July 2 Update
This little kiddo is doing great. We think we have his feeding situation worked out and he’s been much happier while eating with hardly any aspirations, and the big news of the week is that we’ve started weaning him off his oxygen. And he’s tolerating it superbly. We are all excited to have a wireless baby in the not so distant future 😆.
Matt had two in-home therapy appointments this week and they were both extremely helpful. He had a speech/feeding therapist, an occupational therapist, and a developmental specialist come and they all offered a lot of support and insight and and gave us some very helpful information and tips.
Matthew’s main goal right now is to build more muscle strength to be able to hold up his head better, so lots of tummy time in various forms. We also learned that while he doesn’t like to be swaddled, it’s actually still really important for him as a preemie. He isn’t used to it since he had so much room to move around in the womb, but being in that more closed position is really important for not only self-soothing and calming his incredibly strong startle reflex but also will help as he learns to sit up on his own. So we’ve started swaddling him again during naps and he’s slept even better than before (he’s always been a pretty great sleeper), so that’s awesome. We are really grateful for all we are learning and that Matthew is doing so well.