If I’d penned this post just a couple of days ago, the tone might not have been overly positive.

I’m nearing the end of my first week of annual leave, which was much needed after the three of us spent recent memory swapping infectious diseases.

The week didn’t start well, with Albie losing weight yet again when we both took him to weigh-in clinic.

I’m not usually there, relying on generally depressing updates about Albie’s lack of progress. This time, I was there to learn he had dropped below 18 pounds again, just shy of him reaching the 18-month mark.

After a long bout of illness, it wasn’t a surprise but it never gets easier hearing the bad news. There’s little we’ve been able to do to combat it, given Albie is going through a fussy phase with his eating.

Fussy eater

Albie has always been a good little eater, giving us a degree of comfort despite his second-centile weight. But now he’s stopped being so into his dinners, it’s even harder to get the best fatty foods in his system.

Added to this he’s inconsistent, so one day he’ll wolf down a Morrison’s ginger cake (free of all his allergens!) and Oatly custard. The next, he’s turning his nose up at it like you’ve served up the contents of a particularly stinky nappy!

But now it appears that we’re turning a corner, at least in his general wellbeing. We took him to the GP and were fortunate to have a proper, thorough consultation which is not easy to achieve these days, given the pressures on the NHS.

After a full MOT, he was given the general all-clear, with the assumption that he’s picked up a series of sniffles and bugs and was now hopefully on the mend.

The appointment proved a bit of a milestone. Perhaps fearing more prodding and poking by strangers, he’s really perked up. We’ve had more of his beaming smiles and trademark giggling fits – and a trip to see Nanny Helen in Swindon has been a nice end to a relaxing family week.

Check out my Instagram for an example of our little man being his cheeky self.

Milk Ladder

Despite the struggles, we’ve been keen to push on with the milk ladder. It’s been a bit stop-start since we first gave it a go last year, so we were determined not to get too bogged down.

Last time we progressed from stage one of the ladder, a literal pinch of blueberry muffin triggered a plethora of ‘poonamis’.

This time, we tried him on a certain type of croissant which was stage-two suitable and met the mark in terms of other allergens aside from dairy. I’ll find out the make when we’re home and update accordingly.

We’ve taken this easy, with progressing amounts introduced. He’s taken to it with no noticeable ill effects thus far, though the last amount was a bit of a failure because he didn’t fancy eating most of it!

The difficulty we find with judging how he’s coping is that all of his various ailments are closely interlinked symptom wise.

He seems susceptible to bugs, so in a period like we’ve had, a bad poo or apparent discomfort could be attributed to illness, rather than a reaction.

And with his reflux still rearing its ugly head from time to time, sickness could be linked to that.

We are thinking of starting a food diary, just so we can track everything he’s eating, relative to reactions.

At the moment we have identified mashed potato and tomato-rich things like spaghetti pasta shapes in sauce as high-risk chunder foodstuffs. He’ll often have both at the same time, though, so we need to separate them out to test the reaction.

Confusing times, but hopefully with summer approaching we can kick on in all departments.