Here are Allie's measurements:
Weight - 24.6 pounds (below the 5th percent)
Height - 34 inches (below the 5th percent)
Head circumference - 45.5 cm (below the 5th percent)
You got it, Allie is off the chart for everything!.
To give you a better perspective, here are a couple pictures I took this morning. I was going through Allie's old cloths to donate them and I had this idea of trying a pair or two on her.....here is what I discovered.
Here is a cute little outfit that Allie used to wear (a long time ago)
Here is Allie in this outfit TODAY - 33 months old - almost the big age of 3................. Don't forget this outfit is the size 6 MONTHS!
Allie showing us how big she is!
I see Allie everyday and I know she's tiny but until I get her next to other kids her age, I forget how tiny she really is. A couple weekends ago, we went back home for our niece, Bella's first birthday party. My friend Brooke was there with her family and she has a 14 months old. Here is a picture of Reese (14 months) and Allie (33 months).
I don't know what my intentions are for showing you how small Allie is but posting this and sharing it with everyone is "proof" to ME that Allie needs to grow!!! Sometimes seeing it in black and white is a reality check and for some reason I had the urge to try 6 & 12 month cloths on Allie. I know deep down I was praying that I couldn't even get the cloths on Allie, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
So today - I am reassured that my goal is to start getting MORE food into Allie so she grows. I spoke to our Dietician this morning for 2 hours discussing what we can do to increase Allie's free water fluid intake (she currently receives 24 oz of fluid a day and she needs 38 oz). Her free water fluid intake consists of Neocate Jr, E028 Splash, a homemade blenderized diet and water. Upping her intake by 14 oz a day is huge and honestly I highly doubt we can do it without excessive vomiting. Allie has been vomit free for a little over 2 weeks and it sure is nice - for all of us, especially Allie.
We will start slowly and try increasing Allie's fluid intake and pray for no vomiting. As a mother - I hate being the one who pushes her too far and she vomits - it's just not fair for her.
Remember.....Allie may be small but she has a lot of spunk in her and she is one strong little girl!
Jodi, what a great post, you should link to it for Feeding Tube Awareness. It hit me the other day how tiny Allie is. She is almost the same age as my daughter Emily, she will be 3 one month from today, so they are a good match for age, but Allie is the same size as Emily's little sister Madison, who turned one last week. Emily is 35 1/4 pounds,and 38 inches tall. Madison is 12 months old and she weights 24 1/2 lbs and is 31 inches long.
ReplyDeleteI pray the vomit stays far away from your house, and that Allie can get her volume increased without trouble this time. Do you all increase the calories of her food yet? I know it was something you were looking at, but the dietitian was suppose to get back to you. Did she ever do that?
Praying and hoping that people can understand!!
Your little girl reminds me so much of mine. Renelle was born with Pulmonary Atresia with a VSD. Tiny, tiny, tiny. When she was 6 years old we had to put away her favorite pair of "4th of July Capri’s" because they just didn't fit her anymore... then I looked and saw they were 2T pants. I know that her condition and Allie's are so different but yet as mothers we struggle to just keep them healthy. Renelle was always below the 5th percentile until after this last heart surgery nearly two years ago now... WOW! How time flies by, anyhow, in the last two years from age 9 - 11. She grew in leaps and bounds and she was so happy when she was standing up on the third level for the Christmas program. She was always the smallest in her class. She was even held back in kindergarten because of her size. Renelle is now an average height and weight 50% even... I was just letting you know because sometimes you just have to keep up the good fight and somehow it all works out in the end. Even if she stays small, as Renelle used to say "girls are cute small".
ReplyDeleteJess - that is too funny that Allie is the same size as Maddison. Allie is definitely a tiny little peanut. We have decided again using medical calorie supplements for Allie and we are using a blenderized diet now. She is still receiving some Neocate Jr. for her feeds but we have included a blenderized diet also. The blenderized diet is about 45 cal an oz so it's quite a bit higher than the Neocate. This way we can do less volume but more calories. So far it's been working great and Allie is handling it wonderfully. Now we have to up her liquid intake because she is not staying hydrated - seems as if there is always a new challenge to face - uggg.
ReplyDeleteLiz - wow, I wasn't aware of Renelle's health issue - so happy to hear that she is doing great now. It's wonderful to hear how Renelle has caught up in height and weight and she is absolutely right "girls are cute small". When I read that in your comment, I couldn't stop smiling - thanks for the "pick me up" - I needed it!
I understand many of these issues.. My daughter was born small (5lbs 3 oz) but healthy.. she grew and was on the growth charts until I stopped nursing her and introduced commercial formula. She DOVE off the chart in less than 2 months...She was waking up almost every hour an night screaming.. had numerous respitory issues that we later linked to silent reflux with aspiration to her lungs. We went to a dairy free soy formula and was slightly better but didn't improve very much... she still wasn't sleeping and was generally a very cranky child... shortly after her first birthday she started refusing food and bottles.. I remember sitting on the sofa holding a bottle of water (because she had nothing all day!) thinking I had to get something into her for hydration she ran (yes she was walking already - her developemnt didn't seem delayed at the time) She ran away from me screaming and crying -- trying to pick her up to give her a bottle was miserable.. we had seen dr.s and she was diagnosed with EE - I knew of a milk as her trigger but the dr. wanted us to try a partially digested milk formula.. we did and she spiraled way back out of control with visible refulx... we soon found a new dr. and after about 5 months of seeing this dr. and weekly weight checks and height and head cir. checks they (the GI and allergist we were seeing) finally convinced us that we needed to try a feeding tube.... I put my head in the sand about it for a long time.. but eventually just gave up... my family and friends that was a drastic move and she wasn't that sick...she was just picky... Well 6 months on a NG tube with all night feedings and whatever she wanted to eat orally in the day was her way of life... but she really started to develop... I didn't think she was delayed but she really bloomed after she had it for about 6 weeks.. she was bubbly and freindly and her vocabulary (which wasn't lacking before) just exploded.. the nurses we hadn't see recently were so impressed.. it was the right thing to do... she continued to stay dairy, soy, egg, nut free until she was 3 and we started food trials.. I'm proud to say that she is totally off the tube and gaining weight on her own! She is only nut free now and is actually my best eater of my 3 kids -- She is still small and I get lots of the wow! She talks and knows so much for being so small -- well she is almost 4 and a half.. but weights just 29 lbs... but is back on the growth chart (barely) but growing and making progress... we also did a little feeding therapy and it didn't help us either... once we identified all of her allergies and truely got them out of her body and gave it time to heal she was much better and gained weight much easier... BTW - she did better on Elecare than she did on Neocate Jr. Don't know why -- each kid is different..
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