Mummies and Daddies, I need some advice…........

Harriet 20 months, tof/oa with nissens, still tube fed, 200ml x 3 of Nutrini energy….

we started a programme of reducing her milk down to :-

50ml breakfast
175ml lunch
175ml evening meal

she was doing ok with the feeding but then she got norovirus and lost 800g in 2 days so i’ve put her milk back up for her to gain weight.

She is so independent I think she would move to finger foods, but as she has never really eaten I am unsure.

I have tried her with organix crisps and buttons and she is trying them but not really eating.

Any ideas of what else I could try?

Kay

Hi Kay,

I have Toby, now 6 1/2, and I found the whole finger food time a bit of a nightmare! It was really hard trying to find something healthy that a TOF child could cope with. Afraid I didn’t manage too well on the healthy side but here are a few foods that worked for us:

Tuc/Ritz/Cheddar bisuits - they all dissolve really easily
bread sticks
Organix crisps and finger bisuits
Rusks or rusk finger biscuits
meringue for something sweet

I can’t remember what else off the top of my head but will post again if I think of any more. In the meantime there is a discussion thread on here with lots of suggestions of finger foods. The topic is “Foods which work for us ..” and you can find it under Feeding, Reflux or Dilatations. (use the search facility at the bottom left) or try this link:

http://www.tofs.org.uk/index.php/forums/viewthread/8/P15/

Good luck. It’s all trial and error but I’m sure you’ll find something that works and it does all get easier, believe me. In a few years you’ll find it hard to believe how difficult this stage was.

Take care,
Claire x

Thanks Claire - I know I want to rush things but need to slow down as Harriet will do it in her own time.

Thanks for the add on face book too x

Hi Kay
Jack loved to eat finger foods, so we used the dissolve and melt type - prawn crackers, slivers of choc, home made rusks etc. I used to find he couldn’t eat enough finger foods to make up a meal as he got tired. I used to make meals for our family and puree them for Jack - spag bog, chilli con carne etc with vegies too. As he wasn’t a baby when he was eating all this, I made them with lots of flavours and he used to eat those. Then we used to give him some finger food after. Any virus used to result in several steps backwards with his eating, it still does now (he’s 4).
Keep going, it will get better as she gets older
Jody

Hi Kay,
That’s ok, no worries.
We used to give Toby puree’d adult food at mealtimes and then finger food as snacks as, like Jack, he couldn’t manage many but wanted to be like his friends and hold food himself. Or we’d give him breadsticks with his meal to dip in the puree. I used to do the purees quite thick at that stage but not lumpy and he would eat anything.
“Puffy” crisps were good too like Wotsits, Quavers, Skips, that type of thing - all the junk I’m afraid! Organix do a good range of healthy organic finger food snacks though, that Toby also loved. Try their carrot sticks, sweetcorn rings or tomato slices. They also used to do savoury finger biscuits and I see they now do a sweetened version.
The thing to remember is not to give anything that needs a lot of chewing - they can’t chew fully with their molars until they’re about 4 - and try and look for things that dissolve easily, so if they do get stuck hopefully it will be less of an issue. And I found (and still do) that of course Toby coped better when he wasn’t tired so tried not to give him finger foods at lunch, say, just before his afternoon nap.
As Jody says, keep going, and just try to be patient and calm. She’ll take it at her own pace - all kids do! - and it will get better though it may not seem that way now.
Claire

Thanks to you both - Harriet’s weight is back to where she was, so probably on Monday we’ll be looking to reduce again - fingers crossed she’s hungry and eats

Hi Kay
Hope Harriet’s back on track with her eating. Just another idea on finger foods- Isobel likes dry cereal. The ones that dissolve easily are coco-pops type mega munchers and moon and stars, rice crispies and cheerios. Also magic stars chocolate dissolve even easier than choc butons. I’m afraid I can’t help on ‘healthy’ snacks other than frozen frube tubes and frozen fruit puree lollies. Good luck this week.
Joanne

Hi Joanne, no progress made as we’ve put her back on full feeds to get her weight back up following an episode of norovirus.
Starting again next week, thanks for the tips - I’ll add to the shopping list for weekend

Kay