I took care of Henry yesterday morning, because Veronica was sick. Henry had a great appetite. The big event in the morning was that Henry tried out his new high chair (from the Stitt family). As the pictures show, he is a little small in it, but he really likes it a lot. He had fun sitting and playing with the tray.
We played on the floor. I gave Henry a massage. He weighed 15 lbs 9.5 ozs. He had a bottle, and then I put him in the high chair for a feeding. He ate A LOT.
We had an appointment with Dr. Tsai at the developmental clinic. It was his 6-month check-up. Basically, he did really well, and Dr. Tsai was pleased with his progress. She said that he had doubled his weight since she last saw him. On their scale, he weighed 15 lbs 10 ozs and was 25 7/8 inches in length. His head circumference was 42.8 cm. She went through a series of developmental tests. Cognitively, he is "with it." He is starting to show some stranger anxiety, which is what he should be doing. He was rather suspicious of her a good part of the time. She said that his gross motor skills are slightly delayed, which is not unexpected for a preemie. The gross motor skills tend to be a couple months behind their corrected ages. I don't think that Henry is that far behind, but he does need more stability in his trunk. Treatment: More tummy time. Once his trunk gets more stable, then his gross motor skills will be fine (as well as will be his fine motor skills). She said that because preemie miss out on the time in the womb that should be spent curled forward, their back muscles end up being stronger than their front muscles because of the extra (unnatural) time that they spent on their backs in the isolettes. Solid motor skills require a balance between back and front muscles. She'd like for the OT to work with him once a week. Overall, she said that the tone of his muscles was good. And, she was pleased to see fat around his thighs.
I have to say that Henry wasn't particularly enthused with the tasks that she was giving him. She put two blocks in front of him, but he really wanted her necklace. Then, her assistant started rummaging through a box of toys, which Henry found to be more interesting than the blocks. At first, I think that Dr. Tsai thought he had problems with his "grasping skills." After a bottle, he found a toy on the shelf that he was interested in and gave her a better demonstration of his capabilities. He was very stubborn about tummy time, and I think left the impression that he doesn't have the ability to spend time on his tummy. He can do tummy time, but he is unlikely to do it on command. What can I say? Neither Henry nor our cats will listen to us.
The tummy time remedy wasn't a surprise, of course, as Cuyler had discussed Henry's trunk issues with us last week. We have been doing a lot more modified versions of tummy time to make the experience more fun for Henry (e.g., turning our legs into a tummy time jungle gym, where Henry pushes up at different angles). Dr. Tsai didn't think that Henry's hamstrings were the problem; she was focused on his strong back, which makes him not want to work his tummy. Cuyler attributed the lack of stability when sitting to tightened hamstrings. I suspect that both issues are probably at play. Both women agree that more tummy time will strengthen the trunk. I'm planning to continue with the hamstring stretches, because they aren't going to hurt him (worst case scenario is that I'm spending time giving his muscles a gentle stretch that isn't strictly necessary; best case scenario is that I'm helping stretch and relax those muscles, which will give him better support).
We came home. Henry had a bottle. We went for a walk at some point. Grandpa came over in the evening. Henry crashed for a couple hours, but got up around midnight for a bottle. Then, we all went to bed.
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