One of the biggest milestones of this month was the introduction of solid foods! Elodie had a visit with her feeding therapist at Children's and was allowed to trial purees. She tried pears there and it was a major success! The therapist was incredibly impressed with how excited and proficient she was at eating despite being NPO for 3 months. She told me to go home and continue feeding her 2-3 times a day, and schedule another swallow study when she was taking 1 oz at a time. That took less than a week! She had her follow-up swallow study on May 5th and passed on both purees and honey-thick liquids. This means that she is now allowed to eat any foods she will tolerate and she is allowed to drink thickened breast milk. They encouraged me to work on a sippy cup, but Elodie caught on to a straw really fast and can drink 2+ ounces at a time in just a couple of minutes. I am so amazed at her progress with eating! Her feeding team concluded that she has zero oral motor or oral sensory issues and doesn't need therapy at all, just continued practice to strengthen her esophageal sphincter and all the other muscles that facilitate swallowing. I have high hopes that she can wean off of her g-tube in the future! For now she still gets the majority of her nutrition from my fortified breastmilk. And since her weight looks so great, the pediatrician and I decided to significantly decrease the amount of formula I add to my milk. She's now getting about a 23 calorie recipe. We give her a little over 20 ounces a day through her tube, and she usually eats between 2-3oz of purees a day. It has been hit and miss with food. Some days she isn't interested, but our home OT always reminds me that it's not a big deal. Food is mostly just for learning at this point, and not necessary for her growth and development yet. Many babies on g-tubes develop major oral aversions, so I feel blessed that she's doing so well!
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| Initially she insisted on using the spoon herself... |
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| ...so it was quite messy! |
Elodie continues to get better at sitting. She still tips easily, but she has come a long way. During this month, she really didn't like lying around anymore and needed to be upright all the time! She has also expanded her verbal repertoire to include "ba", "ma", and her favorite, "ga" sounds. She's a total chatterbox!
Another big development this month was her first tooth! After months of speculation, her first tooth popped through on May 13th. This officially makes her the earliest teether (and closest to the average age for teething) in our family of four. I tried so hard to get a picture of it, but in the end her blue eyes stole the show!
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| It's in there, I promise! |
Mother's Day took place this month, and it felt extra special knowing that my family is now complete! We went out for a nice dinner, which was dampened slightly by the fact that Elodie's Joey pump (which feeds her) wouldn't work at the restaurant, so poor Brian had to feed her with a syringe 10mls at a time. Such a pain! But our food was delicious and it was still a nice evening.
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| Lucky to be their mom! |
Elodie is still a big thumb sucker. She has developed a very cute habit of holding onto her right sleeve with her left fist while she sucks her left thumb. It is such an automatic thing for her that when she doesn't have a long sleeve on, she still instinctively reaches for one. I remedied that problem for her by cutting the sleeve off of an old onesie, and I put it on her when it's time to nap. I know thumb sucking can be a really hard habit to break, but so far she only does it when tired and I find it totally adorable. It's one of those things that makes me forget that she's getting bigger and less like a new little baby. Plus Noah's paci habit seemed much worse.
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| Swoon! |
Elodie also saw her ophthalmologist this month. She was diagnosed with amblyopia, which is just a fancy term for a lazy eye. Her right eyes seems weaker than her left and occasionally crosses inward. It's not too severe yet, so we are patching her left eye three times a week for 1-2 hours at a time. We follow up in August to see how it's working.
Finally, we made it out to lunch with one of her NICU nurses this month during Nurse's Week. It was really fun to catch up with her, and she was so excited to see how well Elodie is doing. We both laughed and cried! My stupid camera was out of focus when Elodie was actually smiling, so here she is giving her nurse a really suspicious look. What is cool though is that I could tell Elodie recognized her and felt totally comfortable with her.
Per usual, I'll end this month's post by restating how totally blessed I feel to have this little girl in my life! I am such a lucky woman!
