Mar 27 - Second Feeding Clinic Visit

Mar 27th - We had a second visit to see the dietitian at the local feeding clinic last week. It had been almost a year since our last visit there for the feeding evaluation. A year ago, Kyle was still taking bottles, but would cry, scream, kick, and struggle for over half an hour before starting to suck on his bottles. Her advice at the time was that Kyle was over weight, over fed, and he needed to lose three pounds in order to feel hunger. And we should feed him half of what we were feeding him at the time to make that happen. At the time we thought she was crazy and no doctor was on board with that plan. Now looking back she was right! She was very surprised but pleased when I called her to set up the appointment. The feeding consultants we have been working with wanted us to meet with the dietitian to make sure Kyle was getting enough micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in his diet, since he was now on an all milk diet with added nutrients, as the last step to conclude our weaning program.

The dietitian thought Kyle looked great and was now at an appropriate weight for his height with a perfect BMI. She noted that Kyle has had excellent growth and improvements over the last year and she wanted him to stay slim because of his physical limitations.

We just got the complete nutrition report back today and she thought that he was getting pretty good nutrition through all the extra fortifications added to his milk, with some tweaks in the vitamins we were giving him. She thought that Kyle only needed about 650 calories per day and about 650-700 ml of total fluids. Kyle is taking more than that in calories, but less than that in total fluids most days. However, it does average out since we need to look nutrition and weight gain over a longer period of time, and not every single day. She also said that the fluid requirements were based on the average population and Kyle's needs might be different.

Kyle has been learning to walk by using his walker in the correct orientation and holding the handles himself. It is a lot harder and requires a lot more work than draping himself over the walker by using it backwards. He is also needing a lot of assistance at times but he is doing it. He can also take steps with us holding his arms.

Kyle is almost back up to 20 lbs but his intake still fluctuates greatly. We are hoping that he continues to have moderate weight gains steadily.