A Couple Weeks Of Horrible Eating

I have been so pre-occupied with the Letters for CDH project, Kinley's first haircut and Kinley's first vacation (pics to come later) that I got a little behind on her blog. Lets go back to the beginning of July.

For the first couple weeks in July Kinley had a dramatic drop in appetite. She had been eating so well, and then just stopped. Kevin and I chalked it up to teething at first, but when it continued Kevin took her in to the pediatrician's office for a second opinion, and to see how long Kinley could go on like this without more intervention by us. Dr. S. said he could not see any teeth coming in, nor did Kinley have an ear infection or anything else that might hinder her appetite. I wanted an x-ray, but Dr. S. listened to Kinley's chest and said he didn't hear any bowel sounds or anything that might indicate she re-herniated, so his recommendation was to hold off on the x-ray and try to save Kinley from the exposure at this time. He weighed Kinley and she had gained a little over a pound from her 1 year check up, so Dr. S. was OK with her weight at this time also. Kinley weighed in at 20 lbs. Kevin and Kinley left the appointment without an answer to her feeding troubles, but at least we ruled out re-herniation.

Kevin and I were really getting stressed out and frustrated during feeding times. We were actually having several conversations a day about poop and wet diapers. It pretty much consumed us for those couple of weeks.

When the OT came for her visit we explained what was going on and she thinks Kinley was protesting us taking her bottles away. A couple of weeks or so before Kinley stopped eating we decided that she was drinking so well out of her sippy cups that she didn't need bottles after her meals anymore. I was thrilled about this because what we had been doing was giving Kinley breakfast for 30 minutes and then a bottle for 30 minutes. Same thing for lunch and dinner, and then just a bottle for 30 minutes before bedtime. Getting rid of the bottles after meals would cut feeding time in half and give us more time to get out and do stuff. (That is how we had time to get all the summer fun in.)

Well, we have since compromised with Kinley and now she gets breakfast with a bottle of whole milk afterwards, lunch, dinner, then a bottle of Pediasure at bedtime and it seems to be working well for everyone.