A skinny guy

Happy New Year everyone! It's been an eventful couple of weeks since the holidays, and although it was wonderful to see our family and so many of our friends, we're also happy to be home.

We had Torsten's 6 month checkup earlier this week and unfortunately, our little man had lost weight since his 4 month appointment. This is obviously not the direction babies are supposed to go, and Torsten's doctor is extremely concerned. We left the appointment with loads of formula and were determined to put some weight on this kiddo. When Torsten was a newborn, he was never able to keep formula down, but we figured that he would now, at 6 months, be able to stomach it. We were wrong. After 3 meals and 3 failed attempts to get him to take it in a bottle, I sneaked some into his morning cereal. He ate the same amount as always, but his little tummy wasn't fooled by the switch. He threw up for several hours, went through 4 outfits (so did I) and had no interested in any other solid food for the rest of the day. This was not the answer we were looking for!

After talking to a wonderful nurse, we decided to scrap the formula, continue nursing him like a newborn (every 1.5 - 2 hours pretty much around the clock) and get more fat and calories into him with nearly any food that he'll eat. I made him creamy whipped potatoes (he hated them), pureed pasta with butter and cream (he hated it) and made him a milkshake using half-n-half and a little sweetened condensed milk (he hated it). After nearly giving up on any new heavier foods, I offered him some French cream cheese whipped with pureed fruit. He loved it! So we're doing a lot of yogurt and cheese now in addition to seemingly constant nursing.

 French cheese face

We were supposed to go back to the pediatrician's office on Monday, Jan. 14th, but I called this morning (Friday) and requested to come in and have him weighed. If he was still losing weight, I would know that what I'm doing is not working and that I needed to change tactics over the weekend. The great news is that he somehow gained 1/2 of a pound in 3 days! I didn't even know this was possible for a 12 pound baby, but we'll take it! We even weighed him twice to make sure. There is still cause for concern and we'll have to go in more often for checkups until he catches up, but he's on his way! He's still over 3 pounds off from "normal", but given his genetics, he'll probably never be normal. :)