Henry had a bad day. He woke up around 4:15AM and drank 55 mls of his bottle. Not a good sign. Usually, his first bottle of the morning is his best. Henry's nanny Veronica came over at 7:30AM. Around 8AM, Jeff called Dr. Bianchi's office about the diaper with the red stain, and I sent Cuyler an email about Henry's bottle strike. Henry was very quiet all day. He slept a lot and didn't eat or play much. Veronica said that he seemed very lethargic in comparison to Tuesday. It was clear that he wasn't feeling well.
Jeff and I took him to see Dr. Bianchi in the early afternoon. He was weighed at 15 lbs 8 ozs. He had a diaper that looked slightly pinkish...not as bad as last night. Dr. Bianchi said that he didn't think that it was blood; he thought it was "brick dust" urine, meaning that the urine contained a lot of crystals, probably resulting from dehydration. This hardly came as a surprise to Jeff and me. We had said at our last visit that Henry wasn't drinking his bottles. The question remains: Why isn't Henry drinking his bottles? We hung around the doctor's office while we waited for Henry to produce a urine specimen. I wasn't holding my breath on this one, as Henry probably hadn't had more than 5 ozs toward his daily intake (that's really, really low). While waiting in the waiting room for Henry to urinate, Henry threw up all over Jeff. It is a bit of a mystery where Henry got so much liquid to throw up; he had eaten a bowl of avocado puree made with Good Start formula around 10AM or so (about 4 hours earlier). The projectile vomit splattered all over Jeff's shoulder, down his back, on the chair, wall, and floor. I'm not sure that even our beloved Hershel, our cat who died in May 2006, could have done better...and he was the King of Spew. After it was clear that Henry wasn't going to pee on command, we left the doctor's office and went to my parents' house (with bag still attached to Henry). Around 6PM, Henry did produce a little something, very dark in color, which suggests dehydration. My mom is going to drop it off at the pediatrician's office tomorrow. He will analyze it to rule out infection as a possible cause.
When we came back home, I found a message from Cuyler on our answering machine. She gave us her home telephone number. I gave her a call. She thinks that it is something medical. She said that if babies suddenly loose their suck reflex, it happens 2-3 months (when the sucking mechanism hasn't been finalized). But at 5.5 months, Henry should have it down (and he did until recently). She suspects that something made (or is making) Henry feel ill. When he gets picky about food, we constantly offer him food to see if he'll take it. Then, he gets into a refusal cycle and begins to associate feeling crappy with eating (so he stops eating). Two things are going on: (1) Henry not feeling well, and (2) Henry developing behavioral problems with eating.
Until recently, Henry hasn't been acting ill. But he has been much fussier in general. Jeff and I were sick last week, either food poisoning or stomach virus. Just tonight, I'm feeling queasy again. Did Henry finally catch something too? Alternatively, he may be having an allergic reaction to one of the foods we introduced, and we didn't catch that he was having problems with it. I assumed that if he was having problems with food, he would: (a) break into a rash, (b) throw up, (c) have a bloody stool, or (d) sneeze and/or cough. He has sneezed on occasion, but we haven't been able to link it with any foods. Plus, we had a lot of rain the last week, so it is going to be hard to tell food allergies from air allergies.
There is one food that we think may be contributing to Henry not feeling well. It doesn't totally explain the downward trend in his eating, but it may explain the acute problems over the last couple days. A couple weeks ago, we had given Henry Nestle Good Start formula in some small amounts. It is a cow's milk-based formula, but it contains mainly whey and not the casein, which is what is usually associated with infant stomach problems. Then, we introduced quite a bit more of it two days ago, both as supplemental bottles (to breast milk) and in the making of avocado puree yesterday and the day before. Given Henry's history, we are stopping the Good Start immediately.
Unfortunately, the increase in Good Start (although he had had it before) coincides with our introduction of avocados. So, for the time being, we are suspending avocados from the food list. It is much less likely for an infant to have an avocado allergy than a milk allergy. Until things get better for Henry, we have to go back to basics and then try foods again (although I don't think that we'll try anything cow's milk based for a while).
Cuyler made quite a few suggestions. First, we will not offer the bottle in any time span less than 2 hours long (breaking the offer-refusal cycle). Second, we are switching up the bottles, so that he doesn't feel like we are offering him the same thing that he has been refusing. Jeff gave Henry milk out of an Avent bottle tonight. Cuyler had suggested that we find someone else to give him his feeds so that it would be completely different, but that just doesn't seem realistic for us. Jeff did wear a hat to change things up. Third, when we offer "solid" food, it is just soupy rice cereal and pears for now. Fourth, if we have to use formula, we are going to use the Neocate (probably when making the cereal, so that the nasty taste of Neocate will be masked a little bit). Fifth, we are going to try cup feeding. Cuyler is coming over tomorrow to show us some cup feeding techniques.
Jeff gave Henry 65 mls of breast milk when we got home tonight. The entire contents of Henry's stomach were projected out of his body shortly thereafter. He also had a very messy diaper. After that, Henry got fussy, because he was hungry. He ended up eating some rice cereal and drank 60 mls before going to sleep. Excluding the 65 mls he threw up, Henry had about 340 mls today (11.7 ozs)...not good at all.
Well, that's all for now. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.
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