Thursday, March 19, 2009

Dr. Brown's Patent Medicine Bottle and Baby Soother

HSC's speech therapists have switched to using a "Dr. Brown" style bottle, advertised as sovereign against colic, gas and feeding related difficulties. Although the name has a hint of quackery about it, it is in fact perfectly legitimate. Max seems to be getting more down and keeping it down at his bottle feeding. However, the HSC team want to see the results of next week's swallowing study at Children's before they commit to a revised feeding plan.

When Carolyn phoned in this morning, the charge nurse reported that "everyone is around Max and making goo-goo eyes at him". It seems that Max is easily bored in his bed and wants to be able to see the action, so the HSC team are trying to get him into his stroller more often. Because of his poor neck control and low trunk tone, they've recommended that Max get a "kiddie cart", which supports his head, when he's a little taller.

Max had a 45 minute physical therapy session in the playroom today. He managed to turn his head, something he didn't do yesterday during his assessment. The official grades came back and Max scored poorly relative to other preemies. But as Carolyn noted yesterday, even as he was failing at some of movements during the assessment, he kept trying. It would be a different matter if he got frustrated and gave up, but that doesn't seem to be his character.