When Jack was about 15 months old we decided to start him on a blendarized food regime. He was tube fed during this time, so he was only getting formula.
We knew that in the future we were going to work with him to eat orally and wanted to make sure that his stomach was used to digesting food. Some of our doctors had mentioned this was a good way to accomplish this.
At Children’s Hospital I was connected with a dietician who specialized in creating blendarized diets. We worked together to create a recipe that had a balance of nutrients, fats, protein and carbs. I purchased a Vitamix blender that would be able to grind up the ingredients enough to easily pass through his feeding tube. I did find that some proteins were difficult to get fine enough. Since making these foods were a bit time consuming I would give him up to two feedings a day. The other feedings he would continue to have age-appropriate formula.
Using these recipes we were also able to test his GI system and see if he had grown out of this milk protein intolerance. It was a simple way to introduce a small amount of dairy and see how he did.
A year later when Jack went through the feeding program and started eating he didn’t have any GI upset. I believe that some of this was due to his body learning to digest other foods with the blendarized diet.
