Okay, so maybe that is a silly title, but I actually want to talk to you about Gracie and gather your thoughts and experiences. I took her into the doctor today to check on her cold and we spent the whole time talking about her weight. Her growth on the growth charts is decreasing. They said it's not a big deal if a child is at the bottom of the charts, but then steadily grows at the bottom of the charts. But Gracie's curve is going down (she is currently in the 6th percentile for her weight and I'm not sure what she was before) and that is raising some concern.
The bottom line is that she isn't eating enough. But why? She still fusses and sometimes cries at feeding time and she hardly ever eats a whole meal. She is sometimes worse than others and sometimes she just cries and cries - hard crying.
We've tried treating her for acid reflux and that seemed to help a little with her fussiness, but not completely. We've also tried Bio Gaia drops that can sometimes help colicky babies, but those didn't help at all and I kind of wondered if she cried more when she was on those.
Today the doctor discussed a few options:
1. Try the prevacid again (for acid reflux) and see if in a month at her 6 month appointment she's making better progress. This time I will up her dose just slightly and I will give her a fresh dose every day (last time I saved half for the next day and it is possible that doing that can decrease it's effectiveness). And if you couldn't tell - this is the one we're going to start with to see what happens.
2. Change my diet drastically for 10-14 days. Cut out all dairy and eggs and see if that makes any difference.
3. Have blood tests done to check for food allergies/intolerances.
4. Supplement her feeding with formula or breast milk (if I can pump in between...).
5. Completely switch to bottle feeding and see if we can better control how much she is getting.
So that's it. The hard part is that the only way to figure this out is to try different things and hopefully something will work.
I've also wondered if we should take her to a natural-pathic doc to see if they have any new ideas or thoughts.
I have no idea how to help her. I got the prevacid today and it had a very pricey co-pay ($50) and so I feel like I need to give it a shot, although I'm still a little unsure.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Or has anyone ever had an experience even remotely close to this?
And we've talked about maybe doing a fast to pray for guidance. If we do that would you all be willing to fast with us?
Thanks for listening. And please share any thoughts you might have.
8 comments:
PS I accidentally put it on the teamclark blog first and then I switched it over to this one and so that is why it says over there in the sidebar that teamclark also has a new post...but it doesn't...
I was wondering why it said Team Clark was updated...!
I don't have much experience with the babies not eating well, but here is my two cents. I didn't eat dairy with Leah until she was 5 or 6 months. She was fussy, so I tried that on a whim to see if it made a difference and it did. In fact she was a WONDERFUL baby after I stopped the dairy products! I slowly started again about 5 or 6 months and she handled it much better by then. Also, I have had several friends whose babies weren't gaining weight, so they switched to formula and those babies chunked up pretty quickly! That's all I have to offer on this subject. I hope you can figure it out! I will fast with you guys! -Jen
Scott cried all the time when he was born through 6 weeks. He acted as if he never got enough food. I couldn't understand it because I nursed him every 2-3 hours. The doctor suggested I switch to formula, then within one day of doing that, he slept through the night and wasn't fuzzy anymore. For us this worked, poor baby of ours was starving. He was a larger baby (9lbs. 2 1/2 ounces at birth) and seemed to need more food than I could feed him.
I had a similar experience with feeding Sarah and Jake. With Sarah, it didn't matter what I did -- cut out dairy, stay away from spicy foods, etc. Nothing seemed to work. We finally switched her over to formula (for both of our sake's!) and she did much better. She was colicky for about 4 months, then seemed to improve on the bottle. We used a special protein formula that was easier for digestion.
With Jake, he wouldn't come close to a bottle! We tried reflux meds too, and they seemed to help, but only when I was really consistent with giving it. Taking dairy out of my diet seemed to help a bit, but mostly because he was really constipated as a baby. Our doc actually had me give him some baby oatmeal mixed in with breast milk from a bottle. That seemed to calm him a bit. I don't know if that just filled him up better, or he just calmed his tummy.
This will most likely be a long process to figure out. Good luck and I hope you find one that works. And remember - you're not a terrible mother if nursing turns out to be too difficult for the baby. Brent had to remind me of that several times along the way with Sarah. What's important is that Gracie is growing and healthy. Keep us posted!
I had some troubles with Jason and Adam because I didn't have enough milk to keep up with their needs. I gave up with Jason when he was 6 weeks old but Adam wouldn't take a bottle. I had to actually spoon feed him milk for a couple of days which was awful. He was a hard one. We worked on him taking a cup very early because he would not drink from a bottle. Once he got on a cup, he began to do much better.
I have nursed most of my kids but with a few it didn't turn out so well. I decided it was far more important that they be full and happy than the fact that I was trying to nurse them.
I think your approach and ideas are good ones and you need to try every option. Reflux is a difficult problem for babies (and adults, too). I hope you are able to help her find some relief. The cold she has I'm sure isn't helping much, either.
Of course we will fast with you. Let us know what day.
The allergy thing is certainly a strong possibility. I hope she starts to feel better soon.
Will had reflux and they put him on a medicine that didn't really help him very much but then at about five months they put him on a different one and it worked so, so much better.
I also think you could try the formula thing and see if that helps!
I hope everything will work out. We will add you on our list of things to fast for!
Thanks everyone for your comments! Every bit of input helps me so much.
I've been thinking about the switching to formula thing all day, but I still have no idea what we'll do.
Hopefully we'll figure this out soon.
And we'll let you know if it gets to a "fast" status - thanks for being willing to help.
You're all great!
Post a Comment