2nd Month Week 1:
You finally opened your Christmas presents at the prompting of your big brother. Well actually he mostly opened them and you got to play with them. We are working hard in PT to learn protective fall reflexes. These are the reflexes that come naturally where a baby will draw its legs up and tuck its head into its chest in response to being tipped backwards. These are important; they protect babies from hitting their heads if they should fall when learning to crawl/walk/etc. You have forgotten these basic reflexes. You are starting to track things with your eyes, although you don’t track upwards or to the left very well. You also seemed to recognize me (your mom) once while I was in the kitchen and you were in the dining room. As we catch you trying to track things and recognize things…at least we think you are, it makes us excited. We are hoping that you are getting your vision back. But at this point we really aren’t sure. We see these things and we choose to believe that someday you might see again. At the beginning of the week you started to roll from your belly to your back. By the end of the week you were doing it more regularly and you were starting to prop yourself up on your arms while on your belly.
2nd Month Week2:
You still aren’t sleeping well. We think you are having bad dreams. Many nights we hold you while you sleep, sometimes we bring you into our bed to sleep. You need to work on independent play. You like us to always be close to you at all times. You actually used a sippy cup once this week to take a sip of water. At this point you still aren’t able to use bottles or any type of cup. Fortunately you are still breast feeding. You are now wearing a glove which helps keep your thumb on your left hand out of your fisted hand. You are starting to babble “ba ba ba” like you used to. You are beginning to use your left hand in play. At the end of the week while you were in the tub you grabbed your left foot with your right hand 3x crossing over. (When a person has a TBI, exercises which involve crossing over the midline of the body using a limb from one side and interacting with the other side is very good. It helps with reconnecting the neural pathways in the brain).
2nd Month Week3:
We are still taking daily weights since you lost so much weight in the hospital. We want to make sure you are gaining. You are rolling now. You are grabbing your feet with you left hand. By the end of the week you don’t require as much “rescuing” when rolling. In other words up until this point when you are rolling you would pin your left arm underneath yourself and start crying. You left arm would just hang by your side and get in your way. You lacked the strength and ability to move this arm out from underneath you. We started using an exercise ball and bolster to help with strengthening exercises. This was a terrible sleep week. You were on the wake every 1.5 hour plan.
2nd Month Week4:
You are a rolling machine now. You intentionally pushed a button on one of your toys to turn it on. You like to hold your left hand with your right hand. You started to chewing (gumming) your food. We are slowing introducing soft foods, much of it is pureed baby food, but we are also trying things like cheese, etc. We have to worry about swallow reflex for many babies with TBIs have trouble with basic motor skills such as swallowing. You have some sensitivity while eating but you are doing pretty well. You keep us busy we are seeing a PT, OT, special needs teacher, pediatrician, neurologist and eye specialist.
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