Fun Times with Joy: First Week Home

It has been a whirlwind week for us as we transitioned from the feeding program to home. We drove back on Monday (after cleaning our friend's house). It felt surreal in many ways to be home and how so much has changed. I was a bit nervous because I wasn't sure how Joy would react. Would she fall back into her non-eating habits? To avoid this, we were instructed to remove any old associations for now (e.g. high chair). Thankfully, Joy hasn't missed a beat and continues to thrive with food. We are still letting her eat on the floor as we did during the feeding program. We have fed her in a booster seat a few times so that she is comfortable with it. We will need to use it on the go.

After First Meal Home

Increase in food

Since returning home, we have noticed an increase in the total amount of food she consumes each day (ranges from 18-24oz of solids and formula). Because of this, she no longer cries or gets fussy when she wakes up or during the day. In the morning, she plays in the crib with her stuffed animals. But once I show her food, she gets excited. We spoon feed her until she becomes lethargic and stops opening her mouth. There is also a noticeable bulge in her belly. Haha. And of course, she shows off her excitement with her "happy dance"during her meal.

Still not drinking enough formula

While she still enjoys her baby food purees (Earth's best brand), she hasn't been drinking a lot of formula. The amount has remained steady at around 7-10oz/day. To put things in perspective, a normal 9 month old drinks about 20-25oz/day but eats far less solids than Joy. While we are happy that Joy is eating, we are a little concerned that she isn't getting enough protein and vitamins that her body needs. We hope that this will increase over time.

Constipation

Her body is still adjusting to food and we still have to give her a daily dose of pedia-lax to relieve her constipation. We are also now adding miralax to her food to help as well. She still wets her diaper 4-5x/day and she often isn't interested in water which means she's hydrated enough. We just hope in time that she will drink more fluids so that she doesn't continue to struggle with going #2.

Medications

One thing we were really worried about was how Joy would handling taking medication. In the past, we would just put it through the feeding tube. But thankfully we have been able to spoon feed her medication, including her prevacid as well as benadryl (see below for reason).

Allergic Reaction

This week, we also witnessed Joy's first allergic reaction. Poor baby! She started scratching and her face became puffy with lots of bumps. We are not really sure what she is allergic to. It could be something she ate (we started introducing some new foods) or it could be the new cleaner (7th Generation Lemon Grass Scent). To cover all possibilities, we wiped and cleaned her toys and mat, stopped using the new cleaner, and went back to cooking/steaming her jars of food. No allergic reaction since then.