"Weight"-ing around

Meagan had a weight follow up today.  She is holding steady at 14 lbs. at 10 months old.  It is still in the 1% for her age, but that is just Meagan.  I love her Pediatrician.  She is very careful to follow Meagan closely, however, she doesn't panic from numbers on a page.  She said yes, Meagan is tiny for her age...however, she is not unhealthy.  She is not "undernourished."  The Pediatrician also said that this may be "just Meagan"... slow and steady.  She did say she wants Meagan to go ahead and have the swallow test now, because she is still gagging/spitting up milk at times, and also has regressed in her solid food attempts.  The few times she has licked food off the spoon or taken a little from a feeder since the day I posted about her eating a few weeks back, she has gagged and even spit up milk she already ate at an earlier time.  (I shouldn't have jinxed it by posting about her eating! Oops!) We will need to work with a Speech Therapist to help her get onto some sort of solids, if possible, but before we do so, we need to know if we are dealing with a developmental issue, or an actual physical problem.  They were very good at working her in and so she will go for her swallow study on August 3rd. It will be very helpful to see if Meagan actually has swallowing issues so we can move forward in the best way possible with food and eating. 


In other news, Meagan did get some new gear! The first necessary item was a Nap Nanny.  Meagan doens't tolerate sleeping on her back, so she has slept in her bouncy chair from the day she came home, October 26th, until 2 nights ago at almost 10 months old.  Although she's small for her age, she really did outgrow the bouncy chair and we needed a new sleeping arrangement.  We tried the crib again, and to no avail.  We knew about the Nap Nanny and it's softness and inclined position. I had mentioned it to my sister in law when she was visiting.  The day she left, a package shows up at my door.... it was a Nap Nanny! (Thank you Aunt Katie and Uncle Mike - Meagan's Godfather).  So for the last two nights, Meagan has napped and slept all night in complete comfort in her new digs... and she loves it!

The second item was a high chair.  Even though she is not eating foods yet, she loves being around people.  Having 4 older sisters, who are constantly eating, we are often in the kitchen.  Whether it's fixing snacks, meals, cleaning, or putting away dishes, we spend a LOT of our day in the kitchen, so we don't want her to miss out on these social times!  We had a spacesaver chair we could strap on to any chair that worked fine for our other kids.  It would have worked fine with Meagan too, except that in our size family, we need almost all our chairs.  We decided it would work better to have an actual high chair so we weren't constantly moving her seat on and off when we needed to eat dinner together.  Nanny took Meagan to the store and she picked out a great high chair. (Thank you Nanny!!)   We got it set up last night, and she seems pretty happy in it!! So now when we have family times in the kitchen, instead of being on the floor in her bouncy chair, she can be up high with the rest of us, looking around, and enjoying a new view!

So now Meagan has some cool new gear to enjoy her days hanging out with her sisters.  She already seems to love her Nap Nanny and her new view from her high chair, so we are very happy about that! Hopefully the swallow study will give us some clues as to why she is struggling so much with food so we can have a productive follow up with her GI doctor.  While we "weight" around for those results, we will continue to enjoy watching Meagan look around from her new view at the table..... and as far my view goes, I could never tire of looking down at her and seeing this snuggle bug right up next to me where she belongs: