Ruby is growing and a picture from Mother's Day

I put Ruby on lactose free milk and she has finally started putting on weight and is able to have regular bowel movements.I took her for a check-up with her doctor and her weight is in the 25th percentile on the Down syndrome charts,up from the 10th percentile.Ruby still will not eat enough food for me to quit giving her a bottle.I give her lactose free whole
milk,two tablespoons of infant oatmeal cereal,and vitamins in her bottles.

I have already shared my Mother's Day picture on Facebook so a lot of you have already seen it
 but I wanted to post it to my blog too.


Please,remember to keep praying for Sweet Ella as she fights Leukemia.

Weight gain and bath time pics.

I took Ruby on October 30th for her 15 month check.As many of you know from this post,
Not gaining enough weight, I was concerned about Ruby's weight and made some changes to her diet and put her on Nutrivene-D.Well, at her 15 month check-up she weighed 16.8 lbs,her length is 28.5 in. and her head is 18 in.I'm very happy with Ruby's weight gain and can tell she is growing and getting heavier.
Ruby's pediatrician said she is very happy with Ruby's progress and thinks she is doing wonderfully.I was a little disheartened when I read the handout sheet about," What your 15 month old should be doing," but I got over it quickly because I know that Ruby is doing excellent for Ruby.
Here are some pictures of my precious baby enjoying her bath time.

Not gaining enough weight

Ruby has been having trouble gaining weight since she turned a year old.Right now at 14 months she weighs 15 lbs 5 oz. which is in the 25th percentile on the Ds charts.Her pediatrician has been keeping an eye on her weight and I knew that Ruby has been eating o.k. and taking plenty of bottles, so I wasn't too concerned.
That is until I took Ruby to have her heart checked and they decided to compare her weight on a typical children's chart,telling me she was in the 5th percentile, and sent in a dietitian to talk to me about what I feed her.I started feeling a little panicky and then the dietitian called me at home the next day to tell me how to increase the calories in Ruby's formula.She was very nice and only trying to be helpful but when we got off the phone I called my husband and had a good cry.I have always made sure to give Ruby plenty of bottles and I put either rice cereal or oatmeal in each of her bottles.She takes about 8 bottles or more a day and until just the last couple of weeks has taken two or three jars of baby food a day.Now she has decided that she doesn't want the baby food.
I have decided to try the Nutrivene D formula and see if that will help Ruby.I gave literature and the website info to Ruby's doctor and she called me and said she thought that these vitamins would be good for Ruby and saw nothing wrong in my giving them to her.So I ordered the Nutrivene and we started that this week.I'm also adding olive oil to her bottles as the dietitian suggested which is helping to add calories and has also greatly helped Ruby's constipation.
I found this website feeding-underweight-children.com and it said that,"Many children with Down syndrome are underweight when they are young. " This made me feel somewhat better.I plan to start trying to give Ruby food with a little more texture and seasoning to see if that will help her to want to eat more.I found out tonight that she loves to suck on Sour Punch Straws:)Maybe she just needs a little more taste in her food to encourage her to eat. I have read several places that children with Down syndrome like spicy food.

This is a great post by Beth at Hannah's Shenanigans about Targeted Nutritional Intervention.

Biggest Loser

I'm joining this contest because I need to lose weight since I've just been sitting and holding Ruby so much.My weight was coming off good after I had Ruby but then I brought her home from the NICU.I have put on 8 lbs. on top of what I already needed to lose.

I think this will motivate me and I love "Biggest Loser".