Grabbing!

After a very deep sleep on me following his noon bottle feed, I had a play session with Max involving bicycling his legs, reaching for toys with him on his side while flexing his abs, etc. As part of our play sessions, I've noticed that Max loves to be tickled and kissed on different parts of his body. He gets a huge smile on his face and even laughs. When I was bending over him today, I felt a tug on my hair: Max had grabbed a handful and was pulling! Thinking this might have been an accident, I gave him another opportunity and he did it again. Very exciting. I've noticed over the past few days that he is doing a better job grasping, opening up his hand, then clasping whatever is in it and holding on for a good while. He also wants to bring things to his mouth.

Max's feeds are now compressed over 20 hours (at a rate of 34 ml/hr), so he is getting four hours of a break at some point each 24-hour period. We are still trying to figure out exactly when that will be. We did get his vitamins changed to evening, when he is more likely to be asleep and less likely to spit them back up. Throughout the coming days, the HSC team plans to compress Max's feeding further, if he will tolerate it. While Max does have some emesis throughout the day, the doctors think that in general he is tolerating the NG tube and that he is gaining weight appropriately (he now weight about 13.5 lbs). The GI docs from Children's will assess Max on Tuesday and weigh in with any additional advice on the plan.

Max continues to be a social being: he just wants to see faces. The nurse tonight reported that after I left, Max sat in his stroller by the nurses' station for about an hour, until he had his bath and fell asleep for the evening.