We're cautiously optimistic that we've turned a corner. He has never eaten nor shown this much interest in food. He's also been keeping his feedings down while eating more even though we've increased the daytime feedings to six ounces from five. As I mentioned a few posts before, I think a lot of things are coming together with Jonathan. Every day he says a new word or learns something new. Last night he wanted to sit on the training toilet and tinkled a few drops. He's so much more aware and can now communicate better then ever.
Maturing certainly helps, but I think the main reason Jonathan has been very interested in food is because we've finally eliminated everything that he is allergic to or that has caused him issues. If true, the dietician that we have been working with is due the credit. She was the one that got us to stop feeding him a corn based formula (Elecare). We're now on premixed liquid Alimentum, which is an infant formula but one that doesn't have corn nor intact milk protein. This formula is one of the few that doesn't have whole milk proteins, soy, or corn in it. Every other formula seems to have one of those ingredients, including the same Alimentum in powder form.
On Elecare (corn based), Jonathan would still occasionally vomit and his button would leak. The leaking was bad enough that we had talked about replacing the button, since we thought it might be wearing out. Now, he hasn't vomited and his button hasn't leaked at all. All these things, his appetite, the leaking, the vomiting, all point towards the fact that Jonathan may have been allergic, or at least, intolerant, of corn in the old formula. The dietician and the food therapists have said that just because a type of food doesn't show up in an allergy test doesn't mean that someone isn't allergic to it. They've seen people that had to carry an EpiPen around for an allergy that didn't show up on a test.
I think since he's been off of corn for about a month now, his system has finally calmed down enough to want food. It's sad to think that all this time he may have been uncomfortable or in discomfort. We're going to do some more extensive allergy tests in the future because of what we've recently observed. At any rate, the past few days have given us a wonderful glimpse of the light at the end of the food pump tunnel.
