Weight: 9 lbs 13 oz
Height: 21 inches
Current Skills:
- She has discovered her hands and has gotten better at exploring them. Not only can she put them in her mouth, lick it, and suck her thumb, we’ve seen her staring at her fingers as she moves them for long periods of time. I guess she is amazed at how she can manage to move them when it took her some time to figure out how to bring her fist into her mouth. I love it that she does this over and over which means that she does not give up trying.
She is still in verge of discovering her feet…. This time though she has made significant progress in that area since we do not just catch her incidentally looking at them, she actually lifts them up and stares at it. We've also seen so nail scratch marks on her legs.... does that mean that she has been trying to reach for them?
She is in the throes of discovering herself in the mirror. She has smiled at me numerous times when we do mirror time, and there have been times when I catch her with that seemingly wondering stare at the baby that she sees her mama carrying. Pretty soon, she’ll figure out that the baby is her.
She fell in love with rice cereal the first time she tried them. I guess that love was just "pupply love" because now she has figured out that rice cereal tastes like cardboard and she will spit them through her nose to tell me that she dislikes it. Its time to explore other tastes.
Her head control has gotten better. She would really try her best to hold it up. Now we can check off that skill from the list. Next up is having her practice sitting with support.
One thing she has learned how to do right off the bat is to manipulate her parents. She now does this loud fake cry to coerce us to hold her. The moment we pick her up she stops crying. If we decide to put her down, the moment her butt touches the bed she starts crying again. She is a master manipulator and we let her get away with it.
She smiles, and i do mean A LOT! Lately she's been doing this silly grin on her face like she thought of something really funny. What's fishy though is we seem to see this smile whenever we change her poopy diaper or when she is naked.
Medical Updates
- We had her first 8 hour EEG 3 days ago. She showed no signs of obvious seizures. We tried many different things that we think can induce a seizure and we didn’t witness anything. This is of course not a certaintly that she does not have them or that she will not have them. The EEG could have picked up seizures that we cannot see. We are still waiting for the doctor’s call regarding his reading of the results and we are keeping our fingers crossed.
- The GI doctors took her PEG out last Friday and now she has the low profile Mickey Button. Now we have more options for baby girl clothes.
Current Concerns:
She gained 1lb and 5oz since I last wrote about her stats (5 months). This is ofcourse not to mean that we did not have any chalenges in the weight gain and feeding department. Though we have made numerous adjustments in her feeding and have consulted many professionals and doctors about feeding issues, her weight gain is still slow. It is steady but it is slow. From the period June 9 to July 14 she only gained 2 oz (from 9lbs 2oz to 9lbs 4oz in a span of 5 weeks), which of course was a major concern since we are really shooting for the minimum 10lb goal for her cleft palate repair surgery scheduled in November. After many trials and errors, we finally found the best feeding schedule adjustment. She now takes in 30 to 35 mls per hour during the day time which translates to 90 to 105 mls in a 3 hour period . This as opposed to 60 to 70mls every 3 hours, which is her old feeding routine that usually ends up being thrown up. Our guess is that she could not handle a full 60 to70ml all in one feeding. Since the adjustment that we've made with her her feeding sched, she gaied 10oz in a period of 3 weeks…. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this new schedule is the best solution to address our feeding and weight gain concerns.
To read about Isabella's previous development update, click here
