Day by Day

Well, it's been a month since our last substantive update about day to day life with Eliza. So what all has happened and changed since then? In no particular order:

* She's gotten much better at soothing herself and keeping herself entertained. If necessary, she can sit in her crib or her Bumbo seat for five or even ten minutes while we prepare her milk and medication, and we can be reasonably confident that she won't have a meltdown meanwhile. This is something that simply wasn't possible a month ago.(Hince our serious lack of posts!)

* She is also much more interested in things and in reaching out to interact with them. We have toys hanging next to each changing table and in her bassinet, and for a long time she mostly ignored them when we set her down, but now she immediately turns to them and reaches out to them. It's neat to see! She also grabs things and holds on to them much more frequently and effectively now.

* Eliza is getting close to being able to roll over. She can easily turn from her back to her left side and back again, and with just a tiny amount of help she can roll from her side to her tummy. She's also much more tolerant of "tummy time" now than she used to be - it's still not exactly her favorite thing, though! Eliza will be starting some physical therapy in the near future to help with making those developmental milestones.

* Eating continues with its ups and downs. A week ago, she went completely on strike from eating, refusing to take a bottle at all. This week she's been much better, even taking a whole bottle once. She continues to have a lot of spit-ups if we're not careful.

* We were using thickener (SimplyThick) in Eliza's milk, which seemed to be helping both with her feeding and with her spit-ups, but a couple of days ago the FDA warned not to give SimplyThick to preemies due to a risk of NEC, so we've discontinued that. (One round of bowel perforation was more than enough for Eliza, thanks!) Now we're using crushed rice cereal instead, which doesn't work as well in breast milk (it dissolves quickly), but it does at least add calories which is good too.

* Relatedly, our stash of Heather's pumped milk is finally starting to get low, so we're in the process of migrating Eliza over to formula. Currently she's on a half-and-half blend of milk and formula, but I accidentally gave her a bottle of pure formula once and she didn't seem to mind. It's amazing to me how long the milk has lasted - Heather really outdid herself with her dedication in pumping.

So that's some of the news from these parts of late; a dry list of facts it may be but we want to make sure we share these things and write them down while we still have a chance of remembering them. Every day brings something new and different to learn and experience, and it would be a shame to forget it!