Romy the Vacuum.

Romy has been on the appetite stimulant for 5 days now and so far so good. She drinks an extra 4-6 ounces a day and is constantly eating something. The only thing that I hate about it is how sleepy and lethargic it makes her. The first day on it had us a little worried because she wasn't her usual funny talkative self, she was just sitting around staring off into space and blinking blankly, but it has gotten much better since. It's so weird to see her shovel food into her mouth, (something she's getting very good at!) but I love it and we're very excited to see how much she'll gain in the upcoming weeks. I've been keeping track of how much she eats and her calorie intake and she's gone from eating 550 calories a day to well over 800. The other day she had almost a whole waffle smeared with butter, about a third of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a stick (a whole stick!) of string cheese, a few grapes, about 3 tablespoons of rice and beef, plus 22 ounces of formula! A few short days ago, she might have only taken a bite or two of each and only drank 16 or so ounces. If she keeps it up then we can pull her off of her yucky tasting multi-vitamin. I also received a tip from someone who reads this blog to add Duocal to her bottles. It's a powder that can be added to food and it's packed with calories, I asked her GI and he seems to think it's a great idea. I just ordered a box and it should be here soon, so thank you very much for the idea!

Like I mentioned above, Romy is doing really great on feeding herself. She still can't manage a spoon, but she understands the concept. She can pick up large pieces of food and sometimes manages to pick up her goldfish crackers using a tripod grasp or a shaky pincer grasp. In fact her OT re evaluated her fine motor skills because she's made so much progress in the last month or so. She's now charted as having solid 9-10 month old skills with a few 12 month old skills. She's so amazing, everyday she amazes me! Her OT and I also talked about the best way to teach Romy how to do things, and she noted that Romy is very independent and refuses help a lot. She also said that she's easily distracted......that's my Romy.


Practicing using a big girl sippy cup!

She's such a doll.

Eating a giant cheese puff.