Older Mom says Trust yourself and Don't give up.

by Older Mom
(California)

I know this is long but I am thrilled to have found this site. You all have my deepest sympathy. Not much scarier in life than knowing something is wrong with your child but no one believes you. I looked at the checklist first--fits so many things from my oldest.One area in particular. My 1st child had feeding problems at birth.No breast feeding- wouldn't latch on, arched back away from me, etc. The hospital nursery finally offered a bottle. I used a rubber nipple shield to breast feed. He spit up quite a bit.

Then I went to bottle feeding. He would drink about 2-3 oz and volcano vomit everywhere-looked like more came out than was going in! Then he would fall asleep(in his swing,old hand-crank type and why were they so noisy to wind up?)and about 2 hours later the circus began again.We changed formulas-milk based, soy based, goats milk, you name it, we tried it alternating day to day. Always the same. Eat, vomit, short nap around the clock. At 2 wk appt he was "failure to thrive" & hospitalized for 5 days. A nursery staff mem told me he was fine,I was the problem. Just burp every oz. When I entered his room he had vomit running out his nose & down his face & blanket.I screamed for the nurses while I checked that he was still breathing.When they entered the room, the 1st,1st comment was he must have thrown up when he saw ME. We checked him out of the hospital and once home we fed him a thin gruel of instant mashed potatoes through a juice nipple. He slept about 8 hours straight but we were up checking every hour, afraid we had killed him or something.

Next day started him on a Rice cereal gruel. MAGIC. Still would only sleep while swinging. At 6 wks, we returned to CA & I started shopping pediatricians. I finally found one who believed me. He said, Here is a prescription for a calcium glucose syrup & vitamin drops for the rice cereal. Also in an 8oz bottle put 1/2 oz milk with rest water. If that is good, gradually add more milk. By the time he is a yr old he should be able to handle milk. He saved my sanity & my son's life. Pediatrician helped us through adding/wearing new foods. Offer raw & cooked of same fruit/veggies at same time-see what happens. Son's fav food-Meanie Weenies (beans & wieners) Biggest part of leg was knee, biggest part of arm was elbow.

By child 2 we were ahead of the game & had discovered neither could tolerate 100% RDA Vitamin C. Kool-Aid, oranges, tomato so on was like a poison-wthin hours rashes, diarrhea, vomiting, fever.I was told repeatedly that you couldn't be allergic to VitC because it isn't stored in the body, needs daily ingesting..blah, blah. Try telling DayCare they can't have Kool-Aid. This was 1980-1983. My sons are now good cooks who like to experiment, maybe because we encouraged their help with meals even when they were little, maybe we just got lucky. There was much more but you get the idea.To your "helpful" friends & family members: If it were diabetes, they wouldn't feed your child sugar cubes, would they?