My son was hospitalized for a month when he was 4.5 months old. He had acute respitory failure and pneumonia from two viruses and a bacterial infection. He was a pretty sick little boy.
He is now almost 8 months and happy as a clam, though we still have to nebulize him with Albuterol and Budesonide three times a day. We just can't shake this cough.
He has not gained much since he left the hospital. He went in at about 14 lbs and is currently 16.1 lbs. His Ped has been worried and we go in once a month for a well check. She has him on 36 oz per day, though I can only manage to get him to eat about 32 oz a day. I have him on an iron-rich multivitamin and we are working hard on purses, but he doesn't have much interest.
I read that babies that have been sick for an extended period of time tend to have a higher metabolism to fight the illness. Our Ped mentioned that we might have to start putting formula in his BM to calorie load him. I want to avoid this and go a more natural route to get more calories in him.
Has anyone had experience with this? Is he just not absorbing the calories well enough? Any other ideas on how to put some weight on him?