Eating (photos)

Loki is eating a little more. At the 9:00 pm feeding yesterday, he ate a whooping 104 mls. This is usually the hardest feeding of the day, so Dad and I were hardly believing the energy with which he put back all that yummy food. Unfortunately most of the "more" is still by bottle. It is still quite a struggle to convince the little guy that eating by breast has many, many extra benefits. For example, it is always available at the right temperature and it is easier to gage how much he gets. Oh well. Hopefully continued practice will pay off.

The good news: he gained ten ounces in eight days, as per doctor scale. He weighs in at 8 pound 5 ounces. Although still looking tiny, the fat is finally starting to move to other places than cheeks and hands. Maybe soon he will fit some of his cute 0-3 months outfit, rather then disappearing in them.

Since he fits in the Baby Bjorn carrier, going out for walks is a much easier and very pleasant undertaking. Loki wears an outdoor jumpsuit over his clothes, goes in the carrier and voila, ready to explore the neighborhood. However, he usually falls asleep even before I hit the sidewalk. I guess I am the one doing the exploring. I see the little parks in the area where we will go to play when Loki is a little bigger. Sometimes I show Loki his first home, a.k.a. Alta Bates (from the outside, that is) and just enjoy being outdoors with my handsome little dude tagging along.

Over the past few days, Loki has surprised us with some pretty fancy head and neck control. This is not uncommon for former preemies, as they have spent more time on their tummy fighting gravity then typical babies, by the time they hit 45 weeks. However, in some of the other areas Loki needs a little extra support to catch up, even with his corrected age of 5 weeks. I am not too worried about this, as I have spent most of the past 7 years working with children like Loki. It may be hard to understand though, when you see Loki for the years to come and wonder why he does not talk or walk like most kids his age.

For those who wonder, Loki's age is corrected to how old he would have been right now if born on his due date, which was February 4th. Although his chronological age is almost 5 months, his development is more comparable to that of a five week old baby. With a few exceptions. It can take many years for him to catch up on his milestones in all developmental domains: gross and fine motor development, language and cognitive development and social-emotional as well as self help (potty training, feeding, sleeping, hygiene) development. We will be seeing someone from the Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB) to determine what home based services Loki qualifies for, in order to support his development in those above mentioned domains of developme nt. It has been somewhat odd talking to them. RCEB is the agency I have worked with as an infant development specialist and as the manager for Baby Builders. We will get to know them from another angle. I know the wonderful staff there and am very excited that they will be the ones helping our little guy!

So far, we are pretty impressed with the strength Loki has exhibited throughout those first five months. He is determined, and I am sure we will see this when working on all the fun developmental tasks he gets to concur.

Sleeping on Opa Ruud's and Oma Anna's wooly:

I am a wizard, you are under my spell:


Too sleepy to lift my head up and see my pretty face:


Cuddling is also very nice with tante Marieke:


Want booby: