Six Months Old

Matilda is such a cool kid.  We’ve had a great month with her.  Can’t believe she’s already half a year old!

 Stats: No update here.  Her cast is getting really tight, so I assume she’s growing.
 

 

Sleep: Sleep has shown huge improvements over the past month.  She’s back down to waking up once or twice during the night.  Hooray!  She’s sleeping in her crib with the mattress propped up just a little to help with comfort in the cast.  She still sleeps better swaddled, although I know we need to try to kick the habit.  She’s figured out how to turn herself in the crib, so most of the time when we go into get her after naps or during the night, she’s rotated herself 90 degrees. 

 

Jason has also made huge strides in getting her to consolidate her naps during the day.  She usually takes two 1.5-2 hour naps with a third variable late-afternoon nap depending how tired she is.    

 

Eat: Matilda is such a distractible baby, she only wants to nurse when she’s tired and ready to nap.  She’s cut out a few of her daytime feedings and usually just eats about 5 or 6 times during a 24 hour period. 
 
We officially started solids last week.  She ate banana a few days in a row last week and it was a success.  This week we’ve been trying sweet potato and she thought it was okay. 
 
We also bought a few sippy cups for her to try out (ones without the control flow valve that don’t require forceful sucking, since she never figured out the sucking thing with bottles).  We’ve already had more success with them than with bottles.  Most of the milk has ended up down her front, but at least she’s not screaming at them like she would with bottles.

Play/ Milestones: The big news this month is that Matilda rolled from tummy to back last weekend!  I didn’t think she’d be able to do it in the cast, but she proved us wrong.  She’s been looking like she wanted to the past few weeks, but I didn’t think she’d manage to get all the way over.  We are so proud of her!

 

 

Matilda loves to play in her Ivy Rose spica table that Jason’s parents bought for her.  It lets her sit up and play unassisted.  This month she seems to especially like Sophie the giraffe, her rattle, and chewing on the little connector rings.  She also likes to knock over blocks and chew on her board books.  She still loves music and dancing, the dog, and being outside.

She's gone back to the MFA several times and went to the Museum of Natural Science.  She's gone to the farmer's market downtown and the library.  She went with us to pick out plants at Buchanan's nursery and helped us plant them in the garden.  She loves going for walks now that the weather is finally cooling off.  

 

 

Autumn is full of fun events like pumpkin patches, Halloween, and the Renaissance Festival, and we can’t wait to experience them with Matilda.

  
Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update: At her three week post-op appointment, Matilda had an x-ray that showed her leg was still in place and the position looked good.  She’ll have a cast change at the end of October (under anesthesia) and will be in that one until right before Christmas.  That’s longer than we hoped (4 months total instead of 3), but if it means a greater likelihood of her hip forming correctly, we’re all for it. Last week her cast started getting so tight, that she had to go to the doctor to have it cut down the sides to loosen it up a bit.

Fall Garden and Sewing Baby Clothes

Fall makes me feel all domestic-y.  As such, we've planted our fall garden and I've spent my free time sewing Matilda some clothes.

Fall Garden

Our garden has cauliflower, swiss chard, arugula, lettuces, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, snap peas, jalapenos, blackberries, mint, rosemary, basil, cilantro, sage, thyme, oregano, and lemon grass. We still have room, so we'll probably plant a few more things.

When we planted it three weeks ago, it looked like this:

 Now it looks like this:

 

 

Matilda helped us pick plants out at the nursery and plant them.  Although she doesn't look happy, she was really chill and such a good helper.

Sewing Baby Clothes

I've also spent some time sewing stuff for Matilda.  The first thing I attempted was a bonnet to go with her Halloween outfit.

I also sewed her two fall dresses.  I've never sewn clothes before, so I think they came out okay for my first time.  I didn't have a pattern, so I just used one of her other dresses as an estimate.

The first one was a little peasant style dress with 3/4 length sleeves.  (Don't tell anybody, but they were suppose to be long sleeves, but didn't quite end up that way.)

 And the second one is a pillow case style dress for Thanksgiving. 

All I need to do is bake a fall bread or desert and put up our decorations, and my fall nesting will be complete.  :)

Five Months Old

Matilda is five months old today!  This month flew by!

Stats: No idea. We can't really take any stats while in her cast. I've heard some babies lose weight or stay the same weight in the cast, so hopefully she's still gaining weight. I worry since she's already barely hanging on to the lowest growth curve, but I guess there's not much we can do other than encourage her to keep eating. She's mostly wearing 6 and 9 month dresses over the cast.

 

Sleep: Ugh... I don't even want to talk about sleep.  Since she's been in the cast, sleep has been terrible.  We can't tell if we're dealing with cast issues, 4 month sleep regression, or a combination of both, but nights are killing us.  She's been waking up about 8 times a night.  I think she set a record at 16 times the other night.  Since it doesn't really matter what we do, she's been sleeping in her crib in her room.  The mattress is propped up at an angle and we use pillows and rolled up blankets to try to keep her comfortable. We each take 2-hour shifts taking care of her, so the other one can try to get some sleep.  We're also testing out leaving her hands un-swaddled, but it doesn't seem to help.

She's started self soothing by sucking her bottom lip.  We noticed she started doing it a few days before her procedure, and I think it helped her manage some of the post-op pain.  She mostly does it when she's bored or tired.

 

Eat: Not too much to report here. She had a really hard time eating anything the week after her procedure, but she's doing ok now. I don't think her appetite is as hearty as it was pre-cast. She's probably eating about 80-85% as much as she did.  We haven't tried solids yet although we gave her a taste of banana the other day. I also started donating my frozen milk stash to the Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin, since it's unlikely that we'll use it before the 6-month expiration mark. 

 

Play/ Milestones: Matilda has started to laugh this month.  It started with a few short laughs here and there, but Jason got a good two minute long giggle fest out of her the other day.  Mostly she just smiles real big, sticks out her tongue, and cackles when she's excited.  She also went two weeks perfecting her raspberries and all we heard out of her was "aaa-booooo" over and over and over again.

 

Matilda loves getting out and about.  Jason's taken her to the grocery store, museum, and we took her to the Galleria with us to go mattress shopping.  She loves facing out in the Ergo 360, but we can easily flip her around when she needs to take a nap.

When she's at the house, she still enjoys sitting outside or looking out the window, playing with her toy bar, listening to music, and reading books.  She's started to reach out to pet the dog, and she enjoys playing peek-a-boo as well.  She loves any games with movement like riding the horsey, leaning backwards, or when we pick her up and dance with her.  The crazier the movements, the more she likes them.

 

She can pass toys between hands, turn pages of board books, and loves banging and scraping rattles against her cast.  I have to admit that it's hard watching her not be able to reach some of the gross motor skill milestones other babies her age are achieving.  We were hoping she'd roll over before the cast, but it didn't happen.  She'll be delayed with a lot of the skills like crawling and walking, but I keep reminding myself that hip babies have their own timelines and what's important is that her hip is healing.

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update: No update since her procedure. She goes in for a 3-week post-op checkup on Friday so maybe we'll have an update then.  I'm not sure how often they'll take x-rays, but I hope they do it a few times so we can make sure her leg has stayed in the socket.

Other than the sleep issues, the cast hasn't been that bad.  We're trying to keep things as normal as possible, although I am still a bit conscientious when we go out into public because most people assume she was injured.  I rather people ask what happened rather than assume that she hurt herself or we hurt her.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll get over it.  She's been a trooper and we've all adapted pretty well to it.

Matilda's Closed Reduction

Just wanted to give a quick recap of Matilda's procedure. 

The night before, Matilda did great.  She would have probably slept through the night if I didn't wake her up at 3 am to feed her (since she wasn't allowed to eat up to 4 hours prior to the surgery). 

We had to be at the hospital at 6 am.  She was the first surgery of the day at 7:30 am.  After signing in and taking her stats (weight, height, etc.), we were quickly taken to pre-op where we changed her into the hospital provided PJ's and met with the anesthesiologist, nurse, and surgeon.  Even though I'm sure she was hungry, she did great during all this too. 

When they took her into the surgery, they told us the surgery would take up to an hour and a half.  If the surgery was unsuccessful, we would know rather quickly.  The surgery/ procedure consists of a tenotomy where the surgeon cuts a tendon, an arthrogram where dye is injected so the surgeon can see the hip better, the closed reduction part where he tries to manipulate the leg in place, an x-ray to make sure it worked, the application of the spica cast, and the MRI to make sure the blood flow looks good.

We went back to the waiting room and about 30 minutes later we got a call from the nurse.  We were so sure the surgery hadn't worked, but she called to let us know Matilda was doing well and the surgeon was able to manipulate her leg into place.  Hooray!  They spent the next hour casting her. 

We met the surgeon real quick who explained that her leg looked good in the socket.  We then headed back to the recovery area, where Matilda had already woken up.  This part was really sad. Because she was groggy from the pain meds and her throat was sore from the breathing tube, she couldn't even really cry.  She kept doing these soundless screams that were so pitiful.  They upped her pain meds and she went in and out of sleep for the next few hours.

We had to head downstairs to get an MRI to make sure the blood flow to the leg looked ok.  Then we went back up to the recovery area where we waited to be released.  She didn't really want to eat much at all after her surgery, so that was a bit concerning.  There was also a mix up about whether the hospital would be providing us a carseat.  We thought they were going to loan us a medical grade one specifically made for spica casts, but they brought out a brand new one similar to the one we already had.  Since insurance wasn't going to cover the one they were showing us, we opted to just use the one we already had.

We finally got out of the hospital around 2:30 pm and headed home.  Matilda slept/ cried/ whimpered most of the remainder of the day and night, waking about every 2-3 hours needing to be comforted. 

We expected the worst for the next few days, but Matilda has done surprisingly well.  We've been giving her Tylenol every 6 hours to help with the pain, but she's almost back to normal Matilda. 

I've been pleasantly surprised about how little it seems we'll need to modify our routine.   She's sleeping on her beanbag rather than her bouncer, but everything else seems ok.  She can lay on the floor to play with her toys as long as you have a blanket rolled up under her top half so the cast doesn't dig into her back.  She can sit on the couch as long as you have a pillow under her that she can straddle.  The cast is shaped in a way that it's easy to cuddle and rock her to sleep.  Diaper changes are difficult, but manageable.  We still need to "petal" her cast, which is basically applying waterproof tape around the diaper opening to make cleaning any messes easier.

We still have a way to go for healthy hips, but this is a good start.  The cast will help keep her legs in place so the ball and socket have time to properly form.  She'll be in the cast 3-4 months, followed by some time back in the Rhino cruiser.  There will be plenty of x-rays and ultrasounds along the way to monitor her progress.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.  This definitely hasn't been easy, but we're proud of our little trooper.

Four Months Old

This month has been a good month! Matilda is becoming a much more pleasant and fun baby! I’m so glad we are out of the newborn phase and that she is a lot more social and active now.

Stats: At her four month appointment, Matilda weighed 11 pounds 5 ounces (3rd percentile), was 22.5 inches long (1st percentile), and had a head circumference of 15.75 inches (30th percentile). We moved her into 6 months clothes about a week ago.

Sleep: She still sleeps swaddled in her bouncer, but we’ve tried to 1) start weaning her from her swaddle (by leaving one hand out) and 2) lay her in her crib for some naps. Both have been met with limited success. Jason worries about what we’ll do when she doesn’t fit into her bouncer with her cast on, but I think it will be a hard adjustment either way and we’ll just address it once we’re there.

During the day, her naps are still all over the place. I would say the most common pattern is two 45 minute naps in the morning and two in the afternoon.  Most nights she goes down between 6-8 pm and wakes up between 6-7 am. She usually wakes once around 3 am to eat. We have a pretty good bedtime routine. She wakes up from her last nap shortly before I get home around 5:30 pm. Once I get home I feed her, play with her a bit, give her a bath (which might be her favorite part of the day), put her in her PJ’s, then nurse her to bed.

Eat: After two and a half weeks of being back at work and Matilda not taking a bottle during the day, we have given up on bottle feeding. Jason’s mom and grandma came to help the second full week I was back at work, and they could not get her to take a bottle either. I now come home during my lunch break to feed her, and then Jason brings her up to my work mid-afternoon so she can eat again. I’m basically a drive-through restaurant for my baby.

I think this has been one of the most frustrating things about parenting thus far, because nobody ever warns you your baby might not take a bottle. Sure, you get warned about colic and lack of sleep or even breastfeeding trouble, but nobody ever mentions that a baby could hate bottles. I always thought that all the different bottle designs were more for the benefit of the parents (i.e. which bottle the parents chose to use), not because babies are so picky and have preferences for how they eat.

We’re hoping to start her on rice cereal soon, so that way maybe I could just meet them once during the day instead of twice. Let’s hope we have better success with sippy cups, because eventually this girl is going to have to learn to eat/ drink on her own.

All that being said, I do enjoy breastfeeding and I’m very thankful that have the ability to see her several times during my work day. I’m thankful I live close to work and that my managers are flexible enough to allow this to happen. I’m also thankful I don’t have to deal with pumping and cleaning pump parts and bottles. I’m also going through an approval process to donate most of my frozen milk stash to babies in need, so I’m happy that someone will hopefully be able to benefit from it.

Play/ Milestones: Playtime is fun these days. One of Matilda’s favorite things to do is to smile and chat with you. Heck, she’ll even babble to herself if nobody is around to listen. We’ve also heard plenty of happy squeals and a few giggles (even though those are hard to get out of her!)

While she’s shown no interest in rolling yet, we still practice tummy time to help build those back and neck muscles. She loves to sit up supported, and if she’s leaning back or lying down she’ll try to do baby sit-ups to get in a sitting position.

Jason built a toy bar and Matilda loves to bat and grab the toys. I think her favorite toys are still the taggy blanket I made her last month, along with her green O’Ball rattle. About a week or so ago she discovered her feet and loves to grab onto them, especially her right foot.

She also enjoys being sung to. Jason plays children’s music on Pandora during the day, and sometimes singing to her is the easiest way to get her to stop fussing. Maybe she’ll have more musical talent than Jason and I.

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update: Not too much to report here.  We're just in a holding pattern until her surgery next week.  I give this first surgery a 50/50 chance of working.  It would be great if it works so we don't have to go through it again in 4-5 months, but if it doesn't we'll just enjoy her squishy legs for a bit longer.  She really loves being somewhat mobile and playing with her legs, so it's going to be a hard adjustment.  But, I know it's better to get her leg re-located sooner rather than later so the socket has more time to form correctly.  Wish us luck!