Blending away!

Wt: 19 lbs 3oz
Length: 29"
Age: 15months/ 12months

15 month well check-up

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! I was off from work so Josh and I decided it was our only opportunity to take Connor to the beach! We took a day trip to Isle of Palms and had a great time. Connor wasn't too sure about the water at first, but after the second attempt of playing in the water he loved it! I hope to be able to take him back to the beach before this summer is over. Not to mention, it is so rare that our little family is all together for an entire day so that made it even more special.

First trip to the beach!

Playing in the water

All smiles- check out all those teeth!!

Traveling with an every 3 hour gtube feeder is quite a challenge but we handled it quite well! Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the back seat feeding Connor while Josh drove! We officially started his blenderized diet on June 30th and dropped all Elecare completely! He had a lot of blood work drawn the day before checking vitamin levels so he would have a baseline to compare to a month after the new diet.

With this diet, a special industrial blender is very helpful so that it purees the foods well enough so that it doesn't clog his gtube. These blenders range in price, basically $400 plus. We were very fortunate to have one donated to us after an email I had sent sharing Connor's struggles with formula, oral aversion, and health issues. We are very grateful that this company wants to try to help our little guy!

So we mix up all kinds of goodies into the blender and use that for his feeds. He gets chicken, oatmeal cereal, rice milk, avocados, green beans, pears, blueberries, squash, and olive oil. This makes a little over 1000 calories/ day but he doesn't receive all of it yet. Right now he has worked up to 5 oz ( amazing because he would be vomiting a ton with anymore than 4.5 oz of formula) and gets around 900 calories/day. This is about 100 calories more than he got on formula, not to mention he vomited about 3 times a day so he was actually getting less than 800 calories. His vomiting has decreased, he actually went 48 hours without any vomiting- AMAZING!!! Unfortunately I got too excited and he decided to break that record, it seems he averages about once a day lately. We change the fruits and veggies daily so he gets a wide variety, that may be the reason for the vomiting. It feels amazing to know he is getting nutritious foods instead of straight manufactured formula.He is also getting foods that babies his age eat, if he were to eat by mouth. The blend is so thick that it can't go on his kangaroo pump so we have to manually push his food in, about 1 oz every 5 minutes. This is why it is a challenge when traveling, but we will eventually master this! His pediatrician wants to do a weight check after 2 weeks of being on the blenderized diet, so we will either go at the end of this week or beginning of next.

Traveling with blenderized diet

I am hoping and praying that his weight increases at a steady pace. Everything I have read about the BD diet says that they all loose weight once they start all food instead of formula and then it seems to sore up! It is a huge adjustment on ones body, I just pray that Connor hasn't lost any weight! Seems we have intrigued alot of people and his doctors with his new diet, I will continue to update on how he tolerates it!