Frustrated.

Dear Stomach Bug of a week ago,

You have come and gone. You slipped into our lives via our poor baby girl and wrecked havoc on her. Thanks for the vomiting and the whole entire week of diarrhea. Thanks for flaring up her reflux. And really, thanks so much for ruining every little thing we've been working for the past few months.
You suck. I hate you.

Mommy


Really. No breakfast for the past week or so. We're back down to pleading and begging Lily to take bites again. Yesterday was a good day - she ate one jar. We're throwing more baby food out than is going in her belly.
I am so frustrated. People that don't deal with food refusal just don't understand. It's a "step forward, two steps back" kind of thing. It's something you have to face every.single.day. three times a day. There's nothing you can do to force your child to eat except those little moments of weakness when I'm close to tears, begging Lily to eat just one bite and totally end up just shoving the spoonful into her mouth. At least she eats that and though I walk away feeling totally worthless and mean for doing that, I at least know that it's not the food that she doesn't like but that she somehow just does not feel good enough to eat.
And why!?
Because that damn stomach bug of weeks ago has messed up everything. Again. Just like the milk intolerance set us back months, so has this. All LB wants to do is drink milk in the morning. Lunch is a few bites and more milk and dinner is, again, the most consistent meal which some more bites along the way. I'm offering puffs and yogurt melts throughout the day and she'll eat those but those have no nutrients and are hardly any calories.
This is just so frustrating. And I can't help but worry that this will happen every time she gets a stomach bug. I can take her not eating while sick. But the vomiting, diarrhea etc is long gone but I'm stuck dealing with these aftershocks of the bug. How long will it last? I just want to go back to 20lbs, celebrating 3+ jars a day again.

Did I mention how frustrated I am?