James has been a pretty small kid for quite some time now. Doctors started becoming concerned over his height, and weight about 1 1/2 years ago. We are constantly struggling to get him to take in as many calories as we can. He gets his primary nutrition from a bottle. He drinks mostly Pediasure and Pediasure 1/5 (same as Pediasure, it just has more calories). We do try to get him to drink some juice and water too. We usually put his Miralax in there to help keep him regular-he often becomes constipated to a point where it can become painful for him.
In the past we have had doctors approach us about getting James a G-tube. A g-tube is a feeding tube that would go directly into James' stomach through an opening in his abdomen. Of course this not something we've ever wanted for James. First of all, James loves to eat and we're worried that he would develop an even stronger oral aversion if he had a G-tube. An oral aversion is where people don't want certain textures in their mouth, or sometimes they don't want anything in their mouths at all. From what we understand we are extremely lucky that James didn't develop an oral aversion when he had his trach. Apparently that is very common.
Lately James' weight has been concerning even me. In the past it's never really bothered me very much. Andy and I are not large people and weren't big kids either. My siblings aren't big and tall and neither are my parents. My mom tells me that we were all small as younger toddlers. However, to me lately it seems that James is not eating as much as he used to. We've always been encouraged to get more calories in him as well as more fluids. It's a pretty hard task. If James doesn't want it, how can we force him to drink it?!
I was able to speak with a nutritionist today that we'll be working with from now on here in Fargo. He assured me that although James is very low on the growth charts, that he has a very appropriate BMI and his height vs weight it very proportional. She did say that even though some kids have a normal BMI that they can still be "too skinny" or "too large". She'll come visit us on Monday while James is in OT/PT and take a look at him. She'll also do a caliper test and see how much he has for fat stores. I think that'll be interesting to know.
On another note, I hope to get some pictures up here this weekend so you can all see how beautiful James is! This weekend we're going to my hometown to spend some time with family. My cousin is having a birthday, so we'll be celebrating. I'm sure our kids will have fun. We'll be out in the country with lots of room to run and play and James will have lots of kids to watch and laugh at, not to mention his Grandma to snuggle with.
No comments:
Post a Comment