Cereal

Well the ng tube has been so wonderful, who would have thought?! We have been trying to feed her every three hours just like before but this time if she won't eat (which is just about anytime she is awake) we are victorious in the end because we can pump the milk down the tube and be done with it! I thought it was going to be stressful to have to deal with the tube at home, but it has relieved so much stress. And we don't have to get up at 2 am because we can pump her tummy full of all that milk at 11 and sleep until 5 am - yeah!

Last week I finally saw why the doctor has been pushing the more permanent g-tube for so long. It really does ease a lot of the parents' stress. And it is less messy than the ng tube (and people don't stare at your baby in stores wondering what that horrible tape job on her face means...). But I also saw why the g-tube can be negative: it's just so much easier to feed her with the tube than to struggle with her for 30 minutes eight times a day and still not get her to eat what she needs. The therapists told me the reason a lot of feeding children have g-tubes for so long is because of this reason. It is too stressful and time-consuming to work with your child to eat. Tube feeding is so quick and so satisfying to parents of a child with feeding issues.

I have been praying all along that perhaps she would love solid foods and that would help supplement her diet. Although babies get most of their calories from milk, I figure that I can put up with the sleep feeding at all hours of the night if she would eat solids during the day. But if she hated solids, too, then we would definitely go with the g-tube. I had all this figured out on Monday and Tuesday morning the therapist gave the go ahead for cereal.

I was extremely nervous to try as a lot was riding on whether this baby would take to solids. Of course all babies spit out their cereal those first few times because they don't know what to do with it so I was expecting that. But what I didn't know is if she would gag and reflux it and act like it was the worst thing she ever put in her mouth (besides the milk of course!)

Well..she loved it! Hopefully it wasn't a fluke but here she is trying it out. (Again, I apologize that she looks like a mummy with all that tape - I just don't want her to pull out her tube).

This is definitely an answered prayer! Hope this eating success continues.