Nutrition - September 30th, 2016

Today we called the nutritionist to talk to him about the next steps that we could take to help you with your feedings. The last appointment we had was with GI telling us that you may be a volume limited child. We were excited to talk to him and finally be able to decrease the volume so that you may take more by bottle.
I called and was so surprised to find out that the number was a direct line to the nutritionist. He answered and I told him who I was and that we saw GI and told him that they suggested we decrease the volume and increase the calories. He looked up your information and then told us that he wanted to increase your calories from 22 calories to 24 calories. He told us that we now needed to mix 1 tsp of formula to 90 ml of breast milk. He said to keep feeding you every 3 hours, with the exception of midnight. I was happy about the changes, and so was daddy when I told him what we were doing.
After I got off the phone, I got to thinking. I never asked how much you should be getting every 3 hours, and just assumed it was 90 ml. It didn't seem right to me after calculating the calories. I called back just to make sure I knew what we were doing. It was a good thing that I called back. He wanted you to still take 110 ml every 3 hours, but now 24 calories. So, after what GI said, he said that he wasn't going to do that, and he thought you still needed more calories. He said to stay where we were for 5 more days, then start the 110 ml with 24 calories for two weeks. After that, we could call him and see what to do from there. Daddy was not happy with this information, so he got on the phone to talk with the nutritionist. The nutritionist explained that he wasn't backing down on the volume because he would have to increase your calories to over 30 in order to have you get the intake you needed if we decreased the volume. After talking for a bit, we agreed to do 2 weeks of 24 calories, and then we would do 2 weeks of 27 calories. After that, if you are still doing well, we may be able to go down to 6 feeds a day instead of 7 feeds a day. Hopefully then you would be hungrier by the time we had to bottle feed you, and then maybe you would take more by mouth. I guess we will have to see how you do.
We decided that we weren't going to wait another 5 days doing what we have been doing, rather, we would start the new calorie mixture today. Hopefully things go well, and we can get closer to getting this tube out!
We love you so much and love seeing how well you are doing. We still need you to eat more by mouth, but you are doing so well with everything else. We are praying that your eating will go well and we can find something that works for you soon.