A Hot Cup of Tea

A hot cup of tea on a cold night is heaven. And these days Tommy agrees! Now he's always asking me for hot tea and on the weekends he wants sips of his Dad's coffee. He has the strangest palate!

Tommy enjoying a hot cup of tea!

But anytime he asks for food or a drink it is music to my ears. He was indifferent to food and drinks for so long. To see him enjoy and request food is wonderful. Just tonight he told me that he loves peaches. And he does, but I still can't get over him saying that!

I'm drinking all your tea!

I used to search for other parents who had a child that didn't seem to have a hunger or thirst drive but I never found anyone with a child quite like Tommy. It can be so hard when it seems like no one understands your challenge. I found tons of parents of children with g-tubes but never really found any who identified as having a g-tube for food refusal in infancy.

You would never know it to look at him now, but Tom once had failure to thrive because I could not beg, prod, or force him to eat. That's how he ended up with a g-tube placement two weeks before his first birthday.

It took a long time and lots of feeding therapy to get where we are today. I can't tell you how awful it is to not be able to feed your child. It's scary and frustrating. The tube gave him the nutrition he needed finally but then we wondered if he would ever want to eat by mouth. Would he every enjoy food or would he maybe learn to just eat it anyways one day?

Today Tommy eats and drinks but he does it on his own schedule. Some days are amazing with him eating everything in sight, while on other days he seems to refuse everything. I never know what his eating will be like from day to day, but I do see a definite pattern of improvement.