This is LONG so appologies. I just feel I need to write it all down as I don't want to go over it with DH again as it upsets him just as much as me.
My ds has been difficult to feed both milk and food since he was born, I have posted about this before.
I had a period of depression which I recieved some couselling for and had antidepressants for a few months but decided against them.
It's really complicated and there are a lot of factors to consider. He is 9th centile for height which is fine, he was born 9th centile. His weight gain slowed down at 8 weeks old and went slowly off the bottom of the chart. We were referred to paediatrician and dietician (along with lots of other people who gave advice on feeding him, none of which worked).
The paediatrician believes he is perfectly healthy and there is no physical reason for his slow weight gain apart from the fact he doesn't take in enough calories generally.
The dietician's main aim is to get his weight to match his height (centile wise) so that if he were to become ill he would have some 'spare' to fall back on and wouldn't become to underweight.
The dietician prescribed him SMA high energy milk when he was under a year old and his weight picked up a bit but then slowed again. Once he was a year old she changed his milk to a higher calorie one called paediasure plus, this made him completely loose the tiny bit of interest he had in food and he would vomit on average one of his 4 bottles back up again each day, he also had very runnny poo's (all not usual for him). After 2 weeks of him hardly eating a scrap of food on this milk we decided to mix it half and half with his ols SMA and he stopped vomiting, poo's we ok again and he ate a little.
He was breast fed when younger and I had a lot of problems but he bascially ended up being mix fed till 5 months when he refused to bf anymore and went completely on to the aptamil.
He was late to sit unadied and has been quite late with getting his teeth. Hw will be 2 on 30th Oct and still only has 8 teeth (at the front) and one molar coming through.
It took ages to get him off smooth jars then ages to get him off lumpy jars. Feeding him has been the haerdest, most frustrating thing I have ever had to do. To feed him jars he required constant distractions (eg toys, books). He took ages to become interested in just eating bitd of our food and for ages would just chuck them on the floor or eat a tiny bit then leave it.
We are now at the stage where we give him fromage frais for breakfast (won't eat cereal or weetabix or readybrek), I have to distract him with a magazine or video's off my phone to get him to eat the fromage frais otherwise not one single spoon will be accepted.
Then he gets some sort of sandwich for lunch (philidelphia,tuna,cheese, egg etc) and some quavers and bits of cheese that he likes to eat. He usually takes about 2 bite of the sandwich at lunch if we're lucky then eats a bit of cheese and about half a bag of quavers. I then have to distract him (again!) to get him to eat a high cal pudding such as custard or more fomage frais or ice cream etc
Tea is bits of ours cut up which has varying success, sometimes he eats quite a bit (10 bites max) and sometimes hardly a scrap. Pudding is the same as lunchtime, high cal, spoon fed. DH usually does tea to give me a break from the feeding although I am there also as we all eat together.
He has 4 4oz bottles of milk a day as he won't take more than 4 oz a bottle ( I would love to be able to give him 2 8oz bottles or even 3 5 oz). He won't take the milk from a cup although he can drink prefectly well from a cup and he has his juice in one.
The dietician has recently also prescribed him some high calorie powder to add to his milk or food. He refused point blank to eat it in his food. I don't blame him as it was grainy and didn't dissolve very well. We therefor add it to his last two bottles of the day as to not affect his appetite during the day.
Recently we ran out of the higher energy milk temporarily (paediasure plus) and had to give him just the SMA for a week or so whilst we waited for the prescription. Ds's interest in food increased noticabily when he was on the SMA alone and he ate slightly more than when he has the paediasure mixed in. I have always believed from the begining that the paediasure didn't help matters. The dietician said to see how he is off it for a few more weeks and if still the same she will put him on a less calorie dense paediasure that is more suitable nutritionally for his age than the SMA.
I'm a little worried that changing him milk again will have some sort of affect on his eating, changing anything usually does. I'm also concerned that even though his appetite is better off the paediasure he still doesn't eat a whole lot more, just seems more willing to eat at all iyswim so he might not make up the calorie difference.
The main problem has always been the amounts he eats, he is quite good at trying a variety of foods if in the right mood but just looses interest very quickly. He just doesn't seem to get he has to eat a lot to grow, it's as if he's just not hungry.
When we saw the dietician the other day she made some 'helpful' suggestions on ways to encourage him to eat. She suggested reward charts/stickers for eating a bite of something or another page of his story for eating such and such. Thing is i'm pretty certian he is too young to understand this concept yet, we have tried over the last few days and he just doesn't seem to get what we're on about?!
I have watched many episodes of 'the house of tiny tearaways' to try and get answers on feeding problems. I have taken away from this that anxiety is the enemy. We spend each mealtime trying to be as relaxed as possible and basically just let him get on with playing with his food whilst we chat amongst ourselves and occaionally to him. We give him gentle praise when he eats something and clear his food away when he finally starts throwing it on the floor. We don't put too much on his tray and we always offer something we know he likes/somehthing familiar and something else for him to try. I don't know what more we can do?!
This is what has brought me to write this all down. I feel that everytime we see the dietician she makes suggestions on ways to get him to eat or things to feed him that are high calorie. I always come away from the appointments with renewed hope that we have new ideas to try and desperately hope that one of these ideas will work. Then wht happens is I get back to reality at home, try the suggestions and they don't work. This makes me sink even lower and makes me feel even more defeated and helpless than before . I always end up feeling so sad to the point that I just feel like going somewhere ds can't see me and sobbing my heart out.
We have tried so much, so many tactics and ideas over the months but the daily grind of having to feed him and progress being so painfully slow just gets me down. I try not to think about it most of the time and try to remain positive butif I stop to think about it then I just have massive feelings of hopelessness. I feel like i'm letting him down, I don't know why he won't eat more, I can't help him to eat more cause nothing works and nobody, not even the many professinals we have seen have any answers of ideas that can help us.
I don't want him to be on 2 types of high cal milk and high cal powder. I don't want to try to constantly feed him high calorie foods as deep down I feel it is unhealthy for him. I don't want to distract him whilst I spoon food in to him. I just want to be a relaxed mother who can let him discover food and feed himself. I can't be that mother though because the fact is, if I just leave him to it he will not gain enough weight and it'll be my fault. i'm crying writing this, I feel totally at a loss and I know my DH feels exaclty the same
I feel left alone to stuggle and wish someone could tell me why he is like this or at least give me something I can do about it that works.