Not Eating
Kayden and his not eating.
This has become a big struggle for me, to the point now Im starting to break down at meal times.
Its been over 6 months of attempting to feed him and we’ve barely progressed. The pictures look great, like he is eating but he is actually playing with it. He doesn’t consume any food, if a piece comes off in his mouth he either spits it out or gags and vomits. And then he loses the milk which is much needed calories. Meal times can often feel like we are going backwards when he pukes.
We started down the path of purees but he refuses to be fed, shuts his mouth, moves his head and gets upset. We are down the path of baby led weaning. He has been offered hot foods, cold foods, soft foods, hard foods, sweet foods, savory foods, spicy foods, simple food, baby foods and the same meals as us. He’s been sat alone, with entertainment, with adults, with other babies and doesn’t eat. He has even tried different chairs. We all, Sylvie included make these exaggerated sounds and faces to show him how to eat and he doesn’t eat. Theres a limit to how many times one can can say ‘ahhhh nom nom nom’ with a bright happy face before you break.
Breaking point is exactly where I am at with his eating.
He is still sitting on the 0.4% for his weight, gains are so slow but he is meeting his minimum ml requirements per day and often 150 mls over. He is on a special high calorie milk that he enjoys. We cannot limit his milk feeds to make him hungry to eat solids because his weight doesn’t have that wiggle room.
So now what?
No one knows, we have a GP, pediatrician, dietician, neurodevelopment therapist and speech and language therapist; All saying we are doing everything right by him and to keeping pushing on.
I’m getting frustrated with hearing in his own time, cause its been over 6 months. We are doing everything right and making no progress, its hard to push on.
I was venting to a mum the other day and she made this self deprecating joke and then I realised how many times this has been peoples response, far too many. Honestly close to ten times a fully grown women has said something like ‘oh I wish I had the problem I could lose a few kgs, haha’. Its actually really offensive and inappropriate. Kayden’s non eating and severe oral aversion is a genuinely difficult medical issue. It does not compare to an fully capable adult eating too many chippies on the couch.
Trying to research a comparison was pretty tricky because babies healthy weights aren’t calculated on the same BMI index as adults. But essentially to match Kaydens status I would have to loose 17kg. If you have met me or seen pictures, a 17kg lose would hospitalize me. By that weight, I would be the average size of a 12 year old, except stretched out at my adult height. Immensely gaunt, like a Tim Burton character. So jokes about weight lose, no they are not okay in relation my sons genuine medical issue that I am currently at breaking point with.
If you wanna have a go on your own gender/age/height see if you can get the BMI to hit 16.4 which gets you to the 5th percentile, not quite 0.4% but the calculations were difficult to compare.
