Not as impressed...

Sue was not as impressed with Lily's improvement as I thought she'd be. I guess for me though, seeing her eat smushed up banana is SUCH an improvement from before where she would gag on it and throw up. She hasn't *knock on wood* gagged on anything in the last couple of weeks! We still need to do more work and exercises. Sue wants Lily to eat more than 50% smushed up food (leaving less than 50% of purees) So I have to get creative. Right now we're working with:

- Bananas

- Canned peaches/pears

- Avocado

- Sweet potatoes

I'm going to pick up some squash (zucchini and yellow squash), creamed corn, canned peas (because they are softer and easily mushed) tomatoes, and maybe some green beans at the store today.

I plan to make some kind of homemade tomato sauce because Lily loves tomatoes and oregano. I figure I can do chopped up, fresh tomato, oregano, shredded carrots? Add a little garlic? And the squash I plan to sauté in a little bit of EVOO and add some rosemary or oregano to and then mush up. I also plan to (over)cook some potatoes and carrots in chicken broth and mush those up so that they will have more flavor and be a little more wet so it will be easier for her to mouth.

Fruit seems to be easy to get and mush up but I'm trying to be a little more creative with the vegetables. The whole point is to offer LB foods that are high in flavor so she recognizes they are in her mouth and she will want to move them around. She just refuses the bland things now.

We're also going to try experimenting with more herbs and spices. Right now Lily has had, and liked:

- Oregano

- Rosemary

- Lemon juice

- Garlic (tried today)

- Cinnamon

I plan to get some mint, nutmeg, and other such spices introduced in due time.

Wish me luck. It's all a bit tiring but I'm trying my best.

As for naps. I've been reading the "healthy sleep habits, healthy child" book and well, it makes sense but it's hard to get into the cycle of these naps. So far, nighttime has been great. She has been STTN (sleeping through the night) except when I get her up at 4am to nurse/meds and she usually cries for 2 seconds when I put her back and then she's back to sleep until about 6am (ugh.) But when she cries at night she just gets herself back to sleep. I think she's just crying in her sleep though.

Nap times though. Gracious. She woke up crying at 5:45 this morning and I let her cry until 6am. She was obviously still tired when I got her up but I didn't feel like putting the energy to put her back to sleep and have her get up an hour later. So we got up and did our usuals. Then I tired to put her down for a nap as close to 9am as I could get (8:40) as per Dr. Weissbluth's instructions. I let her cry/play in her crib for AN HOUR with no freaking nap.

So I get her up and we go about our day, run some errands, have lunch, and now I've got her back in her crib at 1pm, as per the doctors instructions. She's tired. I know she's tired! But right now she's not sleeping. And to be honest, even though it's only been 15 minutes, it just doesn't feel like she will sleep.

Maybe she's just not meant to nap like regular babies. Maybe it's the brain abnormality or the medicines or blah blah blah. Maybe I shouldn't follow all these rules and just let her nap when she's tired. But everyone is swearing by this book and these schedules and rules....and it's only day 2...she's not even really crying but like playing and then doing an occasional cry (which I know she's seeing if I'll come in, which I'm not, btw)

ugh. I'm just so tired of this constant battle for normalcy. For sleep. For an extra bite of food.

I bet everyone's pretty damn tired of hearing me complain about food and sleep though, too, huh?