Skip to main content

A visit to the Dietician

The Lodger is small. He's 22 months old but is still fitting perfectly into his 12 month clothes. When I see him next to other kids his age, he's tiny! 

We meet with the Dietician a few times in the year. 

Yesterday was that day. I'm always nervous before a visit to the Dietician.
Has The Lodger grown? Has he put on enough weight? Has he put on any weight? Too much weight? Are we giving him enough food? Too much food? The right type of food? Is he on the right type of diet? Is he getting everything he needs nutritionally? Are we too strict? Are we doing the right thing?

The Lodger gained in weight and height! We rejoiced! He's still on a low percentile but his Dietician is happy with his growth! Children with PWS often struggle at the start to put on weight and then around 2 years old they can rapidly gain weight. Research has recently shown that the rapid weight gain can start before the insatiable appetite begins. 

It was five months since our last visit. The changes were big. The Lodger wriggled until we put him on the ground to play with the toys in the room. WRIGGLED!! This was such a 'High Five' moment for us as parents. His strength has really increased over the last few months. He's getting stronger all the time. He happily entertained himself as we spoke with the Dietician. 

The Dietician was delighted with his diet. It was such a relief. He's getting everything he needs. The best bit was she described his diet as 'not a special diet', it's just a diet.. and a diet that everyone should be following. 

The Lodger only eats and drinks healthy options. He's never had anything unhealthy, ever! We control exactly what he eats and when. 

I've found myself getting much stricter around food. The Lodger's interest is increasing around food. He'll notice people eating, he'll sometimes get cross when a meal is over and he often gets very happy when it's mealtime! The Dietician was very happy to hear we've made our home PWS friendly!

No means No in our house. We eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks. There are no exceptions. If you visit us and it's not snack time, there's none offered. We eat in the kitchen. Food is not a treat. 

We hope that these house rules will make our home a safe place for our son.









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Turn around and go home.

Prader-Willi Syndrome. It raises its head when you least expect it. Although in hindsight it was totally going to appear because we did everything we weren't supposed to.  The Lodger and Little Bro walk in the woods (not today!) I'll set the scene. It's a lovely autumnal Sunday. The sun is shining, it's not raining and it's not cold. A walk would be just the ticket before The Lodger has his Sunday movie. As you know, routine is important. Movies can't be missed.  We decided on our route- the route we call the castle route. You guessed incorrectly, it doesn't feature a castle but if you go off path and really crane your neck you might just glimpse one.  However when we got to the woods, I switched the route up. I don't know why. I just did. A moment of spontaneity. Anyway Hindsight. Lesson learned.  The new route meant a bit of climbing, so a lot of helping The Lodger and for The Lodger he wasn't able to continue his telling of the story he paused las

Steak is my favourite animal.

By Rory The Lodger loves cows. They are his favourite animal. They are also his baby brothers favourite animal because the Lodger decided they are.  Cow watching! The Lodgers birthday was recently. A huge day in his and our life. 10 years into our journey of discovery and all the other things Prader-Willi Syndrome throws at you. He wanted the perfect birthday. Don't we all on our birthday. Unfortunately the Lodgers idea of the perfect day for our birthdays doesn't always live up to his high standards. Or what you'd actually like to do on your birthday. And this can lead to unhappiness with the plan.  Things have to happen certain ways. And sometimes for example if I had a glass of orange juice for my last birthday breakfast I obviously have to have one this year. And probably, every year. Routine is important. We created that monster ourselves. This year my birthday was surrounded by much sobbing and stress as when the cake didn't work first time (and I was OK with it,

Hunting Nuns

By Rory Today we went hunting nuns. It a past-time I hadn't expected to be partaking in when I woke up this morning but that's what was decided we would do so we did it. I should explain.  The Lodger loves witches. His favourite witch is the Grand High Witch.  While some years ago we worked through the logic that the Grand High Witch was not real we discussed actors.  Now obviously, his favourite actor is Angelica Huston.  She lives in America so we learnt everything about her.  We learnt she went to school in Ireland  In Kylemore Abbey.  We now visit Kylemore Abbey. Alot. The Lodger likes the house which was then the school.  He likes the bus to see the Connemara ponies and the Kune Kune pigs. I like the gardens.  We now go there to hunt nuns.  Unfortunately today we didn't catch any nuns but we did do some research. We investigated every picture of the nuns. We read all about the nuns. We looked in odd places in case a nun might be there. But there were none to catch. We