Milestones!

Alistair lovin the new tub from Grandma Hedges

Grandma conquers two in one day~ soother and bottle

Peaceful!

Grandma Hedges and Alistair

Tummy time

Alistair in some funky little booties from Aunt Bonita

I still have Rita's voice, the physiotherapist at the PG Hospital, echo in my ear on a regular basis. "BreastFeeding isn't the only thing you have to work on with Alistair Julie" Although I know this I still find myself hoping up to his demanding slap of the tongue. I have to remind myself that he doesn't have to be fed at that very instant. So the last few days I've been making an extra effort to work with him prior to the feed. Especially since we can't do any tummy time or anything that manipulates him too much for the first 1 1/2 after a feed as then he has a big ol' up chuck. Because Alistair was on his back for the first two months of his life without tummy time he really doesn't find it a great position to be in. So the fact that we have graduate to 10-15min of tummy time 2X a day is huge. Its my next big push is to get him more and more comfortable with it as I read and hear everywhere that this generation of kids are naturally more behind then the last generations as there is such a lack of tummy time. This is partially due to the SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)rules to never let a kid sleep on their tummy due to the higher rate of SIDS in this position but also due to the strollers, swings, bouncers, etc.... People just forget to put them on their tummies. Interestingly enough the physiotherapist told me at Women's Hospital that they see a lot of children coming where parents brag about the fact their kid went from lying on their back to walking and totally skipped crawling. However, she says this isn't as great as they think. This is because when they are on their tummies they develop strong upper back muscles from pushing and crawling, plus they develop a lot of their fine motor skills with all the tactile on their hands, tummy, knees, arms etc....So she was telling me that these kids get in school and actually are set back and need learning assistance as they lack fine motor skills and control. They have a hard time reach the opposite hand across their bodies and fine motor control for holding pencils etc...I thought this was very interesting. Its just funny to think that in this day and age we are setting our kids back from something so incredibly basic. I have to say thats what is so wonderful about having all this access to OT's, PT's and the neonatology clinic as they intervene and educate me where need be instead of trying to intervene and change things at a later age when its a lot more difficult. ...The Infant Development Program lady is coming out today to teach me some massage therapy techniques that I can use with Alistair. I was reading this morning that a study showed that if one massaged premature babies 20min a day they thrived better than those who weren't. They are not sure if it is due to the massage or the basic interaction but hey what a great way to interact. I have to say I'm a total sucker for a good back massage so it sure can't hurt him any. If anything the massage I'm already doing on his hands is helping immensly......Mom was playing with Alistair yesterday and got him to take the soother and then on a bottle of my breast milk. This was super as we tried the first time and it worked but it hadn't dawned on me that I needed to keep it up or he'd loose it. So we were definitely struggling with the bottle. But now he's back at it. Just a relief in a way incase something every happened to me where I couldn't feed him for a bit at least we have a couple months worth of milk for back up in the freezer....Alistair has also started to smile a lot more...loves his Dad! He's cooing more, intentionally hitting things, holding his head up a 45 deg when on his tummy, weight baring on his legs when held, and he actually did a little bit of a giggle here a few minutes ago for the very first time! He is literally changing before our eyes. I can't believe the sleepers he's getting into now! Well I had better get off this blog and go have a shower.....

Toodaloo! Julie