11 Months

Another month has passed making my baby 11 months old last Tuesday!

Daddy's cuddly baby girl

We went back to the GI doctor on Tuesday and Phoebe weighs 15lbs 5oz!!!  This is up from 14lbs almost 2 months ago.  We were very happy.  She is still below the growth chart, but she as gained an average of 12gms/day which is consistent growth compared to other kids her age.  So all that butter and cream we are adding to her food is helping.  We will continue the caloric support at least until she hits the bottom of the growth chart.


I knew she had to have gained a pretty good amount of weight because I had had to loosen the straps on her booster seat.  So she has certainly increased abdominal girth over the past month!

Phoebe has made a lot of progress this month in her physical development and gross motor skills.  One month ago when Melissa, our physical therapist, first came to see Phoebe she would not bend her knees at all.  Melissa called her a "very symmetrical baby"  She also would never reach across her body.  She would only reach to her right with her right hand and reach to her left with her left hand.  We had noticed that she locked her knees and thought it a bit strange, but hadn't realized she was not reaching across her body.  Because of both of those things, she could not get herself from a sitting to a "crawling" position or get herself from her belly up to a sitting position- both involve bending your knees and reaching across your body.  Melissa has been wonderful coming to the house and working with Phoebe and us.  It has been very simple exercises that we incorporate into play, but without them Phoebe would still be sitting symmetrically and unwilling to bend her knees.  Now she easily bends her knees and reaches across her body so that she can go from sitting to her belly and from her belly to sitting.  We have also been working on pulling her knees up underneath her body and holding herself up with her hands to crawl traditionally.  She is fairly good at holding this position now, but still needs some help and work to coordinate moving her hands and knees in a forward motion to actually crawl.   She will pull up now so that she is "standing" on her knees and I do not think it will be long until she pulls up from her knees to her feet.

Showing off her skills climbing up onto Knox

Cruising and eventually walking I think are going to be a bit more of a challenge.  Although she now will easily bend her knees when sitting, when she is standing her knees are locked SO tight!  I really have to fight her to get her to bend her knees while standing up holding onto something and a lot of the time I can not.  You have to bend your knees to walk, so I think this will take a little extra work for her.

And while we are having a brief doctors update I will mention that Phoebe has gone back to the audiologist twice over the past month and has failed her OAE's (which I won't bother to explain because I realize this is getting a bit technical) in both ears both times.  Basically this is not the best news.  So we are going to go ahead and do a sedated ABR hopefully at the end of the month to get the most accurate assessment of her hearing.  And then depending on those results we will determine if we need to move forward with hearing aids.

Eating-  Phoebe still doesn't have a big appetite, but has been eating better the last couple weeks!  She is still eating mainly pureed baby foods, but she is eating more and putting up less of a fight.  As far as finger foods go, she is still pretty picky.  She has an affinity for crunch textures.  I've found some freeze dried fruit that she will eat, some whole wheat crackers, and rice cakes.  Pretty much everything else she throws on the floor and spits out of her mouth.  There have been a couple times when we have been out at a restaurant or outside our house when she has eaten some soft bread, fruit, and meat, but has never repeated that at home.

A couple weeks ago I started to try to transition her to milk.  She drinks 4oz (sometimes 5oz) in her bottle, so I thought I would add 1 oz of milk to 3oz of formula.  She would not have anything to do with it!  I thought a quarter milk to three quarters formula would make for a pretty gradual transition...I was wrong.  So we started adding only 1/2 of milk and she will drink that.  I've gotten up to 3/4oz of milk in her bottle, but so far each time I have tried to add a whole ounce she has refused it.  The Lord must be trying to teach me patience...

She still is not drinking very well out of a sippy cup, and I'm not sure how to help teach her.  We've tried several different kinds.  She has the most "success" with the Nubby cups that have a soft spout that she can gum to get a little water out.  She does get water out and swallows some, but also somehow manages to get it all over her clothes.  That is fine for water, but a little messy for milk.

We had started her on the Zantac for possible "reflux" (i.e. we don't know why your child won't eat lets try to rule out reflux...)  As far as we could tell it wasn't changing anything after about 3 weeks so I stopped giving it to her.

Playing-  A lot of our playing these days incorporates exercises from her speech therapist or physical therapist.  She still loves her little kitchen and some books, but her Leap Frog musical table that was a hand-me-down from a neighbor is now a favorite because she can pull up on her knees and sometimes even to standing to play with it.  Keys are another favorite and have been used quite frequently as crawling motivation.  Unfortunately Knox's food and water bowls are also a favorite.  She LOVES water.  Loves the pool, bath, and splashing in the dog's water.  One thing that has surprised me is that she has never really taken to stuffed animals or "lovies"  She enjoys playing with "new" stuffed animals that she is given but after a week or she is over them.  And as much as we have given her soft cuddly lovies, I thought she would have attached to one.  But she has not.

Knox was not so sure what to think about this at first

Knox has succumbed to eating his food off the floor

Sleeping- Thank the Lord Phoebe has also been sleeping better the past couple weeks!  Before that I think she had only slept through the night about 4 times in the previous 6 weeks.  It was miserable.  But right now we are all enjoying a full night's sleep :)  She got 4 teeth in over a period of about 4 weeks so I think she must have been waking up with teething pain, but Orajel and Tylenol rarely helped.

She is still taking 2 naps between 1 and 2 hours.  She goes down for her morning nap around 10 or 10:30 and her afternoon nap around 2 or 2:30, and then goes to bed between 7:30 and 8.

Randoms- Phoebe is definitely going to have curly hair.  She has got lots of curls in the back these days.  She has just had her eighth tooth pop through her gums.