Henry Takes a Stand

Last night, I went to bed around midnight. As I got into bed, Jeff mentioned that Henry was a "bed hog." He'd managed to push Jeff to a small sliver of bed space on the edge. Henry woke up at 2:15AM this morning. Had a bottle but was fussy. So we ended up giving him prunes and oatmeal. That satisfied him. He went back to bed with us. In doing so, he turned himself perpendicular to us so that both Jeff and I were on the edges of the bed while he was spread out across the middle.

Henry woke up around 6:40AM. He went on a walk with his Dad and the pups this morning. Jeff reported that Henry pulled himself up to a stand on our museum bench. One of his legs was in an awkward position, but he did get himself up. He tried a second time, but it didn't work out as he planned.

We took Henry over to my parents' house in the morning. Henry had a lunch of summer squash. Took a long 2 hour nap. Crawled three paces. Jeff and I still have yet to see the crawling on all fours. And generally had a good day with Grandma and Grandpa.

Jeff and I went over to my parents' house for dinner around 7PM. Henry was fine until he saw us and then got very fussy. I think that it was getting a little late for him. By 8:15PM, we put him in his carrier and got him home. I suspect that he's going through a growth spurt. He's certainly sleeping more than he usually does.

Despite being off the Prevacid, his milk intake today was fine. We hope that it stays that way. We have Henry's GI appointment on Wednesday. At that appointment, we plan to ask about the long term effects of acid blockers and the potential use of probiotics to off set those side effects. We are hoping we'll get the OK to try yogurt. And, we also plan to ask about goat's milk. Goat's milk is used is many countries as an alternative to formula. The upside of goat's milk is that it is more like human milk in composition (when compared to cow's milk). The downside is that it is low in B12 and folic acid, which means that you have to use supplements for those things. Also, goat's milk contains casein, like cow's milk does. Human milk is very low in casein; the primary protein in human milk is whey. That's important because casein is believed to be one of the causes of colic. However, some people claim that the casein in goat's milk, for whatever reason, doesn't have the same negative effects on kids that cow's milk often does. Some mothers on the preemie messsage board that I frequent have said that when their children were put on goat's milk, their reflux symptoms were minimized and they got off the medications.

Basically, we know that Neocate is gross tasting, although Henry does drink it. Just how gross is Neocate? Well, one of my parents spilled Neocate on the floor today. Their dogs, who stalk anyone who enters the kitchen, hoping that something will fall to the floor, smelled the Neocate and wouldn't touch it. That puts things in perspective.