He Who Would Not Eat or Drink!

1st finger food:

2nd finger food:

These are no ordinary pictures of a baby eating a graham cracker and a waffle fry.  They are monumental moments in Reuben's and his parent's lives!  This stubborn little baby would not eat baby food, finger food or drink from any sort of bottle/sippy cup without being forced to.  He hardly grew or gained any weight from 6 to 11 months of age.  After casually trying to feed him pureed baby food for two months, I finally had to force him because he was so grumpy from being hungry-nursing was just not enough anymore.  I literally squeezed his two little cheeks with one hand and forced the spoon into his mouth while he screamed.  Then, I covered his mouth with my hand so he would swallow instead of spitting it out!  I felt like such a terrible mother, but it really became a matter of health.  Finger foods were about the same story, only Scott got to be the mean one about that. 

When he was 10 months old, I had to stop nursing him.  We tried a couple different bottles with formula, water, and juice-no go.  We tried a couple of different soft tip sippy cups, a hard tip sippy cup, and a straw sippy cup with formula, water, juice, and whole milk-no go!  Thinking he would eventually give in and get thirsty, we placed a sippy cup on his high chair tray, in his crib, on the floor while he played and tried not to make it a power struggle.  He would go several days with maybe one or two barely wet diapers; he also became constipated because he was not getting enough liquids.  Finally, we had to start holding him down, while he screamed, and force a bottle into his mouth.  During Christmas he got the flu, so we actually used a medicine syringe to make him drink some water.  It sounds very ridiculous, but I saw my sister go into the hospital for dehydration when she was two or three, and we were determined not to let it get that far.  After about four or five weeks of fighting him, he started drinking by himself!

It has been an exhausting process, but he is finally gaining more weight and at his one year appointment he had grown two inches since his 9 month appointment.  He is also much more content; probably because he is not hungry all the time!  We are still not able to get him to eat fruit and veggies as a finger food, only pureed, but hopefully he will give in soon.  I had no idea Reuben was this stubborn.  Hopefully we will have the energy to help this stubborn boy in the future!  Love you little Reub!