October 8 Update

Weight: 6.275 kg (13 lbs 8 oz)

Length: 63 cm

Head: 40.2 cm

Matthew’s new helmet is much better and he’s tolerating it well. His head shape is also making some progress 🙌.

He worked hard and did really well with both physical and occupational therapy this week. Still working on strengthening muscle, pulling to sit, rolling, and doing more during tummy time. Also working on being able to grab his feet, tracking objects with and without sound, reaching/grabbing/shaking objects, and hopefully transferring between hands soon.

Mattie had another HEFT (Home Enteral Feeding Transitions) appointment this week where we met with a dietary specialist, feeding therapist, and GI specialist to discuss his feeding plan and how things are going. They tested the thickness of his milk and then observed him while he drank.

Right away, the therapist we worked with noticed some challenges and recommended that we do another swallow study. He was breathing fast and retracting. He was showing signs of defensive sucking when he would sometimes suck twice before swallowing. He wasn’t very coordinated. And he had some obstructive noises going on- snorty, congested sounds…all of which are typical for him….so he will probably need even thicker milk but they want to do another swallow study to see what’s going on and be sure.

The sleep study he had at the NICU showed that he only need “slightly” thick milk, but he only drank like 5 ml that time, so that’s not a whole lot of data to go off of.

So we’re going to redo the study and go from there.