It took 11 hours for him to get hungry!!

So, we had our first tube free day.  We turned his food off at 5 AM and pulled his tube out at noon after he had helped me rub some of the tape off.   The whole day I tempted him with food.  I set up a baby picnic to see if he would lead the way to the food he wanted to try.  I offered avocado, sweet potatoes, and pears and had three different bottles with water, formula and a berry flavored drink.  He wasn't really interested in anything. At nap time he did suck a couple of times on a bottle, sitting in my lap and looking out the window but that was it. Our speech therapist came over at 3:30 and by 4 PM he was finally showing signs of being hungry.  He took the bottle several times and sucked!!  He also licked his sweet potato covered lips many times and smacked his lips.  This was HUGE progress.  We're doing a 3 day trial starting tomorrow.  This time he will get 200ml of formula followed by 200 ml pedialtye starting at 5 PM and turning off at 5 AM.  After three days of this we hope that he will finally start to take more by mouth.  Our doctor has approved our trial - his main concern is that we watch out for signs of dehydration and that Auggie gets at least 400ml of fluid per 24 hours.