OT: Week 19, That Tastes like Crap

I have to admit that I have become a bit of a nipple hoarder. Everywhere I go I am on the look out for bottle nipples that might provide some sort of improvement for Averi’s eating. This week I found a wide based one at Goodwill and it is actually working pretty well.

Since I haven’t tried feeding Averi orally since we started the Elecare on Friday, I was curious to see how she responded to it today. My expectations were met (which is bad since they weren’t very optimistic) and she strongly disliked the flavor. Who can blame her? If she preferred prunes in her breastmilk why would she like formula? (Honestly, the smell of the stuff makes me want to puke.)

Using my Goodwill nipple, Frances tried to coax Averi into drinking the formula. Every time she started sucking, she immediately spit it back out. We even tried doubling the amount of prunes added to it but to no avail.

Frances decided to try spoon feeding again to see if Averi would respond any better. She downed over half a jar of bananas before it was time to leave. We talked about trying to add higher calorie foods into her diet, since she does so well with purees, so that we can decrease the amount of formula she is receiving.

When I tried to feed Averi this afternoon, I was determined to find something that would make her formula more appetizing. First I added Kool-aid powder, but the only thing it succeeded at was turning her mouth blue. She still wanted nothing to do with it. Then I tried adding banana pudding powder to the milk. She still wasn’t super excited about it but I was finally able to coax a whole ounce into her. This is going to be a lot of fun, I can tell.