Peas, Beans, and Barley... but no Oats.

This past week has been super busy for Nate. And me - hence, the lack of updating. (I'm so bad about that.)

He's been introduced to LOTS of new foods over the past 3 weeks - after our episode of constipation (and yes, he finally did poop Friday! I had the enemas ready to go, but he did it on his own; he made it in just the nick of time and was SO much more pleasant afterwards.) I was determined to lay off the rice and applesauce and stick to P foods - prunes, peas, peaches, pears. We also started green beans today, and plan to start barley in the next couple weeks. I would have never though to feed him barley, but I saw it on the grocery store shelf next to the rice and oatmeal, and figured, why not? Especially since...

We're avoiding oats now. Nate had his first taste of oatmeal on Sunday and ended up with a rash on his belly that afternoon. I wouldn't have attributed it to oats, since they seem like such a mild food, if I hadn't remembered our rash episode when he was about 6 weeks old. I bought the Aveeno sensitive skin lotion, with oatmeal in it. I started putting it on after his baths and he started getting a bad rash on his belly and legs. He had a doctor's appointment that week, and I brought it up - the rash looked like eczema. I assumed that was what it was and switched to a different lotion, since the Aveeno didn't seem to help (and was, in fact, making it worse.) The rash completely cleared up within a couple days. I remember the thought being in the back of my mind that MAYBE Nate was oat intolerant, since it was such a mild lotion, but didn't think much of it after that day. But now, after doing a little more research, it seems that it most likely IS an oat intolerance, which is usually outgrown by the toddler years. So we're leaving oats on the shelf for now. We'll try again when he's closer to 1 and see how he does.

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We took him in for a weight check last Tuesday, the 10th, and found that he had indeed lost weight since his 4 month check-up. The doctor said to bring him back a week later and see if there was any change. We took him back in this Tuesday, and he hadn't gained at all. The doctor didn't seem overly concerned, since Brian was a teeny tiny baby and Nate was still above 50% for weight (he was 95% at 4 months). He's grown about 3 inches since that checkup, and just looks like he's stretched out. However, he wanted to do some lab work to make sure everything was checking out okay.

We got the results back the next day, and his liver enzymes are high - more than twice the normal levels. Today we went to the children's hospital for an ultrasound on his liver to see if we could find anything out by that. We're going back Monday for more detailed bloodwork - and we're still waiting to hear on the ultrasound results. We're hoping we'll hear back tomorrow, since it will be a LONG weekend if we don't.