Baby J's Therapy Session #2

You know a therapy session goes well I guess when this ^ is the result! Baby J was knocked out by the time his physical therapist was done with him.

Great news! He is 5.5 moving to 6 months in large motor skills. He appears 'normal' to people, not only because of his size (tomorrow we weigh him again, and tust me, this boy is putting on pounds ounces!) but also because he has splintered skills. He has great supine skills and is wonderful with his legs he puts on a great show. However, the skills needed to crawl*/creep*/pull up still need to be worked on. His upper body and oblique muscles are pretty weak.

After a few more days of him exploring rolling over on his own, I have some exercizes to do with him to prepare him to crawl! Can you imagine? He should be crawling* very shortly.

The PT described Baby J to a T today when she explained babies with lower muscle tone. He does not have low muscle tone, just lower than it should be...confusing, I know. Low tone babies are like jell-o, and that is not him. She described them as extremely laid back and sleeping LOTS in the first few weeks. Baby J slept the first 5 weeks, up to 22.5 hours A DAY. We joked that we didn't meet him until almost 2 months.

These babies are pretty happy to sit back and do nothing...but get really irritated if made to do things, go places, move. Um, yep. Baby J used to scream his head off for diaper changes, clothes changes, and car rides. If he was held or lying comfortably, no sweat. We have pictures of him screaming through almost every event for a few months. This does improve (as we've seen with him) but they can still be pretty apathetic (we can go in and Baby J is awake in his crib staring at the ceiling or crib slats when we think he has been sleeping. We never know when he wakes up and unless he sees us or gets hungry he will lay there indefinatly).

They hate being on their tummies. They like everything done for them. Meet Baby J.

However, he is coming along very nicely and we are seeing excellent progress already. We may just have to insist that he do things a certain way for...well...his entire childhood. Baby J being "happy" is certainly not a goal of his PT at this point.

If you coupld pray for his comfort in the next couple of days, we would appreciate it. His diapers are really gross/stinky/irritating while on the PediaSure and this morning he woke up screaming in pain. He has a rash over almost his entire diaper area because he had a BM in the night and it burned him. It may also have something to do with the fact that he CUT HIS THIRD TOOTH today. Snug had diaper rashes when he cut his molars (Baby J did not cut those, it is a top front tooth).

Thanks for praying and reading. We are doing really well. :o)

*in PT terms, crawling is pulling yourself along the floor, not necessarily on hands and knees...creeping is up on hands and knees moving around. That was really confusing to me and I am sure I will mix it up often.