BD success!

Once we started getting enough fluids into Charlie and also got her on erythromycin to improve her motility, she started to do much better with her feeds. So I started slowly adding foods back into her diet. It's been about 2 weeks and I've got her up to half foods, half formula. So here's a pic tutorial of how to make a blended diet. :-)

Step 1: Gather all your materials and food. Measure out the quantities of each food and put it in the blender. If you are putting in more than about 3 foods, write it down on paper so you can keep track better and don't mess it up. This is her daytime blend. It's only baby oatmeal, baby food prunes, and one scoop of formula then enough water to make it about 9 ounces total. She only gets 100 calories during the day.
Step 2: Blend for at least 2 minutes.

Step 3: Strain the liquid to make sure it's smooth. I take any clumps and throw them back in the blender with some extra water to make sure it doesn't go to waste and she gets all her calories.
Step 4: Put it into containers. These are her daytime feeds. We change how she gets her feeds. Sometimes she gets 4 small boluses. Today there was too much for her to get boluses so she'll be on the pump for two 4 hour periods at about 35 mls per hour.
This is her nightime blend. It has turkey, green beans, peaches, prunes, oatmeal, and formula. She gets about 300 calories at night. She handles her feeds so much better at night that I try to pack as much of her nutrition in then. The daytime feeds are really just to keep her content and hydrated. Her nighttime blend came to about 18.5 ounces. Here's the breakdown: turkey 50 cals, greenbeans 15 cals, peaches 30 cals, prunes 30 cals, oatmeal 30 cals, and formula 140 cal. She'll run on the pump for 11 hours at about 50 mls per hour.

I try to keep to fresh foods as much as possible. The baby oatmeal we get free from WIC and also, my magic bullet doesn't do well with regular whole grains, so this is temporary. I rarely do baby food at all. The prunes are because she didn't poop yesterday, which probably isn't a big deal, but I just want to be on the safe side. The green beans were frozen. The turkey was ground turkey. The peaches were canned. Fruit I usually do canned or jarred. It's easier and I always get the kind in juice, not syrup. I always do fresh or frozen veggies. The meat is always fresh. I tried canned chicken with her once and she just puked it up. Once the magic bullet no longer works for us, we will buy a vitamix, but for now, the magic bullet does just fine.

I prepare most of these food beforehand. The peaches I blend and freeze 1 or 2 cans at a time. Same with pears. The veggies I steam, blend, and freeze whole bags at a time. Meat I cook the whole package and freeze it. Then I can just grab what I need when I need it. The one lb chub of ground turkey made 12 servings. 2 cans of peaches or pears makes about 14 servings. 1 small bag of veggies makes about 8 servings.

Once I start to get low on an item, I put it on my grocery list and blend it asap. That way I'm not stuck doing a whole bunch of blending at once. Right now I need pears so I'll pick up 2 cans in a few days and it will take me about 15 minutes to blend, freeze, and clean up. Obviously things like meat take longer since you have to cook it first. Daily, making her blend takes about 30 minutes.