They love it!! They finished the jar and were looking for more (OK slight exaggeration but still). Ciara also ate more than 100g of my apple and rice puree- she is really getting into the solids now. With Enya, we're having to give the bottle first otherwise she doesn't manage 500ml over the day, this meant she is too full to eat much. I have started feeding them both at the same time: Ciara gets her solids first, then Enya gets her bottle, next Ciara gets her bottle and lastly Enya gets her solids. The entire procedure takes about 1 1/2-2 hours and then they usually crash. That means mommy gets to eat too;-)
The best thing about solids is that they are sleeping through from 19:30-04:00 for the last 4 days, the worst thing is that we are only getting 4 feeds in over the day. It doesn't help trying to wake them for a late night bottle as the last few times we tried this they only drank about 40ml. I can't believe I'm contemplating waking them when they are finally sleeping through!
18 Mar 2008
17 Mar 2008
What's new
As promised a non whiny whingy post.
They loved my apple puree with baby rice, both girls ate more than 50g of it. So maybe my cooking isn't as bad as I think it is;-)
Enya is absolutely adorable when we feed her, we can't get the spoon to her mouth fast enough. She also opens her mouth really wide when we bring the spoon near so we can really load up the spoon with puree. She always grins during mealtimes as if to say finally something I can enjoy (bottle feeding remains difficult). She has started speaking more and has a beautiful shy smile which she is showing more frequently. She loves playing with her hands and is starting to chew on her fingers and fists (teething at 3 1/2 months??). When she gets excited she tramples with her legs so much that I'm not surprised she is not putting on weight any faster, she is going to have fantastic abdominal muscles as she lifts her bottom clear of the floor while kicking. She has also started trying to pull herself up into sitting (crunchies) or by pulling on the baby gym arch.
Ciara made a slower start on the eating front but has also learnt to open her mouth when the spoon approaches (she just bites down so quick so we often don't get the spoon between her teeth before she snaps shut). She is our little talker, I can often hear her lying chatting to herself after her nap. When she sees us she starts to shriek with joy, this is deafening if she lets rip while next to your ear. She has a gorgeous grin and a dimple in her right cheek, I just can't get enough of it., just as well she is such a happy baby. Ciara is such a chatterbox that towards the end of her bottle, she starts jabbering around the teat. But pity the poor parent that tries to take the bottle away, as she then throws a hissy fit. The chatter box has a remarkable variety of sounds she can make including ba and I love watching the shapes she forms with her mouth when talking. She now tolerates tummy time much better and is starting to reach out for toys in this position. She is able to roll from tummy to back in both directions.
I love these little goblins more everyday and am constantly amazed at how fast they are growing up. We've already had to pack two full boxes of baby clothes away and Enya is (finally) growing out of size 56 (english newborn size). I remember when Ciara came home in December that she barely fitted into the sleeping sac-it drowned her- and now I can barely close it for Enya. I need to keep reminding myself to enjoy everyday to the full as before I know it they will be terrible toddlers and the "terribler" teenagers!!
PS they are both sleeping through from 7pm to 5am YIPPEEEE!
They loved my apple puree with baby rice, both girls ate more than 50g of it. So maybe my cooking isn't as bad as I think it is;-)
Enya is absolutely adorable when we feed her, we can't get the spoon to her mouth fast enough. She also opens her mouth really wide when we bring the spoon near so we can really load up the spoon with puree. She always grins during mealtimes as if to say finally something I can enjoy (bottle feeding remains difficult). She has started speaking more and has a beautiful shy smile which she is showing more frequently. She loves playing with her hands and is starting to chew on her fingers and fists (teething at 3 1/2 months??). When she gets excited she tramples with her legs so much that I'm not surprised she is not putting on weight any faster, she is going to have fantastic abdominal muscles as she lifts her bottom clear of the floor while kicking. She has also started trying to pull herself up into sitting (crunchies) or by pulling on the baby gym arch.
Ciara made a slower start on the eating front but has also learnt to open her mouth when the spoon approaches (she just bites down so quick so we often don't get the spoon between her teeth before she snaps shut). She is our little talker, I can often hear her lying chatting to herself after her nap. When she sees us she starts to shriek with joy, this is deafening if she lets rip while next to your ear. She has a gorgeous grin and a dimple in her right cheek, I just can't get enough of it., just as well she is such a happy baby. Ciara is such a chatterbox that towards the end of her bottle, she starts jabbering around the teat. But pity the poor parent that tries to take the bottle away, as she then throws a hissy fit. The chatter box has a remarkable variety of sounds she can make including ba and I love watching the shapes she forms with her mouth when talking. She now tolerates tummy time much better and is starting to reach out for toys in this position. She is able to roll from tummy to back in both directions.
I love these little goblins more everyday and am constantly amazed at how fast they are growing up. We've already had to pack two full boxes of baby clothes away and Enya is (finally) growing out of size 56 (english newborn size). I remember when Ciara came home in December that she barely fitted into the sleeping sac-it drowned her- and now I can barely close it for Enya. I need to keep reminding myself to enjoy everyday to the full as before I know it they will be terrible toddlers and the "terribler" teenagers!!
PS they are both sleeping through from 7pm to 5am YIPPEEEE!
16 Mar 2008
Blah....
Butternut squash will not be featuring on the meal plan for the girls for the next little while. It definitely was not a success. Ciara retched a couple of times with the squash and even our little eat-it-all, Enya, only managed half her portion. I may need to thin it down or mix it with baby rice to dilute the taste even further when we try it again (the weaning book recommends trying again after a few weeks).
Our new scales arrived yesterday so we can monitor Enya's weight. Now that the baby massage course is over, I won't be seeing the hebamme again and the doctor doesn't want to see us for a couple of months hence no weighing for a while. I am not prepared to go that length of time without monitoring so we decided to invest in a set of scales. We've decided to weigh only once a week, tomorrow being the big day. I'm crossing fingers that Enya reaches 4.9 kg but am not holding my breath (sneak preview showed she had lost weight!!).
On that note our paediatrician basically told us we were overreacting to Enya's weight and that we should rather give her corn oil than concentrate her formula. My objection to this is oil will cause diarrhea (I was advised to give them oil when they were constipated for this reason) and his reasons not to concentrate don't make sense, so I will stick with concentrating the formula. The only reason I'm sticking with this paediatrician is he is very good from the neurodevelopmental aspect otherwise we would be looking for a new paediatrician.
I promise my next post will be a happier one with no whining or whinging in it!! I am so sick of my complaining but recently I just have been needing to unload and this is the easiest forum for it. Ende Gelaende, next time I will be more positive... promise.
Our new scales arrived yesterday so we can monitor Enya's weight. Now that the baby massage course is over, I won't be seeing the hebamme again and the doctor doesn't want to see us for a couple of months hence no weighing for a while. I am not prepared to go that length of time without monitoring so we decided to invest in a set of scales. We've decided to weigh only once a week, tomorrow being the big day. I'm crossing fingers that Enya reaches 4.9 kg but am not holding my breath (sneak preview showed she had lost weight!!).
On that note our paediatrician basically told us we were overreacting to Enya's weight and that we should rather give her corn oil than concentrate her formula. My objection to this is oil will cause diarrhea (I was advised to give them oil when they were constipated for this reason) and his reasons not to concentrate don't make sense, so I will stick with concentrating the formula. The only reason I'm sticking with this paediatrician is he is very good from the neurodevelopmental aspect otherwise we would be looking for a new paediatrician.
I promise my next post will be a happier one with no whining or whinging in it!! I am so sick of my complaining but recently I just have been needing to unload and this is the easiest forum for it. Ende Gelaende, next time I will be more positive... promise.
15 Mar 2008
Our little coffee addict
Well it's official. Enya failed her third attempt to wean from the caffeine. We had stopped the caffeine last week Thursday on the instructions of the Prof. Over the weekend we started seeing her oxygen saturation swinging, this progressively got worse until on Monday night we started getting alarms (we hadn't had any real alarms for about 3 weeks). Initially we thought it was just the old electrodes but even replacing them we still got a few alarms. On Tuesday evening we then started getting drops into the 60's (see, I told you day 5 was the bitch!!). At that point we'd had enough and restarted her on her caffeine. Within 20 mins the alarms had stopped and since then we've had an average of 98% O2 saturation. Z spoke to the Prof on Wednesday to tell him what he'd done and the consensus is now to let Enya outgrow the dose. She is only getting about 1/5 of the therapeutic dose but she needs that little bit. As our paediatrician said to me, she is not getting any side effects and it won't harm her, if she needs it until she goes to kindergarten, so what! She'll be the only kid in kindergarten who gets served a cappuccino with her breakfast.
The solids fest continues apace. They love carrots and pears are the best yet! I had to buy bibs with sleeves as Ciara eats with full body involvement. I spent this afternoon making puree for the next week for them, so cross fingers that they like all the new tastes coming their way. Debs sent me Annabel Karmel's new complete baby and toddler meal planner, she thinks it is the best book for weaning onto solids. So far the recipes are really simple (only steaming and pureeing fruit and veg) and the menu plan allows a couple of days of the same food so you can see if the baby reacts. Just as well I poured all the breast milk away that was filling our freezer, as I'm now going to start filling it with baby food. Poor Z!!
12 Mar 2008
Busy day
Poor Z is finally feeling better after being layed low by gastro for a few days. Just in time though for our mega therapy day. This morning we had our first Speech therapy (SLT) appointment for Enya to assess her feeding and in the afternoon we had physio for both girls.
I'm fairly shattered so I'll try keep this brief. I'm not sure how I feel about the SLT- it was all a bit wishy washy. Ciara, the little brat, only drank half her bottle at home before we left for the appointment, despite having just woken from a 10 hour sleep. So instead of watching how Enya was drinking the therapist got distracted by Ciara's cries of hunger and landed up giving her her bottle while I gave Enya hers. He (yup we have a male SLT-I've never met one before) did give us a couple of exercises to try and a teat to try but agreed that it is unlikely at this point we are going to get her sucking properly from a bottle. He feels she is however too young to try a cup, so we must continue as we have been doing. On the plus side he was very pleased with how she is eating her rice cereal (she managed 2/3 of a bowl there and then 1/2 a bowl this evening with carrot puree mixed in). We go back to see him in 3 weeks and in the meantime will try the exercises to stimulate sucking before bottle feeds.
While I was at SLT with the girls, Z was speaking to an acquaintence of ours who works as a doctor in the Social Paediatric Centre (SPZ). She does the preemie followup and he wanted to sound her out about the issues we've been having recently (in particular Enya's weight and physio). She agreed with us in most of the points we raised, only in the weight she said she found the irish reaction a bit overdone. At the same time she agreed with Debs that Enya needed to be getting 120kcal/kg (before we started concentrating the formula she was getting 86 kcal/kg). We now have an appointment with our paediatrician tomorrow to hear his view and to try get a prescription for the high calorie preemie formula.
Obviously Z chat with Dr B got back to our physio as she was wonderful today. She took off her Vojta gloves today and showed us some simple things we can do outside of our daily formal therapy sessions to encourage normal movements. She also revised the exercises that we've been doing as the girls have been protesting so vehemently agaist them, there could be no therapeutic benefits coming from them.
Operation Sleep is now just ashes. Ciara slept through last night but Enya has been up every 3-4 hours the last 2 nights. As Z had baby ban, I've not slept much and tomorrow is another wash out due to the doctors appointment. I know I shouldn't complain but I was so enjoying getting 6 hours sleep in one stretch that it's hard to accept this step backwards.
I'm fairly shattered so I'll try keep this brief. I'm not sure how I feel about the SLT- it was all a bit wishy washy. Ciara, the little brat, only drank half her bottle at home before we left for the appointment, despite having just woken from a 10 hour sleep. So instead of watching how Enya was drinking the therapist got distracted by Ciara's cries of hunger and landed up giving her her bottle while I gave Enya hers. He (yup we have a male SLT-I've never met one before) did give us a couple of exercises to try and a teat to try but agreed that it is unlikely at this point we are going to get her sucking properly from a bottle. He feels she is however too young to try a cup, so we must continue as we have been doing. On the plus side he was very pleased with how she is eating her rice cereal (she managed 2/3 of a bowl there and then 1/2 a bowl this evening with carrot puree mixed in). We go back to see him in 3 weeks and in the meantime will try the exercises to stimulate sucking before bottle feeds.
While I was at SLT with the girls, Z was speaking to an acquaintence of ours who works as a doctor in the Social Paediatric Centre (SPZ). She does the preemie followup and he wanted to sound her out about the issues we've been having recently (in particular Enya's weight and physio). She agreed with us in most of the points we raised, only in the weight she said she found the irish reaction a bit overdone. At the same time she agreed with Debs that Enya needed to be getting 120kcal/kg (before we started concentrating the formula she was getting 86 kcal/kg). We now have an appointment with our paediatrician tomorrow to hear his view and to try get a prescription for the high calorie preemie formula.
Obviously Z chat with Dr B got back to our physio as she was wonderful today. She took off her Vojta gloves today and showed us some simple things we can do outside of our daily formal therapy sessions to encourage normal movements. She also revised the exercises that we've been doing as the girls have been protesting so vehemently agaist them, there could be no therapeutic benefits coming from them.
Operation Sleep is now just ashes. Ciara slept through last night but Enya has been up every 3-4 hours the last 2 nights. As Z had baby ban, I've not slept much and tomorrow is another wash out due to the doctors appointment. I know I shouldn't complain but I was so enjoying getting 6 hours sleep in one stretch that it's hard to accept this step backwards.
11 Mar 2008
Fallen off the bottom of the chart
Whoops! I had a nice long chat with Debs last night (dietician friend who specializes in preemies) and she told me Enya has now fallen off the bottom of the growth chart i.e. under the 3 percentile line. The scariest thing is this is the preemie growth chart and adjusted for her age. When Enya was born she was on the 10 percentile line and should have maintained this position on the graph. Debs was so concerned she spoke to her consultant in the NICU about Enya, he immediately offered us an appointment for this morning saying he was also concerned and would like to see her. The only problem is he is in Ireland and we are in Germany, so no go. He did recommend with her history (grade 3+ brain bleed and problems sucking) she should have a MRI just to check everything is still OK on that side. That will be fun, I can't even get my paediatrician to do an ultrasound to check her kidneys as was recommended in her hospital discharge letter, now I have to try talk him into referring her for a MRI.
Everyone has been poopooing my worries and telling me I'm overreacting and now I find out I had every right to be concerned, I feel vindicated but more than that I feel let down by the doctors (and therapists) whose job it is to follow up this fragile micropreemie!! I'm now going to start getting bolshie with them as they have shown they are not worthy of the trust that I've been giving them. My paediatrician has not even plotted Enya's weight on a chart so he probably has no idea where she is sitting on the graph. She is sending me all the graphs so I will take that to the paediatrician and see what he has to say to that (in the hospital it was not much better as I can remember one nurse hunting for the growth chart to show me- she landed up starting a new one as she couldn't find the old one!!!!)
On the positive side solids are going well, Enya ate 1/3 of the bowl last night and seemed to really enjoy it. Ciara ate 5 spoons and would have had more but I was a little uncertain how far to push her. The only downside of the solids is they have no interest in the milk afterwards. Tonight I'm going to give them half their bottle before we give the baby rice.
Operation sleep has crashed and burned with the advent of solids as Enya is waking every 4 hours overnight (during the day she can go 6 hours between feeds). She has not drunk enough over the day to counterbalance the missed bottle after eating. My options are to try the solids around midday (recommended) or increase the amount of milk she gets per feed (very difficult). I'll see how tonight goes and how the SLT appointment tomorrow goes and then decide.
Everyone has been poopooing my worries and telling me I'm overreacting and now I find out I had every right to be concerned, I feel vindicated but more than that I feel let down by the doctors (and therapists) whose job it is to follow up this fragile micropreemie!! I'm now going to start getting bolshie with them as they have shown they are not worthy of the trust that I've been giving them. My paediatrician has not even plotted Enya's weight on a chart so he probably has no idea where she is sitting on the graph. She is sending me all the graphs so I will take that to the paediatrician and see what he has to say to that (in the hospital it was not much better as I can remember one nurse hunting for the growth chart to show me- she landed up starting a new one as she couldn't find the old one!!!!)
On the positive side solids are going well, Enya ate 1/3 of the bowl last night and seemed to really enjoy it. Ciara ate 5 spoons and would have had more but I was a little uncertain how far to push her. The only downside of the solids is they have no interest in the milk afterwards. Tonight I'm going to give them half their bottle before we give the baby rice.
Operation sleep has crashed and burned with the advent of solids as Enya is waking every 4 hours overnight (during the day she can go 6 hours between feeds). She has not drunk enough over the day to counterbalance the missed bottle after eating. My options are to try the solids around midday (recommended) or increase the amount of milk she gets per feed (very difficult). I'll see how tonight goes and how the SLT appointment tomorrow goes and then decide.
10 Mar 2008
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