pick your bottle

as you can see, more is on her shirt than i think in her mouth. it was about this time that i decided feeding with a spoon might not be working right now. i found some other preemie parents, and i've been told that food is pushed by the pediatrician at their actual age, but usually they've found it doesn't work until their adjusted age hits the right window.

lia Actual Age: 7.5 months
lia: Adjusted Age: 6 months

right. if i'm remembering accurately, zaya wasn't eating solid food until he was 8 months. he loved it; lia likes this too, she just spits most of it out or won't open her mouth. i was just getting too frustrated and worried about it, so we stopped. i did let her try using a SafeFeeder. that thing is so nice, especially for lia. she is enjoying opening her mouth for something besides hard toys and her bottle. so i put some mashed food in there and let her play with it. we'll also try to find that recipe i used with zaya for crumbless teething biscuits without eggs in the recipe. so far no luck, though.

as you can see, it's quite interesting trying to feed her. we switched to something like this for lia because the high chair wasn't working at all. now she sits up at the counter with us. i had to space it out from the back of the chair so she can be completely up to the counter. i also spaced her out from the back of the booster with some old shorts. this helps her sit up far enough on the seat that her legs bend over the edge of it. her feet rest on our big chair. this won't work for long, it's a tight fit. it's what we have, though, and i'm pleased to make it work. i'm still working on figuring out how to attach a cookie sheet to the counter. that way i can let her chase cheerios or other small edibles without them going flying.

since we're slowing down on the food thing, i'm breaking down and buying a little bit of formula. i just can't keep up with lia's demand, and i think the ease of a few ounces of formula to help us right now is more important than my stressing over her eating, or my being able to give her enough milk.

she can pick things up, and gets cheerios in her hand at times. i see her working her finger and thumb so carefully. she aims, she tries, she misses mostly. as dave says, though, it's an obvious sign of control that even the PT can't argue with us about.