February Olivia Update

Olivia is going to be 4 months old this week. She is such a different baby than a month ago. She is right where she is supposed to be developmentally as long as you use her adjusted age which is great! New good things:
She's still growing. We'll have her weighed on Friday at her appointment, but we know she's definitely over 10 pounds.
We've made the move from scheduled feeding to on-demand feeding and she seems to be doing well with it. We haven't quite gotten into a groove yet, but she is taking better naps.
She is much more alert.
She kicks and throws her arms all over the place.
She smiles and makes vocalizations (other than crying and screaming).
She is starting to tolerate tummy time a little more - like 5 minutes at a shot.
She loves the mobile on her pack 'n' play. Here's a short video of her happily watching it.



Not so great things:
She has developed a nasty heat rash on her neck and upper torso. At least I'm pretty sure it's a heat rash. Thinking back I am fairly certain it started when we switched to a different type of blanket for swaddling. I think the fleece, though fairly thin, doesn't breathe as well or absorb the moisture if she sweats. We didn't seem to have the problem with the cotton blankets so we're switching back to see if it helps. We only have a couple cotton ones that are big enough now so I'll be purchasing a few more shortly.
Also, and this is the big one, Olivia has started screaming and flailing while eating. She also will often not finish her bottles. Not during her night feedings (for which Glenn and I are so very grateful) but during the others. She will drink some once you can get her to start, but often it takes a while to get to that point. She will often stop a couple of times in the middle and start screaming again. It is very tiring and very hard to deal with. It's been going on for a week now. He pediatrician thinks it is mostly behavioral. He figures she had a day or two where she had some tummy issues or bad gas and it hurt when she ate and now she associates it with the bottle. Really we just have to keep going until she can relearn that it is okay. We had a couple of better feedings yesterday, but she's still freaking out as of this morning. Even though she's been growing well, I still panic a bit about her not eating as much. I think it's the preemie curse to always worry about how much they are eating. Other preemie moms I've talked to say the same thing.

Even with the not so great things our life is still very blessed. When she's not trying to eat she is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying being able to stay at home. Oh, there are still days that I really wish I could get out of the house. I'm dying for weather nice enough for a walk with Olivia just to get some fresh air. I can't wait for RSV season to be over so we can take her back out in the world at large, especially church since I've been missing my church family a lot. But I recognize that all these problems are temporary. Eventually she will eat without crying. Eventually it will be so hot out that I won't want to go for a walk because of how sweaty I'll get. Eventually I'll be sick of frantically trying to get everything together so we can make it to church on time. But maybe, just maybe, I'll remember a little bit of this time and I'll be able to manage to adjust my attitude just enough to remember how blessed I am!