Feeding tubing it at Ryan House

We're getting ready to take Sadie to Ryan House again.  We drop her off on Sunday and she's going to stay for the whole week!  Originally, we had plans to leave town on a little vacation, but that's not going to work out.  It's spring break for me, and I plan on enjoying the break with a little stay-cation at home...while someone else changes Sadie's diapers, tube feeds her, and entertains her all day.

I am one of those people who wants to always make it as easy as possible when preparing someone to be my substitute.  I was this way when I taught swimming lessons (my boss always praised my instructions when I had to have someone teach my class), I was this way with my classroom (preparing for a sub was always more work than just teaching my classes myself!), and I'm this way with Sadie going to Ryan House.  I mean, they're already dealing with children there who can't talk, eat, walk, etc...why make it harder by leaving them a guessing game???

The biggest thing is preparing them for Sadie's eating schedule.  Because Sadie is tube-fed, and because we no longer use the formula recommended by her doctor, it's important that I obsess about control every ounce of liquid and every calorie that goes into my little girl.  The doctor claims that that formula (you know, the one that is full of artificial sugars and chemical vitamins) is "complete nutrition" so I feel like it's up to me to prove that I can provide my child complete nutrition using real food...even if it goes through the tube.

Usually, we blend up some yummy stuff for Sadie and that lasts her a couple of days before we have to blend up some more stuff.  At home, we mix in some oral feedings too, but for Ryan House, I'm gonna make it as simple as possible and stick with the tube feeds only.  So, how do I make sure she has a week's worth of yummy food without using formula?

Freeze it.

This is the genius idea I came up with this week:

Make Sadie's food like I normally would (usually it's about 32 ounces), pour that blended goodness into a freezer bag with the zip lock top, then lay it flat in the freezer to harden.  Then we'll have 5 or 6 flat freezer bags full of food that they can just take out the night before, put in the fridge to defrost, then pour into her Nalgene we use to hold her tube food for the day.

I figured this was a better idea than sending fresh food and the blender over there!!!

And now I'm off to start blending!!