Hate the G-Tube

October 11, 2011

Oh, the G-Tube. Can I say that I’m annoyed by it yet? We had a surgery follow-up 2 weeks ago and the nurse practitioner told me that they have to wait at least 12 weeks post-op to switch him from the 12FR G-Tube to a Button (the surgery was July 19). Well, I got a phone call now saying that the surgeon is not comfortable switching infants to a button and that we don’t need another follow up appointment with surgery. Well, isn’t that great since Wyatt loves pulling on his G-Tube. Now I have to wait till Wyatt’s next Pediatrician appointment to come up with a plan of action. The Pediatrician gives us the guidelines for adjusting his feeds so we didn’t really need a GI doctor so far and weight gain definitely has not been an issue for Wyatt since coming home.  Now, if we want Wyatt switched to the button though, we apparently do need to add a GI doctor to the endless list of Specialists. Wonderful. Did I mention that I’m not a fan of doctors or the G-Tube to begin with? The G-Tube is such a controversy for me. I know Wyatt bottle-fed and nursed before being intubated and I understand that he lost the sucking instinct and has to relearn it. But I also know from a strictly muscular and coordination standpoint that he can do it. In fact, he sucks on his fingers now all the time and has shown no issues with swallowing. But I feel like with the G-Tube we’re just teaching him how to take the easy way out. He’s smart enough to know even at 4 months old when it’s time for the next feed. I hate the strict 4 hour daytime feeding schedule and the continuous nighttime feeds. What normal baby actually gets hungry on a consistent 4 hour daytime schedule and requires continuous nighttime feeds for 8 hours straight without a break? Some babies feed every couple hours and then sleep half the night without needing any food, or vice versa. How is Wyatt ever supposed to learn to wake up when he’s hungry and therefore have the motivation to try to bottle feed if we just always hook up his G-Tube feed when the clock says so, regardless if he’s sleeping or playing or being fussy at that time? It seems like we’re just teaching him to be lazy when it comes to eating. This kind of set schedule was supposed to get him in a daily awake/nap cycle but instead it has done the complete opposite. He just sleeps all day long now until about 5pm, only waking up when he needs suctioning or a diaper change. From about 5pm till about 10pm he’s Mr. Cranky Pants with several episodes and then around 3am we’ll have a hard time calming him down again (with several episodes) to go back to sleep. That’s not normal baby behavior. By the time he shows interest in playing it’s supposed to be time for his next feed which again makes him cranky and sleepy. I’m ready to throw that schedule out the window. As long as he still gets the overall total amount in feeds, I don’t see why he shouldn’t be able to give us cues on when he wants to eat and play and sleep. I know we can’t go cold turkey and expect him to suddenly go straight to the bottle but come on, let’s try to be as normal as possible and let him set the schedule. There's got to be a better balance between attempting the bottle and gradually weaning him off the G-Tube on his time schedule.