Grinding Teeth & Early Bedtime

Swinging and eating! This is heaven to Alayna.

Alayna enjoying a relaxing moment in the warm sun.

Alayna fell asleep right at trick-or-treat time and her other three siblings were anxious to say the least. They were not patient enough to wait until her nap was over. So, Alayna stayed home with daddy and instead I dressed her up the next morning for a picture! I figured she wouldn't care if she missed out this year. Now, next year may be a different story!

Alayna lounging! Look at that face. I try to let her practice sitting up by herself without having me behind her. I rolled a blanket up and as you can see she fell back on to it. She's getting tons better though and is grabbing at toys and playing with them while trying to sit.

Alayna fell over! This is her on her side laughing about it.

Alayna is doing so much better reaching and holding her bottle. It's actually nice to know that if we are rushing to get ready, we have the choice of giving her the bottle and using a blanket to help prop it up in case she lets go. It's wonderful. If you think about it we are almost to 2 years of feeding her a bottle. It's getting a little old...ha, ha.

Alayna playing with two of her favorite toys at the high chair. Christmas is coming up and that is good because Alayna wishes for new musical, light-up toys! She is actually showing signs of boredom with a few of her toys. She just isn't as interested in them anymore.

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Grinding Her Teeth

Alayna has started to grind her teeth. She does this at times throughout the day just to do it I guess. We are doing the best we can to tell her no and to get her to stop it. I'm going to have to do some searching on our yahoo support group website to see if this is an issue other parents have had to deal with. I just don't want it to get out of hand and ruin her teeth.

Holding Her Own Bottle

Dana and I still resort to helping Alayna drink her bottles, but as you can see in a few of the photos she does a pretty good job by herself. Occasionally, she lets go of the bottle and it falls. So, we use a blanket to help prop it up. It is nice to know that she is able to hold it on her own for the most part. I'm not sure how much actually remains in her mouth because she likes to spit it out and let it run out the sides of her mouth. Crazy girl! Most children are done drinking bottles around 1 year of age. Alayna is almost 2 years old (January 29th) and I'm ready to give up the bottles. She isn't though and we must be patient. This is her primary source of nutrition still and until her eating habits get better, we have to keep the bottles.

Early Bedtime

Lately, Alayna has changed her bedtime routine by eating dinner around 5:30-6:00 pm, taking a small bottle around 7:15 pm and then falls fast asleep by 7:45 pm! This is crazy too. She goes to bed so early. I was trying to get her to take her last bottle around 7:30-7:45 pm, but by that time she was so tired she wanted nothing to do with it and would refuse to take any of it. She'd throw a big fit. That poses a problem because we like to put her phenobarb in her bottle and therefore she wouldn't get the medication. I'm not really sure if we should put the phenobarb in her bottle, but nobody has ever told me not to and it tastes yucky. Anyway I can get it down her is what I do. Thankfully, she is sleeping better through the night. It's a hit and miss thing. Last night she slept for a solid 10 hours. It was wonderful. However, the night before I was up out of bed at least 7 times replacing the pacifier from 3:30-4:45 am. UGH. I've got the walk to her crib down pat though and I don't remember doing it half the time. I fall asleep pretty fast once I return to my bed and hit the pillow!

Sitting

We continue working on sitting. Here in this video, Alexis is helping her a little. Most of the time we don't have to touch Alayna much, but just be there behind her in case she falls. As you can see though she is doing a much better job of "righting" herself and trying to keep her balance. She even extends her torso and sits up straight in this little clip without being forced to. She is also playing with the toys we put around her. I think by the time she turns 2 she is going to be sitting completely by herself. That's our goal!

Early Intervention Meeting

Our IFSP meeting is next week to review Alayna's goals and to write down any new goals and/or concerns that we have. All of her therapists do an evaluation of Alayna. I will inform you later of how it went.

Thanks again for reading about Alayna and keeping up with her progress. Progress is slow, but it is being made! She continues to teach us patience and to be thankful for the things we so easily do in life like sit, eat, and talk. All of those things are such hard work for Alayna and she is a trooper. We continue to be so proud of her.