Six month visit with Dr. Saba

Oddly, Wyatt slept in until 7am this morning. I think because he ate so well yesterday. He got up to 817ML (27 oz). He still stirred starting at 4am, but he kept going back to sleep. I kept waking up when he stirred and then had to go check on him to make sure he was OK. I kind of count on Wyatt getting me up by six these days. I may have to set my alarm! My boss is going to pick me up tomorrow at 7:40am. It would be too embarrassing not to be ready. She has been giving me rides to and from work occasionally.

Marcus came by to take Wyatt and I to the doctor as Rus had to go in to EA. Wyatt now weighs 15lbs (9th percentile). Rus and I were betting it was more like 16lbs, so we were a bit disappointed. Dr. Saba on the other hand was delighted. She came in and the first thing she said was that his weight is great. She immediately showed me his plot against the growth curve and even pointed out how this was the normal growth curve for his actual age, not adjusted. Wyatt's head is now 40% percentile by the way. He is 25.5". I think that might be what he was last time.

There are a few things we need to start doing differently though. Like giving him solids more. We are supposed to get him up to three meals a day of solids with bottle as supplement or snack. We are supposed to stop waking him to feed him at 10/11. Once he goes to sleep, we are supposed to let him sleep. I was incredulous that he would sleep from 7pm - 5am, but Dr. Saba said he should be. We might find he starts waking up at 4am though. If he does that, we should push back his bedtime by an hour. (We pushed his bedtime back by 20 mintues this evening.) She said to give cutting out his last feeding a try and that his weight will be checked when we see Malhotra.

I confessed that we are really paranoid about his weight because of the NG tube. I think she was rather gently trying to tell us that we can relax and let Wyatt control the feeding now. She said we can continue to track his feeding if we want and use that to check if his weight drops, but we really don't need to do it any more.

We are also supposed to go to ad lib feeding instead of trying to feed him every three hours. This is all crazy talk as far as I am concerned.

Actually, this is all what I thought, but I was having a hard time convincing Rus. Rus had just gotten Wyatt on his feeding schedule too so this was unwanted news.

I have tried to give Wyatt rice cereal, but either he doesn't like sitting in the chair, or he really hates rice cereal. I decided to try prunes today because we have already given him prune juice so I figure he isn't allergic to that. He seemed to really like the prunes. Well, in comparison to rice cereal. He is still only eating maybe 10 spoons of it before he gets upset.

He did better when Rus held him and I fed him. He actually opened his mouth like a baby bird. At first, I thought he was yawning so I waited, then I realized he wanted prunes! We have videoed some of the his efforts while in his seat.

And his two bottom teeth are coming in. The right side is slightly ahead of the left. No big surprise there.

Wyatt got four shots and the rotavirus vaccine, which is oral and was drooled all over my work shirt.

I had a form from the Regional Center of East Bay for Dr. Saba to fill out. I thought she would fax it, but instead she gave it back to me. I quickly read the form, copied it and mailed it out. While I was at work I thought that it said something about "global delay" and I panicked. I actually thought I was going to throw-up. When I got home I read it again and it said that PT/OT were working with us because of a history of gross and fine motor skill delays. That isn't great either, but better than globally delayed. I am eagerly awaiting the evaluation by RCEB.

I think we also need the Kaiser PT to help us really understand what is going on. I feel like all we get is feedback that he is doing great, so what is the real issue I wonder? I still think he isn't doing well with his head-lifting. He wouldn't reach out for objects from a seated position when we say Sharon last and I can tell she thinks that is an issue. We have been working on that pretty rigorously this week. Well, really Rus has. The question is why do we have to work so hard to get Wyatt to do everything. Is that what globally delayed means?

Tammy offered us the use of their old exersaucer. She just needs to get it out of storage and we need to pick it up.