Hannah Updates!

Gross Motor Skills:

Well Hannah is straight up sitting now - before her first birthday! Yaaaayyy! Reaching this milestone is so awesome! I can’t sit her down and leave the room just yet, but girlfriend can stay up for a long time. 

We’re now working: 1. having her reach for toys at her sides to work her lateral core strength [check!] and 2. arm strength. Hannah can’t yet support herself with her arms while on her tummy, so we help her out and do exercises on adult exercise balls. 

I can tell she’s starting to support herself, but, again, it could be a bit of a long road. Arm strength is the next step to crawling. Hannah already pulls her knees up underneath her, we just need to put the pieces together. Today I had her arms up and she pulled her knees below and got MAD! I’m not sure which part hurt or was just too much work - ??

Fine Motor Skills/Eating:

Hannah had already started to grab and eat Baby Mum Mums which are awesome - just large, flat rice crackers that are easy to grip and melt in her mouth. She is now grabbing puffs and eats them whole. She can’t do a pincher grip, but rather palms them : )  Her chewing actions are really good. The bits of fruit/veggies seem to do well and the purees are still pushed out... I’ll be talking to Speech Therapy about these strange differences...

We continue to have speech therapy appointments... no one seems overly concerned - still - and this lesson in patience is a long one. How long will my baby get her nutrition through a tube? I imagine a year down the road if she’s still tube-fed and we can’t hire a babysitter because she’s tube-fed ... : (

Nutrition:

Lordy me. Typically babies would be off bottles and eating food by now. We have not achieved that. Yet formula is now behind us... Next step? We’re starting on Pediasure... First, it’s more expensive per serving than formula. Second, it’s a straight up milkshake with added nutrients. Granted, I know formula isn’t awesome. The first ingredient is brown rice syrup [sugar]. Pediasure is: water, sugar, etc. Ugh. I know my baby can’t eat, but I’m tired of giving her yucky nutrients. 

First, the Cardiology Nutritionist asked HOW we were getting our formula. “Um, Kroger?” She said she thinks we could have had some of it covered by insurance since it’s a medical need. GREAT - thanks for letting me know that eleven months ago! This Nutritionalist is new, so now she’s going to look into getting our Pediasure covered... fingers crossed: a 6-pack is $12 and Hannah would “consume” about 3 a day - !! 

On the side, I’ve asked about a whole-food option. There is; we have to be referred to the Feeding Team at Children’s. It’s a recipe of whole foods plus sugar, oil, etc. It’s obviously more work, but I just want Hannah to get real food. On top of this, I need to call our insurance to see if they’ll cover a blender - ! We don’t have one and if formula could HAVE been covered, I’d think a blender could be for medical purposes. 

-----

So things are going very well here... Hannah is doing great and it’s just continuing her therapies... She’s doing great!