Both our boys were pretty small when they were born, but grew to be rather chubby after a few months. I love chubby babies. I love how their arms would have many folds and remind me of the marshmallow man. We enjoyed giving Junior J squishy hugs when he was small, and always marveled at how he got stuck in the bumbo seat because he had such chubby thighs:
However, Junior J became a really fussy eater after we started solids. He hated the texture of meat and would keep his food in his mouth for ages, and would then spit out the bits of meat that he didn't swallow. He took ages to eat. We tried everything, from self-feeding to distractions, and even resorted to letting him play with the iPhone to get him to eat. Unsurprisingly, he lost his baby fats. But even though he was difficult to feed, he was still nursing frequently, and still growing. Since then, he has been on the petite side (but both the hubs and I are also small-sized), but we were comforted that at least he was still following his percentile chart.
When it came to baby J, it was the same. Same squishy chubbiness when he was a few months old...
... and then some fussy behaviour when we started weaning.
However, this little boy showed a lot more interest in food compared to this brother, and we let him try all sorts of food. And he was still growing.
Then, when he was almost one year old, he stopped putting on weight. By this time, he was eating a fair bit of solids, and still nursing, but he just didn't gain any weight at all. We started to get worried. We did all we could to get him to eat more. I would prepare three course meals (soup, puree and fruit). We would let him have lots of finger food to encourage him to eat. We let him self-feed. We tried to distract him so that he could eat a little more. And eat he did. But he still didn't gain weight.
So we brought him to the PD in Germany for a check, and the PD dismissed it as a case of getting not enough calories. So we desperately tried to feed the boy more. Winter came, and baby J fell sick twice, and the next check at the PD showed that not only had the boy stopped gaining weight for a few months, he was starting to lose weight. The PD still thought it was not enough calories, but took a blood sample and sent it for testing, all while brushing all our concerns aside. With Junior J, we knew how it was to have a fussy eater, but he still gained some weight every month. In baby J's case, this boy was eating way more than what his brother ate at the same age, but not putting on a single gram!
The test results came back and the PD said that the boy had an egg and milk allergy. He advised that we should stop all egg and dairy (since that might have irritated his gut and caused malabsorption), as well as soy in case of cross-reactivity. By this time, I had already freaked out and had eliminated many things from the boy's diet, thinking that things that gave him rashes or made his eczema go worse were possible things the boy was allergic to. The PD gave us hydrolysed formula to try, but baby J hated the smell of the formula and refused to drink it.
After eliminating dairy from his diet (I had already stopped eggs since the boy would throw up if there were eggs in his meal), baby J seemed to put on some weight. We heaved a sigh of relief. We continued feeding him as much as we could, hoping that the boy would make up for lost time. Unfortunately, after a few weeks, he stopped putting on weight again!
By now we were rather frustrated. The PD had thought it was insufficient calories, but if it was the case, the boy should be hungry and should want to eat! However, there were some days where he would refuse to eat halfway through his meal. We had to distract him, we had to sing songs to him, we had to do all sorts of things just to squeeze in a few more mouthfuls. I wasn't too sure if he was allergic to other foods (since the standard panel tested only a few food groups, and this was a panel designed to suit the European kids). Restricting a food group based on the presence of a rash was also iffy, since the boy's eczema also flared up when the boy was hot, or with exposure to the cold, dry air outdoors. I found meal-times stressful, since I had to feed baby J, while fretting about his lack of calories, while trying to make Junior J eat too. I stopped making bentos for Junior J too, since I didn't have the time as I was busy trying to make nutritious soups for the baby.
Since we were nearing the end of our stint in Germany, we decided that we would stop seeing the PD over there, and continue to feed the boy the best as we could. When we finally moved back to Singapore, one of our first trips out was to pay a visit to our PD. By this time baby J was this skinny little thing, who had grown in height (albeit slowly), but not in weight, and he looked like a starved little kid, despite all the good food we had been stuffing him with (This was a boy who had bak kuh teh or chicken broth every meal!). She listened to our story, looked at the test results, and mentioned that the doctor may not have ran the appropriate tests. In the end, she gave us some hypoallergenic formula samples, asked us to try feeding him that (while monitoring his eczema), and to come back for a review in two weeks.
Thankfully, the formula she gave us didn't smell as bad as the one we were given in Germany, and we have managed to feed the baby some everyday. He refuses to take it from a bottle or sippy cup, so we've resorted to spoon-feeding it to him. Every calorie counts, so its something we're willing to do, time-consuming as it is! However, its been hard to tell if his recent eczema flare-ups are due to the hot weather or the formula and the new foods we've been trying on him. Its heart-breaking to see him so skinny, and to see how he scratches away all the time, saying "titchy!". We're praying hard that he would have gained some weight by the time the review comes up.
However, after going through all this, I'm still thankful that:
:: We can rest and trust in God, that He is still in control and that He cares for our children. God saw us through all the major health scares we had with Junior J, from his bouts of wheezing and the time when his liver and spleen were enlarged, to the time when he had to be hospitalized and put on a drip. He was there when Junior J fell from the playground and had to have stitches. And He will see us through this.
:: We have good doctors here that we can go to when our children are sick. The feeling of helplessness, and of not being listened to when we were overseas was terrible, and I'm glad that we're home and can seek medical advice easily.
:: While Baby J's physical growth was affected, his mental milestones have been on time. This little boy is quite the imp and never fails to make us laugh, and he's been amazing us with the words that he's been picking up recently.
:: We have friends and family who cover the boys in prayer.
What about you? What are you thankful for this week?
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