It's worse than I thought.
I weighed the girls today now that they seemed to have recovered (never mind that Natalie threw up AGAIN this morning in her crib.) Abby weighed in at 20lbs even - a loss of 12.5 oz in two weeks. Natalie was only 19lbs 10.5 oz. She was down 12 oz as well. She looks it too. Natalie looks so puny - and she seems unbalanced - like she's almost too weak to stand up. It's pitiful. Today is actually the first day since Friday that she is herself again.
My sister was here this weekend and after much discussion, and drawing on her vast experience with hundreds of babies through her sleep training business, we are now wondering if they have a mild milk protein allergy. Nothing dangerous, but just enough to make them throw up and have trouble digesting their pedisure. They have some signs: the vomiting and an ever increasing ezema-like rash on their thighs, arms, and back. So, we are trying a week of no-diary to see what happens. We are trying soy milk with olive oil plus stepping up the solids. We'll just have to see if it helps with the vomiting at all.
Since Natalie had been sick since Friday and was STILL throwing up, I took her to the doctor yesterday. As I expected, there was nothing visibly wrong with her - no ear infection, for instance. But, the ped was very concerned. We happened to see our regular ped so she knows them well. She threw around words like "failure to thrive", "potentional delays in developlement" and my favorite, "g-tube". She thinks we should consider it again so they can get the calories they need, which apparently is about 1200 a day. Honestly, I don't know how any kid gets 1200 a day. ADULTS can live on 1200 calories a day. They would have to drink 40 ounces of pedisure to reach 1200 calories. That is NEVER going to happen.
On the bright side, they seem quite hungry and interested in eating. Yesterday morning, I picked Abby up and she said, "eat, eat". I responded, "yes, mommy is going to fix you breakfast." I then set her down and she started howling. I picked her back up and asked her what was wrong. I said "tell mommy what you want..." Through her tears she said, "eat, eat". She wanted to eat right then. So, I put her in her chair, and she was very happy. I have also discovered they love granola bars - the oats and honey crunchy kind. At 190 calories for 2 bars, they are a great find. The girls have already each had one bar today.
Oh - I also just want to draw your attention to how Abby used her words to express what she wanted (eat, eat). I'm pretty excited about that, too.
So, the plan now is to try the diary-free route and feed them as much as possible. I am also going to check into have some allergy testing done. And before we even approach the g-tube route, we will have some other tests done, like a gastro-emptying test, and look into some medication that improve motility (how fast the stomach empties.)
That's the news for now - Abby and Natalie are head butting each other and I should probably pay attention...
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