The topic of feeding is vulnerable to pressures to perform. A quick online search reveals nearly ten thousand books, telling parents how to feed their children, and some days it may seem as though every passing stranger has an opinion on how to get your child to eat.
If you ask the parents of healthy children who eat how much their child weighs and how big they are, most of them can only answer the question approximately. If you inquire after the percentile, their expression will likely tell you this is unfamiliar territory. If you then ask after the daily caloric intake, you will receive the answer, “I have no idea, an adequate amount.”
Over the days, weeks, months and years of having a tube-fed child, I have learnt a lot, and not just as a consequence of him being tube-fed for over five years. A lot of these lessons are generally applicable but maybe tube feeding sometimes makes certain lessons stand out more.