OK, first of all, funny that everyone we knew there came by and asked if it was the same Matthew that they saw last time! No more baby….
I am posting this in case it helps someone – no need to answer, just if you have questions, let me know and i will try to answer them.
He is getting big and they want us to start playing with his feeding volumes just a little bit… it has taken me around 7months to get him back on the 50% weight line and they feel like we have some room to play… UGGHH hate it but i know it can be the right thing to do. We usually do about 7ounces per feeding and if he goes up to 5ounces on his own, which he has done in the past, we are to not tube feed him adn see what happens. According to doctor, the more they take my mouth, the more they take by mouth… (Also, Matthew gets fussy after a while and he starts pointing at the syringe adn if you give it to him he puts it in his bottle and wants to feed himself through the tube??? Don’t think he knows he is getting fed but he is getting used to finishing his feedings like that and not sure it is a good thing).
We are trying to separate purees and formula but it is tough because he is probably washing down some of the purees with formula. The problem is that the pattern that babies use to suck is pretty immature and that one they use to eat purees is more advanced and if you keep switching between them, it may make him tired and confused and he goes from simple to advanced and will always tend to want to do simple (I hope that makes sense)
Again, his mouth and chewing patterns are very very immature. I asked about why they would be this way and the doctor said that it is typical of babies with stomach problems, allergies and really bad reflux. When a baby is feeling sick (stomach related) and gaggy etc they do not develop proper feeding patterns, so she thinks that MAtthew was probably pretty sick when he was young and probably was sick for longer than we thought.
He is taking a few bites and is opening his mouth but probably not big enough, so we have to work on that. Once he opens bigger, we have to put in spoon straight in and push down a little bit (we were doing this a while back and backfired but we need to try again) to cause him to push tongue upwards so that he learns that is the pattern and not moving it sideways, like he is doing now. Then i need to start giving him some chin support so that he again learns that the pattern is moving tongue up and down and forward and back and no side jaw movements like he is doing. He takes a long long time to eat one spoonful of puree because he moves it around so much…. we need to move food around properly.
For the feeding therapy at home – she does not want us working with the therapist at feeding times at all. Only mom will do feeding for now. Wants the person to work with desensitising and strenghtening the tongue and lips and will speak to the person so that tehy are attacking the problem together and in the same way.
What else – she said that the big improvement in Matthew is probably due to the fact that he is walking all the time, and also she said that at around 12months they sometimes improve volume wise and texture wise so we will see.
No tricks for Matthew anymore – she says they will not work anymore for him – he has outgrown the tricks for babies that we were usinig and we need to wait until he is older and understands the consequences of what he does and he is able to be treated more like a toddler than a baby.
I hope i have explained everything. Let me know if you have questions.
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