When Brianna moved into our home, she was 17 months old and 7kg (15lbs). During her first week or two with us, she wouldn’t eat and dropped down to 6kg (13lbs). We tried solids with her, mixed bananas, baby cereal, and she wouldn’t take any of it. We were giving her bottles of Pediasure. We found a donor to start covering formula and then she went back up to 7kg. We could never get her to get over 7kg though. When Tori left on her break to the US, she taught Brianna’s ayah, Prameela, how to mix her bottles and we decided that would be her job. After about a week and a half though, I noticed Brianna looked thin. I started monitoring what she was drinking and noticed that she wasn’t drinking nearly as much as she had been when Tori was here. Not because Prameela wasn’t mixing it, but she was refusing it and spitting it out. I weighed her and she was back down to 6kg. I decided to take over her feedings myself and began tracking her food in-take. Since then, this is what she may drink on a normal day:
8:30am- 9oz bottle of formula mixed with vanilla yogurt. Drank all
10:30am- 6oz bottle formula. Drank 3oz.
12:30pm- 3oz bottle formula. Drank all.
2pm- 9oz bottle formula + vanilla yogurt. Drank all.
4:45pm- 4.5oz bottle thickened formula, yogurt, and mixed sapota fruit with bottle nipple cut open a bit. Refused it.
5:30pm- 1 spoon of baby food after awhile of trying to get her to swallow it
7pm- 9oz formula. Drank some at 7 and then finished the rest an hour later.
I want to get her to the point where she will drink five 9oz bottles/day. Right now she is sleeping with her ayah, Prameela. I have started putting a 6oz bottle of water with them at night, and the can of formula, so if Brianna wakes up in the night (which she often does), Prameela can give her a bottle then, rather than just giving her water.
Brianna has what we think is sensory processing disorder. She is very sensitive to taste, touch, and sound. She is blind, so has no visual input. I haven’t noticed anything about her reaction to smells. This really makes things challenging for her as she becomes very upset and overwhelmed easily. It is especially difficult when it comes to eating.
Brianna won’t take anything by mouth. She will drink her bottle (Lactogen 3) and if we mix smooth yogurt or baby food (only certain kinds) with the formula she will drink it. If we give her that same thing by mouth with a spoon or even with hands, she won’t take it. She will skip meals rather than take anything by mouth or even by bottle if she doesn’t like the texture. Recently with Tori she began drinking bottles of mixed rice/curry/egg, like the other kids eat. I can’t get her to drink that though and she will refuse it and skip the meal if that is what we give her. This morning she did drink a bottle of mixed chapatti and potatoes. We sit with her daily and try to get her to eat baby food or yogurt by mouth. She screams and flails and might (accidentally) swallow one bite or 2 at the very maximum.
Yesterday I booked an appointment with a pediatrician to have her looked at. As I expected, it wasn’t all that helpful. No one here knows what sensory processing disorder is, and I really think that is at the root of all this. They classified Brianna as “failure to thrive”, meaning that she is under the 3rd percentile for her age group. She is actually off the charts and is the average weight of a 3 month old. She turns 2 in eight weeks. Her body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs to grow or hit developmental milestones.
Brianna is a cute, sweet baby who has already come so far in the past 4.5 months since she joined our family. Tori has dedicated so much time to helping her progress with her aversion to touch, and now for the first time she is touching toys and starting to enjoy playtime. Our volunteer Candace has been really dedicated to caring for her and finding things that she likes and ways that we can help regulate her. She discovered that when there are loud noises, even just a group of people talking, Brianna shuts down. When Candace covered her ears and muffled the sound, she immediately stopped crying and was calmed. Brianna has the cutest smile with her mouth wide open and her little teeth protruding. She swings her head side to side like she is dancing. She loves our preschool Circle Time song, that we open class with, and that tells me that she loves preschool. She gets so excited every day when the song comes on, and I think it’s more than just the song. She is excited to learn and play, which is a long way from where she used to be. Before during Circle Time she would have to sit in her Bumbo chair because she couldn’t handle sitting in someone’s lap or on the floor and have all that sound and touching (movement- head and shoulders knees and toes, waving hi, etc). But just recently we don’t have to use the Bumbo anymore and she is able to do fine without needing the safety feeling that it gives her!
So, what do you do when your sweet, beautiful almost 2-year old screams when you try to give her food and refuses to eat to the point that she is the size of a 3 month old? We don’t know. We are researching and experimenting and trying to figure something out. If we were in Canada or the US we would have occupational therapists, speech therapists and feeding therapists who could help us through this. Here in India, we have Google! (we do have speech therapists here but no one that seems to know about these specific issues). We really have 2 challenges: 1) How to give her food in her bottle that will help her gain weight – how to increase her amount of feeds without her refusing it, what can we add to the formula, etc. 2) How to get her to eat food out of the bottle, by mouth/spoon?
The doctor recommended cutting the nipple of the bottle a bit wider and seeing if she will take Cerelac (baby cereal) in a bottle. She said to do this only while Brianna is sitting up and being monitored so she doesn’t choke. I am going to try that for dinner tonight. She suggested giving her formula by spoon (she won’t take it, despite the doctor arguing with me and saying she “certainly” would). People have suggested making her feeds in her bottle thicker. We have done that with beginning to mix rice and other food. She is picky about it but is drinking it sometimes.
We are open to suggestions from people who have had experience with this sort of thing! We don’t know where to start! My focus right now is just giving her a bottle as much as possible so she can put some weight on, but soon we want to shift our focus to teaching her how to eat by mouth.
8:30am- 9oz bottle of formula mixed with vanilla yogurt. Drank all10:30am- 6oz bottle formula. Drank 3oz.
12:30pm- 3oz bottle formula. Drank all.
2pm- 9oz bottle formula + vanilla yogurt. Drank all.
4:45pm- 4.5oz bottle thickened formula, yogurt, and mixed sapota fruit with bottle nipple cut open a bit. Refused it.
5:30pm- 1 spoon of baby food after awhile of trying to get her to swallow it
7pm- 9oz formula. Drank some at 7 and then finished the rest an hour later.
I want to get her to the point where she will drink five 9oz bottles/day. Right now she is sleeping with her ayah, Prameela. I have started putting a 6oz bottle of water with them at night, and the can of formula, so if Brianna wakes up in the night (which she often does), Prameela can give her a bottle then, rather than just giving her water.
Brianna has what we think is sensory processing disorder. She is very sensitive to taste, touch, and sound. She is blind, so has no visual input. I haven’t noticed anything about her reaction to smells. This really makes things challenging for her as she becomes very upset and overwhelmed easily. It is especially difficult when it comes to eating.
Brianna won’t take anything by mouth. She will drink her bottle (Lactogen 3) and if we mix smooth yogurt or baby food (only certain kinds) with the formula she will drink it. If we give her that same thing by mouth with a spoon or even with hands, she won’t take it. She will skip meals rather than take anything by mouth or even by bottle if she doesn’t like the texture. Recently with Tori she began drinking bottles of mixed rice/curry/egg, like the other kids eat. I can’t get her to drink that though and she will refuse it and skip the meal if that is what we give her. This morning she did drink a bottle of mixed chapatti and potatoes. We sit with her daily and try to get her to eat baby food or yogurt by mouth. She screams and flails and might (accidentally) swallow one bite or 2 at the very maximum.
Yesterday I booked an appointment with a pediatrician to have her looked at. As I expected, it wasn’t all that helpful. No one here knows what sensory processing disorder is, and I really think that is at the root of all this. They classified Brianna as “failure to thrive”, meaning that she is under the 3rd percentile for her age group. She is actually off the charts and is the average weight of a 3 month old. She turns 2 in eight weeks. Her body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs to grow or hit developmental milestones.
Brianna is a cute, sweet baby who has already come so far in the past 4.5 months since she joined our family. Tori has dedicated so much time to helping her progress with her aversion to touch, and now for the first time she is touching toys and starting to enjoy playtime. Our volunteer Candace has been really dedicated to caring for her and finding things that she likes and ways that we can help regulate her. She discovered that when there are loud noises, even just a group of people talking, Brianna shuts down. When Candace covered her ears and muffled the sound, she immediately stopped crying and was calmed. Brianna has the cutest smile with her mouth wide open and her little teeth protruding. She swings her head side to side like she is dancing. She loves our preschool Circle Time song, that we open class with, and that tells me that she loves preschool. She gets so excited every day when the song comes on, and I think it’s more than just the song. She is excited to learn and play, which is a long way from where she used to be. Before during Circle Time she would have to sit in her Bumbo chair because she couldn’t handle sitting in someone’s lap or on the floor and have all that sound and touching (movement- head and shoulders knees and toes, waving hi, etc). But just recently we don’t have to use the Bumbo anymore and she is able to do fine without needing the safety feeling that it gives her!
So, what do you do when your sweet, beautiful almost 2-year old screams when you try to give her food and refuses to eat to the point that she is the size of a 3 month old? We don’t know. We are researching and experimenting and trying to figure something out. If we were in Canada or the US we would have occupational therapists, speech therapists and feeding therapists who could help us through this. Here in India, we have Google! (we do have speech therapists here but no one that seems to know about these specific issues). We really have 2 challenges: 1) How to give her food in her bottle that will help her gain weight – how to increase her amount of feeds without her refusing it, what can we add to the formula, etc. 2) How to get her to eat food out of the bottle, by mouth/spoon?
The doctor recommended cutting the nipple of the bottle a bit wider and seeing if she will take Cerelac (baby cereal) in a bottle. She said to do this only while Brianna is sitting up and being monitored so she doesn’t choke. I am going to try that for dinner tonight. She suggested giving her formula by spoon (she won’t take it, despite the doctor arguing with me and saying she “certainly” would). People have suggested making her feeds in her bottle thicker. We have done that with beginning to mix rice and other food. She is picky about it but is drinking it sometimes.
We are open to suggestions from people who have had experience with this sort of thing! We don’t know where to start! My focus right now is just giving her a bottle as much as possible so she can put some weight on, but soon we want to shift our focus to teaching her how to eat by mouth.
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