The sicko recovers

So Thursday she threw up once and had diareah once. Friday she had diarreah 3 times, so I took her took the dr. again. He said as long as she is active and eating then not to worry yet, give the medicine a few more days. So that was good news. Today is Tuesday and only one diareah sonce the weekend, so I am assuming we are on doing ok.

Gemma is underweight. The dr. commented on this in April, just saying that her weight gain was really slow and we should watch it. It continued slow all through the spring and summer. I never really paid much attention to the growth chart thing a) because it was in Chiense so I didn't know what I was looking at, b) she seemed proportional; yes, she is light but she is short. Her face is still round, her belly stuck out like a pudgy baby belly, etc c) her development has been normal. She walks, plays, etc. So when we were in the doctor's office this week, after throwing up 7 times he said she is very underweight. So when I got home I looked her up online on the growth chart. She isn't even on the growth chart! Her height is in the 13th percentile, but her weight doens't even get onto the chart.

So I started doing some research on what to do. Obviously we don't want to fatten her up with just junk, but we want to ensure her daily requirements are being met. Especially with being sick so much lately; I want her to be as healthy as possible. Here are some things I learned

ok, I've been working on this post for three days and will never finish if I get started with that...moving on...

So what is our plan?
1) Keep better track of what she actually eats in a day
2) limit sugary snacks (which we mostly do, but more strictly) Sugar fills up without providing real calories. Also, too many snacks fill kids up and then they don't eat real meals properly.
3) adding new healthy foods to our diet. (ok, who am I kidding; HER diet) On the list to try is avocado, kidney beans, prunes, and cream. Yes, cream. I read that for underweight kids you should add cream, butter, or mayonnaise to whatever you can. I don't fully subscribe to that and will not be going crazy but adding a bit of butter to noodles or peas, or cream peas...we'll try it.
4) Pediasure. I bought a big can and will try to give her a glass a day.


Anyway, I hate being anal or over analytical and charting what she eats, etc, but we'll try for a few weeks and see what happens.

So as I said before, I've been working on this post for a few days so I can already give you a small update: She hates pediasure. Of course she does, it was like 20$ for the can. So instead of giving her a whole glass every day I am mixing 1 1/2 scoops with her milk. So in a day she is getting 3 scoops instead of five, but I can't figure out how else to give it to her covertly.
I also bought an avocado and mashed it up for her tonight for her chips (she loves nachos). Would she eat it? No, of course not. She had one bite.

UGGGGG!!!!!! How frustrating. Oh well. I am not going to make food a huge battle and give her all sorts of eating issues. We act very normal at meal times and don't force her too much. (More than we did before, because I've realized she quits eating before she is really full. If I insist on a few more bites she always puts them down easily.)

Anyway, we'll see how it goes.