up everything I fed her! I will call in the am about the higher calorie feeds. thanks!

[Anonymous]

Laurie~ Samantha is almost exactly a year older than Allye and she can not handle 8 oz even over an hour the most we do is 6 1/2 oz. As for the feeding, I would definately see a feeding therapist if you can. With Samantha, (and do not try this unless your GI says it is OK) we give Samantha 20-26 oz at night and NO tube feeds during the day, for the first probably 4 days she did not eat hardly anything. Then she gradually started increasing her intake. She still has her days where she refuses to eat, but that is why we give her the Neocate 1+ at night.

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