Super Frustrated!

The battle rages on! The Romy vs. Food battle that is. After initially doing pretty well even after weaning off of the bottle, Romy has once again gone on a feeding strike. It's a struggle to get anything but goldfish crackers and water in her. I even tried giving her a bottle again, which she promptly refused. I am seriously at my wits end and seeing my skin and bones daughter struggle to gain weight is wearing me out. She is almost TWO YEARS OLD and is barely 17 pounds, probably less now.

Meal times are a constant struggle, she'll take a few bites and refuse the rest, if I try to sneak a bite in or "trick" her into opening her mouth then she just gags, and the last thing she needs is an oral aversion so I just leave it alone and try to get her to drink some Pediasure.

I'm really worried about her nourishment and growth, it's obvious that she's tiny but I'm worried that her lack of nourishment will effect her brain development, who knows maybe it already has! So Ray and I have talked about it and have decided to look into getting Romy a g-tube. It's a feeding tube surgically placed into her stomach with the opening on the outside of her skin where we can essentially feed her through a tube. Ray was very against it in the beginning (but of course I do 95% of the feeding therefore experience it first hand the most) but after much debate, he has seen it my way.

I took Romy to a feeding clinic and they think she'll benefit greatly from it. She'll have an upper GI and barium swallow study to rule out any physical anomalies before we proceed to make sure there isn't some other problem besides lack of appetite/sensitivity issues that is preventing her from eating adequately.

The g-tube is not a permanant thing, and Romy will still eat by mouth. The g-tube is to supplement her with food so that she can gain weight and stay hydrated. While she has the g-tube we'll continue to work hard on her eating habits until we feel she can efficiently take in enough calories by mouth, then the g-tube can be removed. This usually takes anywhere from 1-3 years for children like Romy.

I feel like I have exhausted every other effort, and this is the only thing left. We've tried adding calories with Duocal, heavy cream, butter, oil. I feed my kid ice cream for breakfast for cryin' out loud! I try playing games with her, letting her play with food every meal in the hopes that some would actually make it to her mouth. We've even tried appetite stimulants, it worked for a while, but has lost it's effect. I just hope I'm making the right choice, pray, k?

Wouldn't she be a whole lot cuter with a few extra pounds on her?


Playing with jello but not actually EATING any....sigh....