5 Step Plan

Big day for Chloe and Momma today. We met with Chloe's Occupational Therapist (OT) to develop a plan to wean her off the thickener. Weaning is a good thing. Although it is complicated and at minimum a five step process involving numerous bottles, nipples, and recipes...I know she'll be better off once she's off it. I know it probably makes her gassy and possibly a little irritable...but it has definitely kept her reflux under control. We tried weaning her off at 3 1/2 months...but she just wasn't ready. She was still refluxing without the thickener and spitting up a lot. Not a little...a lot! She was also congested without it. Not to mention she started waking up at night. Waking up at night once you've gotten used to sleeping through the night again is not a good thing. I think it was actually worse than waking up throughout the night. So guess what? Chloe got her milkshakes back. For those of you unfamiliar with the process...and are seriously bored (not necessarily interested), I make a vat of her potion daily, in a pitcher...that I cleverly termed her rump shaker. If I'm lucky...every once in awhile I get to enlist help from hubby to help me with my ritual of shaking the rump shaker. I often wonder how many calories I burn making her bottles. I know all the shaking has to help tone my arms just a little. God only knows they need toning. Honestly...the thickening process has evolved over the past 6 months and I'm pretty sure we have it down to a science. I'm ready to say bye bye to the thickener... Bye bye to gas and potentially irritability caused by gas. Bye bye to Simply Thick. Bye Bye to the added expense of the thickener. Bye Bye to the gooey gel that is messy and a pain. And eventually...Bye Bye to the beloved rump shaker. It will be a happy day when I can mix a bottle just with formula and water. Wish us luck...we're hoping to be on normal food (i.e. simply NOT thickened formula) by mid-November at the latest.