All aboard the milk ladder

At the end of our last appointment the dietician promised to send me details of the 'milk ladder', a procedure designed to gradually reintroduce children to dairy products, monitoring their progress as you go. But unfortunately she hasn't. It could be, given my verbal diarrhoea at our last meeting that she's simply too terrified to have any contact with me, in case I start blathering on about Amazon again. Or it could be that she's overworked and underfunded and simply forgot.

She did say that the first rung is to start him off on biscuits like Malted Milk which are highly cooked but still contain milk (Group 1 foods) We had kind of started that already, so the next step, she said, was cake and things like Scotch pancakes.

Whoops, we'd already started that too - the day before I'd taken him for a walk on the beach. He grew unexpectedly hungry and I didn't have enough corn snacks so we shared a Lemon Drizzle. So we were on Rung 2.

I also pointed out that although cake is fine, Scotch pancakes will simply end up being dribbled out or chucked on the floor. The dude does not do textures that firm. The dietician looked a bit beaten by now. She sighed and said "OK, just give him a non dairy yogurt with a spoonful of normal yogurt in, and gradually increase the amount. That should cater for his special requirements."

(Blimey, looking back on this I am still cringing! I was such an annoying mum. She must have been desperate to get rid of me by then.)

So that means our toes are now firmly on Rung Three. Weeks later, I finally found a copy of the milk ladder online (here it is if you need it yourself) and although the pdf I found applies more to children with allergies than intolerance it seems clear on one thing. You're supposed to do this slowly. You're supposed to stay on Rung One for three months!

However we reached rung three with no clear difference in terms of vomiting. He's still sicky at night as he's lying in his cot, and has days when he's sick during meals. But it doesn't seem to bear any relation to the milk he's consumed.

Still, I told myself. Best ease off for a bit, just in case. However, the other day I came back from the shops to find my other half giving LG his lunch.

"I've grated him some cheese," he told me proudly. "He loves it." LG beamed up at me, shreds of extra mature cheddar dangling from his mouth.

So forget the milk ladder, we're on the milk escalator now...

Food file

Just a quick note for my own reference, of the things he will and won't eat. Bit boring for everyone else, but actually quite useful for me and the little fella.

Basically when we feed him, things either go OTS (Over The Side) or ITG (In The Gob). Any meal could end up going OTS, and the likelihood is that the longer I have spent preparing it, the more likely it is to have a date with gravity. So, even though I said I'd never do fish fingers and spaghetti hoops, that's what I end up doing.

As with any toddler, the things he'll eat change from day to day, but sometimes I forget things for a while and get into a bit of a rut of serving the same thing over and over. So I thought this list would help me keep track and maybe give other people ideas if anyone actually ever reads this!

Things he will eat most of the time
Crispbreads with fakey cheese
Crispbreads with hummus
Big fistfuls of hummus
Fish fingers (sometimes)
Spaghetti hoops
Heinz spaghetti bolognese in a tin
Soya yogurts (preferably from Tesco, not the Alpro ones)
Mango Chia Pots - the most expensive thing on the face of the earth (honestly you'd think it was made of spun gold) but full of yummy calories.
Alpro Vanilla dream dessert
Organix Carrot Sticks corn snacks
Cheesy wotsits (his dad gives them to him, I deny all knowledge)
Supernoodles or similar
Very overcooked spaghetti
Cous cous
Boiled egg yolk
Beef stew but ONLY if it's been made by my stepmum. He won't touch the filthy stuff I make.
Prawn crackers
Chinese rice crackers

Things he will eat at a pinch
Slices of beef or chicken (only if I eat it myself in an elaborate "nom nom nom" kind of way)
Liquidised bolognese sauce with cous cous
Clementine segments (chewed then spat)
Jaffa cakes (with the jaffa bit taken out)
Alpro soya custard
Sometimes rhubarb and apple puree with Alpro Soya Single cream
Ella's Kitchen Stage 1 meaty dishes
Digestives, hobnobs or ginger nuts (sometimes he regurgitates these almost immediately)
On rare occasions, slices of bread or toast with soya butter
Very, very occasionally grape halves (chewed and spat, like clementines)
Beef or chicken slices liquidised in a bit of gravy with some peas

Things he used to eat but won't any more
Normal rice cakes (he will still eat these if they are stolen from another baby)
Pears
Peaches
Banana
Porridge
Breadsticks
Vegetable purees
Apple puree (even with cinnamon and sugar)
Pear puree
Basically any fruit puree without cream.
Strawberry
Ice lollies

Things he wouldn't touch if he was dying of starvation
Raw apple
Cucumber
Carrot sticks, boiled or otherwise
Raisins (although he does like throwing them on the floor)
Blueberries. Nasty things.

In which I just can't shut up

I think I talked too much in the dietician's office. It was like some strange uncontrollable tide of prattle. I was pouring out everything - all the tedious stuff I usually save for you, dear reader.
Those details about whether foods go over the side or in the gob (OTS or ITG), the fact that one day he wants me to feed him, the next he'll insist on feeding himself (badly). His love-hate relationship with spoons.

I then veered off into how difficult it is to source oral syringes once the hospital ones give out on you. "I buy them off Amazon," I burbled inanely. "You can buy anything on Amazon except drugs and sex toys."

Poor woman. She must have thought I was mad.

Actually I think that, after the airy offhandedness of the surgeons her warm, reassuring demeanour just brought out the urge to over-share.

Towards the beginning of the appointment, before all this, she had asked me how I felt about LG's upcoming fundoplication.

"It has a high success rate," I parroted. "And the consultants say it will help his oesophageal motility. I know things can't go on the way they have been so this seems like a good option."

Then I paused and something came out that I hadn't shared before. "I want it to work, and I know on paper there's a high chance it will. But I can't shake the feeling there's something else going on too. I don't think this fundo will be the solution, I think it will just throw up more problems."

Once I said it, I realised that's what I'd been thinking all along. That we're about to put our son through an intense surgery that will change the way he eats, possibly for the rest of his life, and that it won't even begin to solve our problems.

I know we have to go ahead, that we can't keep pedalling along hoping his reflux will stop but what if I'm right?

I think that's what triggered the endless babbling. I was exploring, trying to figure out how I felt by going on and and on. I only hope I have a shred of credibility left with her!

But I did come away with one clear decision. We're back on the Milk Ladder. More of that next time...