EE Update

So I just wrote this post about our morning routine and had to add a blurb to explain why my 5-year-old is drinking bottles before preschool. Tons of fun. But I pat myself on the back for publishing the post anyway, rather than being embarrassed by our little bottle-drinking situation. Anywho... it made me realize I am long overdue with an EE update--I can't believe I haven't blogged the whole off-the-bottle/back-on-the-bottle saga.

The Saga of the Bottles

Just before Halloween (October 2010), L finished a bottle, put it on the counter and said thoughtfully, "bottles are for babies; I am not a baby" and I jumped at the chance to offer him all sorts of cups to drink from. He sat right there and started drinking formula from a cup. Woohoo. This was right before bed, so we wondered how it would go the next day. He woke up and I asked if he still wanted to drink from the cup and he was up for it and he drank the whole thing. The first day was a huge success, so I thought we had turned the corner.

Over the next couple months, he drank less and less out of a cup. {I'm skipping ahead, there was a whole go-to-the-store-to-pick-out-cups adventure and he chose McQueen take-and-toss cups with straws.} We then tried mixing the Neocate with Nesquik to make chocolate "milk" and his volume went up briefly. Then his nutritionist cautioned us against using Nesquik because it is cross contaminated by things like wheat. Then his volume dropped anyway and we went back to the tried and true Neocate mixed with orange Pedialyte.

Then just before Christmas, he was sick with a cold and drinking barely any formula and getting quite lethargic. We panicked and asked L if he'd like to drink from a bottle. To our surprise, he said yes, he would like a bottle. First, we weren't sure he even remembered how to drink from a bottle, but soon enough he downed the whole thing. We were so relieved.

We went to the pediatrician's office the next morning. She diagnosed a sinus infection and when I told her how we'd freaked and given him a bottle, she assured us the reason he hadn't been drinking was the illness, the post-nasal drip explains everything, go back to the cup. But L didn't want to go back to the cup. Hubby didn't want to go back to him not getting enough volume. So as of late December, L is back on bottles. After 2 months without. :-(

The good news is that while his volume of Neocate was going down, he started eating more real food. So he is back on bottles, but fewer of them. Before the switch to cups, he was drinking nearly 42 oz of Neocate per day (7 bottles times 6 oz/bottle). We offered 7 cups a day and he drank very few ounces of each. So when we went back to bottles, we are down to 4 bottles per day (28 oz total), with the difference made up with real nutrition from solid food. Yea!

Finally, last month we had an appointment with his gastroenterologist and told her the whole long story. Her first reaction was to try to get him back to a cup. Her main point is that getting off the bottles will only get harder as he gets older. I replied that he still has the skill to drink the cup and we are keeping that up, like on road trips, but now that he is drinking less volume, he can get through a day of school by eating real food, and my husband's theory is that the way off the bottle is to get off of Neocate--by eating more and more food. She pretty much agreed. So to avoid headaches and heartaches, we are back on the bottles. L is getting his nutrition, but they don't really interfere with our life because he can get through a school day without it and if we are out and about I can bring a thermos of Neocate and it's fine. The end.

Eating

L is eating meals better than ever. Some of his new foods include:
-Sunbutter sandwiches (on gluten free bread)
-quesadillas (on rice tortillas)
-hamburgers (on gluten free buns)

The addition of hamburgers has been the biggest success--since he has long refused any kind of beef. It's been a long time coming. Two things helped: (1) he wanted to try Daddy's burger and (2) we finally found gluten free buns (at Trader Joe's). Woohoo! Now burgers are his "favorite food." Of course we doll up an entire half a burger (cheese, mayo, ketchup, mustard) and he eats 3 bites, but it's a huge success!

Okay, I think that's the EE report for now. Everything else is just business as usual. Oh and I completely forgot to schedule an allergist appointment (we should have gone before Christmas) so I'll have to do that soon. I'm hoping to get back to doing my "week in review" thang and updating EE in those posts.