In the zoo world, we do something called "enrichment". What this means is that we try to vary an animal's day using toys, scents, changing food presentation, offering novel foods, etc. In other words, we don't want them to get used to doing the same thing the same way everyday. It's good for the brain to have new stimulation, and it improves the overall well-being of the animal.
I don't know why I thought this wouldn't apply to my child. Or maybe I just didn't think about it. In some ways, Gabriel needs a schedule -- take a nap sometime during the day, bedtime around 9:00pm, and mealtimes are pretty fixed, but in others, he needs the variety.
He plays quite well in his playpen, but lately, whenever you put him in his area he cries for awhile and won't get distracted by any toys. I had put a plethora of toys in there and never changed them out, so I took all but a few out and put some new ones in, and he's much more likely to immediately play with them now, or at least only cry for a few minutes before being distracted by toys. So, I'm changing them out daily. Just 4-5 toys and a new book each day. It seems to be going well.
Change also seems to be a good thing in the food department, too. Papaya was awesome. We got so excited about it, we offered nothing but papaya (because it was working).......and he started rejecting it. Too much of a good thing, I guess. So, we gave him a break, and offered another novel food - pear/raspberry. That went over very well yesterday with the buzzy pacifier, and when I offered papaya again this morning, he was at least willing to play with it again. Now, we just have to remember that variety is the spice of life and change up his day everyday, at least with the small things.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Papaya the Magical Fruit and other milestones
We may have found our gateway food. Over the past week, Gabriel has shown a marked preference for papaya. We tried it on a whim, and it went over very well -- when we put it on his tray, he immediately puts his hands in it and also brings his hands to his face (but doesn't put them in his mouth). We started it in conjunction with a small vibrator (it was an electric flosser in a previous life) attached to his pacifier and he really liked the vibrations, and when we add the papaya to it, he will open his mouth voluntarily, bite down on the pacifier/flosser, and when it is removed will just suckle back the food and NOT gag. Thomas has also tried this with a spoon (both vibrating and not) and he will still eat it. Today, at the suggestion of his therapist, we offered applesauce simultaneously. He would turn his head away when the applesauce was brought to his mouth, but open up for the papaya. Now we're just on the hunt for foods with similar tastes and textures. I tried it myself, since papaya isn't something we normally eat, and it has an interesting taste and coats your mouth for a little while after swallowing. Definitely different from anything else we've offered before.
We have made another big change as well. Gabriel got his big boy crib and the first night he slept in it, we noticed just how much more space he has. It doesn't look that much bigger, but it's just enough that he can really move around quite a bit. This makes being hooked up to the night drip scary for me, since I can see the possibility of him getting it caught around his body or neck while sleeping. So, since we already were doing drastic night-time rate increases, I cut his night feed down to something he can take in an hour. Now he gets his last feed around 9:30pm after he's asleep. It runs for an hour while we're awake and can check on him, and when it's done we disconnect him and I don't have to worry anymore. Getting him off the night feed was a goal we were working toward anyway, we just did it a little sooner than planned. It's a good thing, since your body isn't designed to digest at night; so getting rid of the night feed will set up his body to get into a more normal daily GI rhythm.
Gabriel has also figured out how to sit up on his own. He's pretty one-sided, in that he always does it from all fours, puts his left leg out straight to balance and pushes up with his right leg bent. We're working on helping him realize there's another side, but it's nice that sitting up is his new go-to move instead of rolling over on his back and kicking he legs. He still really likes that, but he seems to like sitting up more at the moment. He's also seconds away from crawling forward for real. It'll happen any time now. If he wasn't in his high chair at this moment, it could have happened now. He's an active boy -- he's going to be hard to keep up with! Plus, now he is getting way more attached to us, so if we put him in his play pen or go out of sight for a minute he starts fussing. It's nice to see the appropriate social behavior of being attached to your parents, but at the same time it's exhausting for us!
We have made another big change as well. Gabriel got his big boy crib and the first night he slept in it, we noticed just how much more space he has. It doesn't look that much bigger, but it's just enough that he can really move around quite a bit. This makes being hooked up to the night drip scary for me, since I can see the possibility of him getting it caught around his body or neck while sleeping. So, since we already were doing drastic night-time rate increases, I cut his night feed down to something he can take in an hour. Now he gets his last feed around 9:30pm after he's asleep. It runs for an hour while we're awake and can check on him, and when it's done we disconnect him and I don't have to worry anymore. Getting him off the night feed was a goal we were working toward anyway, we just did it a little sooner than planned. It's a good thing, since your body isn't designed to digest at night; so getting rid of the night feed will set up his body to get into a more normal daily GI rhythm.
Gabriel has also figured out how to sit up on his own. He's pretty one-sided, in that he always does it from all fours, puts his left leg out straight to balance and pushes up with his right leg bent. We're working on helping him realize there's another side, but it's nice that sitting up is his new go-to move instead of rolling over on his back and kicking he legs. He still really likes that, but he seems to like sitting up more at the moment. He's also seconds away from crawling forward for real. It'll happen any time now. If he wasn't in his high chair at this moment, it could have happened now. He's an active boy -- he's going to be hard to keep up with! Plus, now he is getting way more attached to us, so if we put him in his play pen or go out of sight for a minute he starts fussing. It's nice to see the appropriate social behavior of being attached to your parents, but at the same time it's exhausting for us!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
More on Radiation
Here's an article about cancer risks from medical radiation from Scientific American. Back in January, I (Dad) got in to quite an argument with a clinic over whether to do a swallow study on Gabriel, a procedure that would have involved a substantial dose of radiation. This provides an overview of research on the topic of radiation safety.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Onward and upward
When my brother and I were young, someone bought him the Mouth Sounds book for Christmas. It teaches you how to make all sorts of interesting sound effects using only your mouth, throat and hands. I think Gabriel may have been reading this book on the sly. He is daily giving us a range of rasberries, singing, babababa, dadada, singing/lip buzzing combos and I even heard a mamama yesterday. These aren't words, as in he doesn't use the same sound when addressing a particular thing or doing a particular activity, but he is experimenting with all the fun ways he can get Mom and Dad's attention.
Unfortunately, one of those ways is figuring out how to make the "retching" sound whenever he wants attention. Given his penchant for reflux, we ALWAYS pay attention to that sound, and he knows it. If you just ignore him, it can quickly turn into a real retch just from him making the sound over and over. Babies sure know how to punch a hole in your behavior modification protocols. Lucky for him, he's cute and smiley and we love him.
Gabriel is also working very hard on getting around. He sees toys or things he wants just out of reach and goes for it. However, he has only consistently succeeded in making backward progress. He can get up on all fours and rock, and usually lifts one arm way up and then the other, but coordinating the knees is still just a little bit beyond him. He did make a little forward progress the other day -- about a half-inch and it was probably the result of righting himself after tipping over sideways, but I will count it.
He can sit very well now. We've taken him both to the grocery store where he had to sit in the cart for awhile and to restaurants where he tried out the high chairs and he did very well. The best way to keep him busy at the restaurant is to give him a napkin or paper towel. Waving it around and shredding it can occupy him for quite awhile. He still hasn't quite managed to push himself into a sitting position, but we left him alone in the playpen for a few minutes yesterday and when we checked in on him, he was sitting, so he may have figured it out. We'll see if the trick repeats itself.
Our recent visit to the GI doctor really showed us how much progress he is making. He is not taking food in the mouth yet other than tastes, but we must be doing something right with the tube feeding because he is now 20 lbs., 9 oz. He's growing so well, the GI doctor said we could take him off the 24 calorie protocol and just make the formula normally (20 calorie). We are also completely dropping one formula feed during the day and condensing his night feeds down to 4 hours instead of 8 by increasing the rate. One of the key ways to get a kid to start eating is to set up the nighttime fast/morning hunger cycle by getting them off the night drip feeds. Plus, your body isn't designed to digest all night long, so eliminating the night feed is always a good goal. I'm actually still feeding the higher calorie formula at night, just because we dropped a feed, and we'll see how he grows. His next GI visit will be at his one year adjusted age mark, and the dietician said
we may get the go-ahead to drop formula completely and just give a mineral supplement!
I have started blending a set recipe for him that is (hopefully) nutritionally balanced and counting the calories that go into it. He gets oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit in the morning and oatmeal, meat, veggies, and yogurt in the evening. I also started adding some spices to it that are supposed to aid in gastric motility, anti-nausea and help with constipation. In the morning, he gets cardamom and cinnamon, and in the evening he gets basil and pepper. I don't really know if it helps a lot, but it sure smells good -- especially the cardamom!
When I saw our new goddaughter this weekend (she was two weeks old) it really underscored how big he's gotten and how far he has come.
Unfortunately, one of those ways is figuring out how to make the "retching" sound whenever he wants attention. Given his penchant for reflux, we ALWAYS pay attention to that sound, and he knows it. If you just ignore him, it can quickly turn into a real retch just from him making the sound over and over. Babies sure know how to punch a hole in your behavior modification protocols. Lucky for him, he's cute and smiley and we love him.
Gabriel is also working very hard on getting around. He sees toys or things he wants just out of reach and goes for it. However, he has only consistently succeeded in making backward progress. He can get up on all fours and rock, and usually lifts one arm way up and then the other, but coordinating the knees is still just a little bit beyond him. He did make a little forward progress the other day -- about a half-inch and it was probably the result of righting himself after tipping over sideways, but I will count it.
He can sit very well now. We've taken him both to the grocery store where he had to sit in the cart for awhile and to restaurants where he tried out the high chairs and he did very well. The best way to keep him busy at the restaurant is to give him a napkin or paper towel. Waving it around and shredding it can occupy him for quite awhile. He still hasn't quite managed to push himself into a sitting position, but we left him alone in the playpen for a few minutes yesterday and when we checked in on him, he was sitting, so he may have figured it out. We'll see if the trick repeats itself.
Our recent visit to the GI doctor really showed us how much progress he is making. He is not taking food in the mouth yet other than tastes, but we must be doing something right with the tube feeding because he is now 20 lbs., 9 oz. He's growing so well, the GI doctor said we could take him off the 24 calorie protocol and just make the formula normally (20 calorie). We are also completely dropping one formula feed during the day and condensing his night feeds down to 4 hours instead of 8 by increasing the rate. One of the key ways to get a kid to start eating is to set up the nighttime fast/morning hunger cycle by getting them off the night drip feeds. Plus, your body isn't designed to digest all night long, so eliminating the night feed is always a good goal. I'm actually still feeding the higher calorie formula at night, just because we dropped a feed, and we'll see how he grows. His next GI visit will be at his one year adjusted age mark, and the dietician said
we may get the go-ahead to drop formula completely and just give a mineral supplement!
I have started blending a set recipe for him that is (hopefully) nutritionally balanced and counting the calories that go into it. He gets oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit in the morning and oatmeal, meat, veggies, and yogurt in the evening. I also started adding some spices to it that are supposed to aid in gastric motility, anti-nausea and help with constipation. In the morning, he gets cardamom and cinnamon, and in the evening he gets basil and pepper. I don't really know if it helps a lot, but it sure smells good -- especially the cardamom!
When I saw our new goddaughter this weekend (she was two weeks old) it really underscored how big he's gotten and how far he has come.
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