Mealtime Progress

One of Brianna's challenges has been feeding. She has struggled to gain weight since she was three months old. I found out when she was six months old that she had a weak suck, which was making it difficult for her to draw milk from me. On top of that, she has a severe gag reflex that prevented me from supplementing her with pumped milk or introducing solids to beef up her caloric intake.

So we seem to have been successful in getting her to be able to nurse better. I believe part of the problem is her sensory issues. She is very sensitive to her environment, and I believe that the energy level at my sister was so high that she couldn't relax, and she was also feeding off of my stress. Since we've moved into our condo, she really seems to be thriving. Between increasing my supply and the relaxing environment, her weight gain seems to be picking up. She really seems to have made some big leaps in her development since we arrived here as well.

We've also embarked on the world of solids. She still can't work food to the back of her mouth, but she's started accepting a spoon in her mouth for a brief period of time, and so far has tasted rice cereal mixed with expressed breast milk and mashed avacado. I wish she had the motor skills to pick up food because I think she would figure it out much better if she could self feed. But she's not gagging as much unless I miss her STOP cues (watery eyes and drool) that indicate a spew is on the way. Today I used the babyfood book my mom got me for Christmas and made some pureed roasted sweet potato. I tasted it and it was yummy! Which meets an important rule I've made - not to make my children eat something I wouldn't eat myself (I made an exception for the rice cereal...) My next endeavor is pureed sweet peas. And while I hate peas, my husband loves them, so I figure that's okay under the rule.

Here's a picture of Brianna sitting in her high chair getting used to her spoon.

Garin wanted in on the picture action too - he's eating his oatmeal (I mix in natual peanut butter and wolfberries YUM!)

I also made the orange puree that the sneaky chef uses. It's a good way to get some added veggies into our meals. It's made of sweet potatoes and carrots. I like to mix it with pasta sauce. It's great with a ton of things though. Mac & cheese, cheese sandwiches, etc. There's also a green puree (spinach, broccoli and peas), a purple puree (spinach and blueberries), a white puree (zucchini and cauliflower) and white bean purees. It's an easy way to get all those extra vitamins and antioxidents and such.

I also wanted to throw in some pics of us breastfeeding, since this will be the most important and her primary source of nourisment for probably at least the next year.