Trying to get DD off of her NGT - offering oral feeds only... how will I go!
Well... I have had enough of Matilda not taking ANYTHING orally so I am taking a stand.
I tried this a while ago under hospital instructions and it did not go to well.
I am stopping all NGT feeding, I am only going to offer oral feeds of EBM and will top her up with water at night, so she is hydrated but not feeling full. In the hope she will get hungry and DRINK. She knows the purpose of the bottle, she can drink from the bottle, she chooses not to!
Well today it begins...
So far she has drank, 30mls! Thats it! And now she is saying 'Mummummum' in a whingy voice and when I offer the bottle she pokes out her tounge and smiles.... grrr!
I will keep it up as long as I can today and hope she understands what I am trying to achieve.
Well, the first day didn't go to well, as follows...
9am - 30mls EBM orally
10.30am - 30mls EBM orally
Midday - 10mls EBM orally then 100mls water down NGT.
3.00pm - 15mls EBM orally
I gave up for the day and gave her a full feed down the NGT at 5pm and again at 9pm. At 11pm she vomited everywhere and has since been to the Dr - she has a chest infection! Seems I picked the wrong day to start .
I will try again in a week when she is off of the antibiotics and feeling better.
Good Luck hun!! It is a real bugger that once they have been on the NGT for long periods of time the realise that they don't have to work to feed so they get lazy as they know that eventually the food will come. But sometimes without it they just don't put on any weight.. damned if you do and damned if you don't
We eventually managed to get our son off the NGT at 25 months!!! He had had lots of heart surgery and was a very complex case so it was hard for him.
I was pushed to go for a PEG but didnt want more surgery and more of a reliance on yet another artificial feeding port.
I did what you are trying to do - basically stopped using the NGT during the day but still used it at night (do you use an overnight pump?) and then reducing the length of time of feeds overnight and then the amount of feed overnight until basically I stopped using the bloody thing. Another thing we did was actually take it out (against medical advice!). I was convinced that the tube was causing a lot of his vomiting (6x day projectile) and that it would be more comfortable for him to eat and swallow without the tube in.
I gave myself one week without it as a trial, he lost 250g that week (I cried a river as he is then and now still on the 3rd percentile of the growth chart). The tube stayed out!
We only put it back in 18 months later when he was too sick again with his heart to maintain his own body weight and so the tube came back when he was 3.5yrs old for two months before more heart surgery and then one month after as well.
How are you going with it now? Is she over her chest infection? What do her Dr's and speechy say?
Trying to get DD off of her NGT - offering oral feeds only... how will I go!
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