Friday, July 21, 2017

Graham's Cranial Journey: The First Checkup

We finally had our first official check-in on Graham's head growth and got some great news!

In the month that he had it on he only had 3mm (itty bitty tiny) amount of growth. When the tech told me this number first I braced myself for bad news. That little growth means you probably won't see any real changes. But then the tech told us that all 3mm of growth was exactly where we needed it! All in the back of his head. And that his head actually lost 1mm of width while in the helmet so it really is helping to reshape his head! He went down from 96% brachycephaly (severe) to 93% brachycephaly (less severe).

The tech feels that if we have two more months of growth only where we need it in the back of his head that we may finish in the mid 80% range which is what they consider acceptable for a child with position brachycephaly. He also clarified that if we don't get those results in the next couple months that the helmet can easily fit him until he's almost 18 months old and we could keep going if needs be. I hope not, but definitely good news on the helmet front (or back ;)).

 
1 month since starting helmet:
 
Pre-helmet:
 
1 month since starting helmet:

Pre-helmet:

Up picnicing a couple Sunday's ago:

Hiking at Silver Lake:

Saturday, July 08, 2017

Graham Robert: 11 months

I know I keep asking this, but how has a month passed again already?? Graham will be one year old in a month! How has it already been a year since my precious boy was born?! Graham went on his first ever road trip and did really well. Six hours to Las Vegas and he barely fussed and cried. Coming home was another story, but still! Hilton was a huge help passing him toys in the backseat to keep him entertained. Graham really didn't sleep well in an unfamiliar location so hopefully by September he'll do better for Disneyland. We have however had to work on explaining that Hilton is Graham's big brother and needs to protect him, poor Graham has gotten a bit pushed around now that he is crawling and getting into Hilton's toys and Hilton views him as a threat. We have really worked on how if Graham is doing something Hilton doesn't like, Hilton should call for mommy or daddy to come get Graham and it seems to have really helped prevent sibling abuse. Brotherly love is hard sometimes!

We all feel like Graham's helmet has helped but due to scheduling issues he doesn't get rescanned for his head progress until next Monday. Hope for good news! He still tolerates the helmet and has had to have it off intermittently the past week due to a upper respiratory infection with a fever but doesn't mind it once it's on. Just hates having it taken off and put back on.

Graham had a good couple weeks of relief from teething, but has started again. Hopefully we break these new teeth quickly! He has picked up the unfortunate habit of teeth grinding with his new teeth so we're working on breaking that. It sounds so awful! He has started being much more cooperative to eat baby food, mainly will eat the Gerber pureed combinations, and still loves yogurt and ice cream. We are starting to transition him over to milk from formula, I'm hopeful we can have him transitioned by his birthday. He however, doesn't love milk and when we first tried to start switching he refused to drink his bottle. We are trying again and he is doing better this time.

Our summer activities include lots of swinging in the baby swing (his absolute favorite only thing that will calm him down if he's really upset), swimming at Farmington pool, practicing walking and crawling after tennis balls. We're trying to stick inside for the air conditioning but still find ways to have fun. We sure love our Graham-man, Graham-ster, Graham-cicle, and Mister-Fister.


  • Weighs 24.8 lbs. (75%)
  • Height 22.5 in. (24%)
  • Wearing size 18 month clothes
  • Wearing size 4 diapers still
  • Taking 1 -2 hour nap and 1 - 1 hour nap each day
  • Eats about 7 oz. every 3 hours
  • Starting to teeth again, one more trying to break through on the bottom
  • Huge fan of ice cream, mainly due to the cold I think
  • Walking along furniture




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