Second opinion on the Chipmunk!

Last weekend was tough!  Friday was the first day the Chipmunk had just milk in his bottles - according to his sheet from daycare, he did just fine.  Before Friday we were slowly reducing the amount of formula and increasing the amount of milk in his bottles - he was doing fine with this, so it made sense to do away with the formula altogether.  Unfortunately, he refused to take more than 2 ounces on Saturday, and 4 ounces on Sunday.  Also, on Saturday, he refused to feed his Gerber addiction.  Thankfully he came to his senses on Sunday and ate solids, even though we still couldn't get him to drink anything.  By the end of the weekend the Chipmunk was a basket case (as were we).

 

So, on Monday I called the Pediatrician and told them that I thought his reflux was acting up.  They asked me why I thought that and told them what he had consumed in the last 48 hours and how he was acting whenever I tried to get him to drink anything (in pain, wanting to drink but as soon as the bottle was in his mouth pulling away and screaming). 

 

Needless to say, I got the green light to bring him in right away.  By doing this, I accidentally got a second opinion on his eating problems.

 

It turns out the appointment I brought him to on Monday was with the Physician's Assistant.  Not only was she concerned with the amount that he had ingested over the weekend, but she was very concerned about his weight overall.  Apparently, the bare minimum they like to see at 12 months is that the baby has tripled his birth weight.  The Chipmunk was born at 6 pounds 13 ounces - triple that would be 20 pounds 7 ounces.  The Chipmunk was only 19 pounds at 12 months and 5 days.  Obviously, he's not even close to what their bare minimum for weight gain is.

 

Another thing that had her concerned was the fact that he had obliterated their other bare minimum for weight gain at his 6 month check-up.  At 6 months, they like to see a doubling of the baby's birth weight.  Double his birth weight is 13 pounds 10 ounces - he was over 16 pounds at 6 months.  According to the PA for him to slow down this much just as solid foods are being introduced is a huge red flag that something is wrong.  Why didn't his regular doctor pick up on this?!  Who knows. 

 

The upside of all this though is the Chipmunk has some sort of swallow study scheduled for Tuesday.  According to the person who scheduled it the Chipmunk has to drink a bottle of Barium for the radiologist to be able to watch as it goes through his digestive system on an x-ray.  I don't see this being very successful since I can't get him to drink a bottle of milk - how the hell am I supposed to get him to drink something he's never had before?  However, if we are successful with getting him to take the Barium and end up finding out that something is wrong we're going to be in the market for a new doctor. 

 

Any suggestions on how we go about doing that?  Clearly our current technique of choosing someone (walking into the closest one to our house and finding out if they are accepting new patients) hasn't worked.