Gabriel had a therapy appointment yesterday, and we are all in agreement that he is showing no improvement with the bottle. Therefore, we are moving on, at least partially. Spoon feeding seems to be going well so far. Sometimes he'll take as much as 1/2 Tbsp, which, according to the therapist, is about as much as you can expect from any kid just starting solids. He also really enjoys chewing on the spoon. This morning, he kept shoving it in his mouth so far, he would gag. At least until I took it away from him. So, anyway, we have a new plan. He can have spoon feeding OR bottle time before his milk gavage. Basically, he needs to have an oral experience paired with the feeling of his tummy getting full. The hardest part of all of this, and it will be a long process, will be teaching him about eating when hungry. Since all his food is given on a schedule, artificially, he doesn't understand hunger. I'm not sure he even feels hunger. But for now, we'll just try to let him know that stuff in your mouth = tummy getting full.
UPDATE: Just spoke to the feeding therapist, and we are going to give him a two week trial with NO bottle, only spoon feeding and gavage feeding. We'll see if we can't break this negative association cycle.
He's still gaining weight well. At about 15.5 lbs., it's getting hard for me to carry him any distance in the carseat. I'm resorting to Baby Bjorn or stroller when possible. Not that we take many trips, but occasionally we get out of the house. At his dietician appointment last week, she said something quite strange: he is only the 0.2% for weight. I asked if she was looking at adjusted age, and she said she never looks at adjusted age. She wants all the preemies to catch up to their peers on the weight charts. Considering Gabriel was 4 MONTHS early, he's never going to catch up, so I think her expectations are a little unrealistic. But since he is gaining weight appropriately and we were able to figure out what his limits were in terms of what he can keep down in a session, she is okay with us just doing what we're doing. We have an ideal goal in terms of daily calories/volume, and I will keep pushing him, but I'm going to stick with what he can tolerate.
