Little Man has been drinking the Alimentum RTF formula,
little amounts mixed in to his hemp milk bottles!! It had been too
many days since we've been able to use his tube (and not sure when we'll be
able to because he is still guarding it in pain/sensitive and the granulation
tissue they just removed is already back!)
Last Thursday afternoon, his daddy thought we may as well at
least try to mix it into his bottle so we put a 1/2oz. in his 5oz. bottle and
he drank it without noticing one bit!!! We thought, could it really be??
Well, with the recent ingredient change in the Living
Harvest Tempt Hemp milk to add sunflower lecithin and him having reactions to
this, I have started to make the hemp milk from scratch- a company called
Manitoba Harvest (guess we need to move to Canada since half his food supply is
from Canada!) makes a product called "Hemp Hearts"- they shell the
hemp seeds and package them for sale- hemp is used to make milk,or flour, or
serve on salads and etc. They have a "nutty" flavor - mild
nutty....we've had to mix this homemade milk into what we have left of the
Tempt non-sunflower milk to get him used to the more nutty flavor (which he has
been doing great with) Well, it looks like having that nutty flavor
masks the Alimentum formula flavor/smell MUCH better then when we were trying
to mix it into the Living Harvest prepared hemp milk during the trial. I
can't even smell it once we've added it to the bottle!
We added 1/2oz. a few times on Thursday evening and then
through the night too, we upped it to 1oz. in a few bottles on Friday and by
Saturday I had added an 1-1.5oz. to every bottle! Sunday, he even took a
few with 2oz. in it!! He got 13oz. of Alimentum yesterday and we can
already see the difference in his energy levels (his Vit.C levels have been low
again, thus causing his iron levels to dip dangerously low again and so between
that and his tube giving him trouble- he hasn't been too active.
Yesterday, we couldn't slow him down!
Something is better than nothing, even though it's not
enough for all his nutrient needs yet (of what is missing from the hemp milk
formula for his age) and we aren't sure how much he will let us add before he
starts noticing (we're going up slowly because we don't want him to mistrust
his bottles).
We are so excited about it and yet it is bittersweet......I
knew we could get him to drink it mixed in eventually... it's a little sad
having gone through what we have and what he has endured for these tubes (NG
and now G) when he's now drinking it....although not nearly enough for all his
nutrient needs without a better menu; and that is what we knew we would battle
(drinking adequate amounts) but with his tube giving him SO much trouble this
week and now it looks like there may be something brewing - infection or
abscess or something because the granulation tissue came back already, the site
is still too painful for us to touch at all (or he is simply so averse to it
from all the manipulation and negative experiences so far), and on Saturday I
noticed some green drainage oozing from it so all of this will need to get
checked out and the NP on Thursday said he will need to be sedated for some
tests to see what is going on with this tube not healing well. So, our
excitement is capped a bit but we are very excited about him drinking the
Alimentum (and feeling better on it), and potatoes continuing to go well!!
