Ok, so the boys are sleeping early and I have some time! A lot has happened in the past two months. Pup had a great first Christmas and AJ got his kitchen and beloved BBQ tools from Santa. We brought them to see Santa and it was hilarious to see him ask Santa for BBQ tools. His grandpas bbq a lot. It was darling.
Pup has been doing well, but the day has come where the delays are starting to present themselves. He's now 8 months old and is starting to sit up really well and is almost ready to crawl. I can give him a Gerber "Puff" and he will self feed. At a PT evaluation he was found to have only emerging protective stem reflex when it should've been mastered by now. On a positive note, he did have some solid 8 month skills. So, he'll now have PT once a week on top of his regular infant teacher on Fridays. He also started to get OT monitoring once monthly to track/monitor his progress. He had that today and the OT thought he looked pretty good.
Puppy is now 8 months. Here's what he's doing:
smiling a lot (He's got 5 teeth)
Assuming hands and knees (should be crawling soon)
Sitting up unassisted for a longer time (starting to use his hands to keep himself up)
Transferring objects from one hand to the other
Beginning to self feed
Eating table foods (like potatoes, carrots)
Has liked almost every food we've given him
Saying lots of ooohs and aaahs but still not many consonants. I think I'm hearing mmmmmm and sometimes da da (but I'm not sure)
Dr. Hagerman is really concerned about his speech and wants him to get speech therapy now, but the regional center won't even look at him until he's 12 months. I'm thinking I may need to seek private therapy or see if insurance will cover it but I don't think they will. What exactly could they do at this point anyway? Any other moms have advice on this one?
Upon last well baby exam, Pup weighed 16.13 pounds. He's so much smaller than AJ was. His eardrum was still retracted so we are going back to Hearing Conservation to recheck his hearing. He will probably need tubes. At least he's had no ear infections and has remained healthy.
I found this infomercial for a set of DVDs called "Your Baby Can Read" promising to stimulate your baby's reading/language/communication skills. I read reviews, watched the commercial and bought into it. I don't know if it'll teach him anything but the videos are entertaining and educational as well as good for developing vocabulary. I don't know if it'll do anything for a child with fragile x, but I figure it's better than doing nothing. It comes with books, word cards, pictures....AJ likes it, too, so if anything it'll help him. It also forces me to spend more time with the boys which really is the ultimate goal. It'll also help to give Danny something to do with them when he's home with them during the day.
2 comments:
Great Update! When were you last up at UC Davis? We are going at the end of February... You should be happy that your regional center will do Speech at 12 months; ours will not consider it until 18 months. I am trying to get my insurance to cover an evaluation from Dr. Hagerman's Speech Therapist but it is several months in the waiting now. Holly is doing lots of Babbling, but I don’t think she is making any Consonant sounds either. Lots of baba Mama Gaga Eyyeyeye. I wonder if the early teeth are a FX thing. Holly has 8 and I don’t know any other babies her age that have more then 2. I am glad you aren’t having any feeding issues that have been a big struggle with us. Holly is finally eating Puffs, but not a lot of table food. She has a super gag reflex and doesn't like eating; I think she may have some oral sensory issues. The pictures are great your boys are amazing. Hope you are well.
Actually, b, g, and m are consonants so she is! I don't think early teeth are a FX thing cause my older one had teeth at this age also. When I talked to our regional center they were adamant about no speech right now- even if a doc recommends it. Very sad.
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