IFEC

The Interdisciplinary Feeding Evaluation Clinic has been calling Truitt's name for months. After filling out a four day food intake packet last fall of what he eats in a day, we then waited a long 5 months to finally get an appointment.

So that is how we spent our morning on St. Patty's day, sitting in yet another hospital room, at another appointment with Truitt.

Honestly, I was so NOT in the mood today. I didn't want to go, although really I have been looking forward to it. All I was thinking the whole time was get me out in that sunshine!!! Such a beautiful day.


We saw a Developmental Pediatrician, Dietitian, OT, ST, a feeding specialist (not sure if there is a fancy title for that), and a Pediatric Psychologist. The nurse was also in the room, and they all came in at once. Whew....

So here is a break down of the appointment, in the shortest form possible.

The best news we got was no more formula! We've been adding one scoop per 8 oz. bottle of milk just for extra nutrition for the past year or so. But formula is so gross...and I always felt so bad making him drink it still. He never seemed to mind it because he never knew any different. So long nasty-formula-ness, maybe now I will add some yummy chocolate Ovaltine instead. That's for you, Sarah :)

My biggest concern night now is still Truitt's inability to coordinate his oral muscles to work together to latch onto the bottle nipple in less than 5 minutes. We began addressing the problem after they saw him try to latch, and then the feeding specialist stopped us and said if he is struggling that much, lets just work harder on the sippy cup and forget the bottle. Sounds good to me, but I'm afraid Truitt has other things in mind. Ha! He shows no interest in the sippy cup. None at all. So then we moved on to the "nosey" cup.


It is like a normal open drinking cup, but with a deep scoop in the back so their nose doesn't get a bump when they are drinking. He actually did well with it. It was mostly me pouring it into his mouth, but he did close his lips slightly over the rim of the cup. The team was pretty impressed. So we will now try that cup three times a day and see if we can get him to take 2 or 3 ounces out of it each time. We'll see how that goes...

My mother-in-law, Carol, got a set of "nosey" cups for Truitt last year! Thanks Carol! You were one step ahead. I'm so glad we already have them to use at home.

We are not going to change anything with Truitt's solid foods for right now. Just keeping him on purees is the best we can do until he shows us he is ready to move forward with other consistencies. We will also continue to give him meltable solids several times a day.


As soon as we get it cleared through our insurance, Truitt will begin receiving Feeding Therapy once a month. It is technically an OT or ST that specializes in feeding and hopefully we can continue finding some new exercises and techniques to help Truitt progress with his eating.

For his sanity, and ours.

He is SO hard to feed. I do try my hardest not to complain. I would work twice as hard as we do now, in order to keep him from getting a feeding tube. I am grateful everyday that he doesn't have one. Most kids with his condition do. I'm so thankful he can take all food by mouth, and would NEVER take that for granted.

As his mom, and I'm sure Greg would agree, I will always worry that it may be in his future, and that scares the heck out of me. So we will keep pushing on towards improvement. Doing whatever we can do.