Let's do some more of the blended diet

Faith's 1st breakfast blend

It has been a week since we have started Faith on a blended diet, we have had good days and bad. We haven't as yet replaced complete feeds as we just want to make sure Faith can tolerate the change in food. We have seen benefits with her sweating less and vomiting less. We thought it was time to increase her blended diet and ever so slightly decrease the energivit. Last night Faith slept until 7:30am which is quite remarkable as this never happens. On waking we tried her first own blended breakfast followed by her formula. This is what we decided to start with. As it was thick I added some more zymil milk and it went down with ease. We are going to add grains but didn't want to overload her system and just made one new addition of avocado that she hadn't had before.

To give you an idea of what we included,

1 red apple
1 avocado
1 small banana
1 cup zymil milk
1 carrot
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

I wasn't sure where to find out calorie and nutrient content but a couple of bloggers suggested these two websites http://www.whfoods.com/ and http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=12-35-45-00. These two sites have an amazing amount of information and it has allowed me to acquire all the information I need to figure out calories and nutrients. Our first blend was just to get us started and our aim now is to have 1 calorie per mil then it equates to the energivit formula. Faith is tolerating her food so much better and we are learning lots about different foods too. Super Nutrition for Babies and Complete Tubefeeding are amazing resources that help us learn so much. The Homemade Formula Handbook hasn't arrived in the post yet so I am very keen for it to arrive. I am sure it has some more information to complement the rest of what we have been reading about.


Faith has been showing a little more interest in food, I think she has been tasting more of the blended food and burping, her face when she burps is full of curiosity and a little apprehension. As Faith has usually been unwell at dinner time we have usually put her to bed and then had dinner but we are going to try and have more dinners together as a family so that she feels included and it is more 'normal'. I was reading in the Complete Tubefeeding book about different words that are used to communicate feed time such as time for a feed, time for blended diet and the common words that we use, breakfast, morning tea etc. It is thought that by using the standard words that we use for eating, breakfast, morning tea etc, could help in teaching Faith about what food is and what eating is about. Making life that little more 'normal'. It makes complete sense to me as how would Faith now what lunch is if I don't call her lunch and my lunch the same thing, when it is. So that is something else we are going to do in hope all these little things will aid Faith in recovering from her food aversion. The more aspects we look at with food we see there is so much more we can do to help Faith. Even ensuring a peaceful and happy environment when Faith is having her breakfast, lunch or dinner is important in aiding her digestion and enhancing her view of food. I know I sometimes get so stressed at those times as I was fearful of vomiting. It is such an exciting time to see Faith progress further.