Reflux saga

Over the last month and a half, Mia has been extremely finicky about eating. Despite being hungry, she will either refuse to start feeding or will stop after a few minutes. The longest she'll feed is when she's half asleep - and even then she's so sleepy that she doesn't consume much. Like her brother, Mia's also not taking a bottle - so things have been pretty stressful. With growing concern, I took her into the doctor a few weeks ago and confirmed that she hasn't gained the weight that they'd like to see (1 lb vs. 2+). Dr. Shorr ordered a feeding and reflux evaluation which Mia and I went to last week.

The evaluation was performed by a speech language pathologist, so needless to say the experience brought back quite a bit of memories from my undergrad studies at UW. While we already knew she had reflux and have been treating it (45 degree wedge to sleep, Prilosec), it appears that the extent of her reflux could be much greater than what we think and what we experienced with Dylan. As I had suspected, she seems to also have trouble with coordinating her breathe, suck, swallow pattern which results in choking, air consumption (and then gas), spit up, etc. This is especially true when she's drinking from a bottle because the flow of milk is too fast.

So what's next? The SLP wants to evaluate Mia further to see whether her behavior is 100% reflux related or if there is other issues (swallowing, anatomy, etc). As a result, she's ordered a swallowing xray which requires that she drink barium. Having experienced a test w/ barium myself, I can attest to the fact that it's nasty - thick and chalky. The thought barium makes me gag. Poor Mia and poor me as I'm assuming that I'll be the one feeding it to her :(. So we're in a holding pattern until the swallowing test is complete.

While the SLP didn't suggest changing anything we're doing yet, I went ahead and got Dr. Brown's preemie nipples which are supposed to be the slowest flow. I tried them out tonight and we've made some slow progress. 2 oz vs. zilch previously. I'll take any gains at this point. So between Dylan and Mia, I think that we've tried every single bottle that exists in the market. And go figure, I bet that the Dr. Brown's bottles will be the winner for Mia - as it was for Dylan (who went on a bottle strike at 3 months too). What's up with my kids and eating?

To make this post is complete, here are a few photos of our little girl. While her belly may not be growing as much these days, her hair sure is :). Not sure what we're going to do with all of it. It's too early for a haircut, not long enough for a barrette, and a little too crazy for a elastic headband. While close, she didn't inherit the *exact* "electrocuted", "straight-up-in-the-air" hair look that I had to sport when a baby - my poor parents.