Postpartum Calorie Counting....for Baby?

I thought when I gained 50 pounds during pregnancy (I blame the Christmas holiday and MIL's cooking) that my weight would be the primary focus of my postpartum obsessions.  Not that I really knew what that entailed. I have never counted calories.  There have been times when a little counting would have served me well, but...I'm not really that disciplined.  Or that good at math.  When I wanted to lose weight, I would exercise(-ish) and cut out junk food (-ish).  Anyway, it is not a practice that ever interested me. And then I became a parent.

Nicholas had trouble gaining weight from the beginning.  For the first several weeks of his life, we took him to the doctor once a week to get weighed.  There were weeks when things would get better, and then his progress would stall.  He also vomited, sometimes violently, and he would take hours to finish one bottle. We went through all of the formulas, slowly increasing price per ounce, before settling on the most expensive one, Nutramigen. We had an Upper GI that came back normal.  The weight was still an issue, so we were sent to a GI specialist in Houston (two hours from where we live).  

In preparation for the visit, I recorded everything Nicholas ate.  He was topping out at 21 ounces per day.  Any more and he would vomit.  The GI tested samples of his poop, which came back normal. He sent us to a Nutritionist who determined Nicholas was getting ~70% of the calories he needed.  In order to increase his calorie intake, we were told to concentrate his formula to 24 calories per ounce and add some rice to his nighttime bottle to help him keep it down (he was four months old by this point, so I was comfortable doing so).  A Gastric Emptying Scan was ordered and scheduled.

I continued to chart his eating, which continued to top out at 21 ounces per day.  In every other way, Nicholas was way ahead of the curve.  He wanted to stand and jump by two months. He rolled from back to tummy on a regular basis from the time he was three months. He was alert and engaged and interactive. He figured out how to army crawl before he was four months old.  The slow weight gain did not seem to negatively effect him.  

We took him down for a Gastric Emptying Scan (in Houston again). He was not allowed food for four hours beforehand.  He was strapped down, given a bottle (as much as he would eat at the time) and then had to lie there in the machine for  90 minutes without any more food.  We were able to hold his hand, but he hated not being able to move.  He cried for the entire 90 minutes.  The test came back normal.

We went back to the GI (another two hour drive!). Nicholas still had not gained much weight.  Every test was normal.  We were told to concentrate the formula to 27 calories per ounce. No solids until six months. They took urine and blood samples.  The idea that maybe he is just a small person was introduced (not “dwarf” small but just petite).  

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me (while I was trying to feed him and he was turning his head away) that maybe the taste of Nutramigen just is awful.  I pulled out an unopened sample of regular Similac I’d received and gave it to him in a bottle.  He sucked a four ounce bottle down in twenty minutes (as opposed to two hours).  He didn’t dribble any of it out of the side of his mouth.  The next day I gave him nothing but Similac, and he ate 24 ounces!   I was worried it would hurt his tummy, but so far it doesn’t seem to.  He has been eating so much better each day, and he seems to have gained significant weight. I’m not a medical expert, and I am not saying that our issues are solved, but I am wondering now if maybe my kid just is stubborn enough to be a picky eater.