Waif tripped off to her new school this morning.

Our last meeting at The Maudsley was dispiriting as she had lost a little weight again (only 200g but all the same...). Although we are now on weekly visits, our holiday to the Caribbean and then the psychiatrist's examinations this week have meant that we are not being seen again until this Thursday.

I really don't think Waif ate enough on holiday to put on weight: we had to cajole her to eat the bread roll with meals, to have anything other than a tiny dry piece of bread and cheese for breakfast, and to drink the milkshakes (we managed one in a week).

This morning as Waif was dressing, she called me up to her bedroom to complain about her uniform being too big :-( With the 20 inch waist skirt and the 30 inch chest blazer, I told her that it is just that she needs to fill out a little. She was unimpressed.

She has been told to keep a food diary for this week so that is helping. It helps her to see how little she has eaten and gives me a negotiation point at the end of the day as she does, in principle, want to stick to her meal plan.

Meanwhile, she has been growing fast which must be a sign that she is at least getting some nutrition even if it probably means she should eat even more. I reckon she has grown a centimetre in December. She is now appreciably taller than I am, but doesn't "seem" it to others because she is so slight - me, less so, as I have put on 3 kg (or about half a stone) since we all started eating high calorie meals.

My husband has not yet managed to read the first chapter of the book "Treatment of Eating Disorders" that is newly published and bought by me. I wish I could persuade him to read something about the subject. It claims that the only evidence for treatment for anorexia working is for girls caught relatively young, relatively early and then treated with the Maudsley method. That is great news, but we do need to stick with it.

I have my fingers crossed for miracles with the new school day. Mind you, when I checked Waif's packed lunch box this morning, which she insisted on making herself, her "sandwich" was a wrap with a quarter tin of tuna in it. She also had a miniature yoghurt and a small multipack sized bag of quavers. This is maybe 300 calories tops, probably less. I added a cheese string and a cheese roll and told her in the car. She said that if she ate the cheese roll, then she would leave the wrap. Ho hum, that's still maybe another 100 calories I have sneaked in.

Reminder to self: stop buying multipacks of kitkats, chocolate bars and crisps, which turn out disappointingly small, and instead buy several of the large single ones.