Dr Lindenberg has also recommended I take Siana off the L-Glutamine for 4 days to see if perhaps her body has become used to it and is just not responding to it anymore. On Sunday she just refused to eat anything, but I felt queasy all day, so maybe she did too.

Hayley gave me a wonderful idea for baby food preparation. She makes a whole lot at a time, purees it all, then scoops it into ice block trays to freeze it. When it’s frozen, you pop the food blocks into a Ziploc bag with a label on it (I found the Glad bags to be better because it has a labeling section on it). Then for each meal, you pop a block (or 2 or 3 or 4) into a baby food glass jar and into the bottle warmer to defrost and warm up. Nice and easy. And when she’s a little older, it will be easy to measure proportions of protein, carbs and veg with the amount of blocks you use. It’s also really easy to cut a block in half if you’re increasing portions slowly.

Siana’s really enjoying rough and tumble play with dad. She loved hanging upside down for a few seconds as well! Every time we go for a walk on the beach/near a river etc, Mike desperately wants to dip her feet in the water (in the middle of Winter!). He did it once before and she burst into tears! So I’ve been rather against it since. But on Sunday, it was 21 degrees and she was just loving watching the water making ripples in the sand. So I said okay. We rolled up her pants and he put her feet in the shallow water. The water was cold but she was fine with it. Then we dried her feet on his shirt and put some socks on her :0)

Siana still really enjoys getting her body squeezes – firm pressure down her limbs and around her whole body. I found that she’s completely calm and happy to lie back in the chair in the bath (when I’m washing her hair and legs) if she’s got a little toy to chew on – a teething toy or the trainer tooth brush. She’s also starting to tolerate massage a lot better now too. Siana is fascinated by babies these days and tries to reach out and touch them. She also adores her own reflection – it makes her giggle out loud :0)

On Monday I chatted to the doctor about the remedy that I’m still giving her for intolerance to mothers milk. You see, if you take a homeopathic remedy, it causes a mirror effect of your symptom to get your body to work a whole lot harder in that area to heal itself. So if you take a remedy for a sore throat, but you don’t have a sore throat, it could actually cause a sore throat for a little while to get your body to respond quickly in that area. So I asked her if perhaps Siana no longer has an intolerance to mothers milk (it’s all healed now) and so the remedy could be causing the symptoms to display where it used to make it better. She agreed. I took her off it, and from the very next day, she’s been wonderful!!!! She’s eating and sleeping well, she’s happily awake for longer, she’d doing great! This may be it! She may be all better now!!! :0D

I tried a different way of burping Siana. After her feed, I hold her upright against my chest and give very gentle bounces. That way I don’t have to irritate her with the constant back patting. And it really works too!

Siana is really enjoying her baths now that she has the little bath ring. But she leans so far forward to play in the water that she ends up with a bit of a red mark on her chest at the end. It goes away in a few minutes after the bath though. She loves it when I use a cup to pour a stream of water on her feet to make little bubbles in the water that tickle her. It makes her giggle. She also tries to catch the stream of water as it falls.

The last two weeks or so, Siana’s breast-feeding has become challenging again. She’s back down to 5 minutes feeds before she arches her back, then flicks forwards and arches again – refusing to drink anymore. She’s still just waking twice a night for feeds – not too bad.

Siana has a new thing she does during her day sleeps now. I put her down onto her tummy as usual (she has a breathing monitor and has always slept much better on her tummy). Then she rolls over onto her back and then “forgets” how to roll back onto her tummy (because she’s got no target to roll towards, like a toy). So she lies there, gurgles and coos and plays with her feet for a while until she gets a bit frustrated and starts moaning. Then I walk in and roll her onto her tummy. This happens 1 to 3 times before she finally drifts off. It used to take 5 to 10 minutes for her to fall asleep, now it takes about 30 to 40 minutes! Maybe it’s time to adjust her routine to more awake time, fewer naps?

Mike is really enjoying being able to do “rough play” with Siana now – he does airplane rides, throws her up in the air etc and she just giggles away. I think, now that she’s not so frail and dependent on me anymore, he can really start to bond nicely with her. It’s great! :0)

I found the first 2 green vegetables that she actually likes – baby marrow (mixed with baked sweet potato of course) and baby gem squash. She’s on two solids meals a day now. It seems that, when giving a food for 4 days in a row (as Dr Lindenberg has asked me to do to check for food intolerances), it seems that most of the veg she eats causes constipation and most of the fruit causes diarrhea. So, I’m giving one fruit and one veg each day! That should even things out. I’m still keeping the food diary and it is really helpful! I’d never remember everything on my own!

The Nizcreme that the doctor prescribed for Siana’s nappy rash didn’t work, which means that it isn’t a Candida outbreak (yay!). She recommended I try SBR Lipocream instead. It worked SOOO well! There was a huge improvement in one day, and was completely clear by day 3.

I went to the Health Shop and found a homeopathic remedy to increase milk production. It’s called Prolak. It’s great! You can increase and decrease your dose as required. I know that my milk is usually lower in the evenings, so I suck on two Prolak’s in the late afternoon, and it’s working beautifully! And you can even take it every half an hour if you’re really desperate! Absolutely no side effects, and it works! :0)

Last week Thursday, Friday and Saturday Siana was definitely feeling better, but she had a bit of a nasty nappy rash. Her doctor said it sounds like thrush (Candida) and recommended Nizcreme.

On Sunday, she was a bit cranky in the morning. Then we went to my dad for lunch. Just as we arrived she started vomiting, and didn’t stop! Even when there was nothing left in her stomach, she was gagging up air! I am severely allergic to nausea medication (puts me into a coma) so I keep homeopathic medication at home for it. I don’t know if she has the same allergy as me so I couldn’t just give her anything my dad had at home. She lay motionless with her head on my shoulder like dead weight. If I even slightly moved, she began vomiting again. It was horrible! I just wanted to cry for her but I fought back the tears. Eventually we had to actually get her into the car and drive home despite the effect that movement had on her. When we got home, I immediately gave her the homeopathic remedy (Nox Vomika) and within seconds, she had her colour back, got a bit of energy and had a full feed without vomiting it up! That’s when I realized that I was actually covered in her puke. I hadn’t even given it a thought that whole time, until she was feeling better. Only a mom could be contently covered in vomit!

The stomach bug really aggravated her nappy rash. She wasn’t able to sleep properly during the day or night because of it – she kept sleeping in short spurts and waking up from the discomfort. I phoned the doctor and she said I could try using my O3 healing cream but she started crying as soon as I applied it so I quickly washed it off, just put on normal bum cream and emailed the doctor again.

I really need to get back into exercising, but I’m just SOOO tired. I need to get some sleep!

I discovered a food market that is right by Builders Warehouse in Tokai. One of the stalls sells organic veggies for really cheap, and there’s lots of other awesome stuff too. It’s only open on Wednesday 3 to 8 and Saturday mornings though.

I figured out how to get the food pureed really smooth. I use the attachment for the hand held blender that is like a little food processor container. Then I add a few drops of water before blending it super smooth! Easy.

I’ve been giving Siana her rubber trainer toothbrush to play with in the bath. She loves it. And it desensitizes her mouth to strange textures at the same time! I made a toy this week that she loves too: I took a 250ml clear plastic bottle, added water and touch of food colouring, a few small beads and some glitter. She finds it fascinating!

Dr Lindenberg is very happy with her progress thus far regarding getting her gut back in order. She has to continue on her meds though and now we’re adding Olive Leaf Extract, which is an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial remedy. Dr Lindenberg is also happy for me to do sleep training for one of her night feeds if she is gaining weight steadily. So we’ll see at the next weigh-in.

Remember how my hair kept falling out for months? Well, now it’s all growing back. So I’ve got these short, spiky, very annoying hairs sticking out all over the place. So glamorous… But, on a happy note, one of Mike’s clients – Linda, the owner of Kinetic Contours – decided to spoil me with a fee pedicure and facial this week! It was supposed to just be a pedicure, but then I fed Siana after it, right there on the treatment table, and she fell asleep! She fell ASLEEP!!! So I carefully put her down on her donut cushion and Linda insisted that I get a facial while she sleeps. What a wonderful day. [By the way, there is no-one on this planet that gives massages like Linda does! She has golden hands! Here’s her number if you want to book the best full body massage ever: 0214623004]

We went to the Baba Indaba this weekend. Siana absolutely loved it! She was smiling and chatting away the whole time, and she just loved the helium balloon. Unfortunately it was just to exciting for her fall asleep in the pram or sling, so she was awake for too long. Which of course meant she was over tired and I paid the price fro the rest of the afternoon and evening. She finally settled at 9 that night. But the she only woke up for a feed ONCE that night, and has only woken for one feed a night the last 2 nights as well! YAY!

But on Tuesday and Wednesday she was miserable all day long. She was so sleepy all the time but couldn’t sleep. She sounds like she has a post-nasal drip though so she’s probably just not feeling well.

I tried the sieve to make the food smooth like my mom suggested. It is SOOO much work! And it doesn’t even work that well! There must be a better way! I will continue to investigate…

I found some jar baby food that is organic with no additives. It’s called Olli. I’ll make most of the food myself but it’s nice to have a bit of help sometimes. And the alternative jar foods are just full of rubbish like sugar, corn starch etc. At this time of year there is really very little organic fruits or vegetables in season that are appropriate for baby first foods. So Olli is a lifesaver.

I was struggling to figure out to get the home made baby food really really smooth because the hand held liquidizer doesn’t get it as smooth as Olli is. My mom said that she used to push the food through a sieve. I’ll try that.

Siana is nearly 8 months old now but can only be happily awake for 90 minutes at a time! She still wakes up for a feed twice a night. I don’t want to do sleep training with her though because she is still so tiny – she needs all the calories she can get! I’ll probably have to wait until she’s having solids 2 or 3 times a day. Her doctor wants her to stick with once a day for now. It’s funny how she doesn’t like a food one day, and loves it another. She didn’t like the Olli apple on Friday, but loved it on Sunday. She’s now eating a tablespoon per meal! Which is great!

Now that Siana is sitting independently, it seems she has forgotten how to roll over. So I have to give a bit of a nudge at times to remind her how. She has started rocking on her hands and knees now, which is something they do to prepare for crawling. So I’m very excited – even though she mostly only does it when she’s upset about something.

She loves to suck on the washcloth in the bath – soapy water and all. So I replaced it with the rubber trainer toothbrush. She cringed at first, but went back for more. It’s great because it sooths her gums while desensitizing her mouth to strange textures, and it keeps her from swallowing soapy water! 3 in 1! Her little sense of humour is really showing now. She pretends she’s going to pull to sit, then drops back down again and laughs. She also laughs loudly when tickled – but only when in giggly mood though. I pretend my hand is gobbling up her arm and she just cracks up with laughter, then brings her arm back for more!

After Siana’s bath and in the mornings, I now let her sit up while I dress her and she doesn’t cry at all. I give her a toy to play with and she’s totally fine. Sometimes she likes to take the opportunity to knock everything off the table for fun, but it’s better than her crying.

I went for a girl’s night with Jesse on Friday. We went out for dinner together. I told her that I find it difficult to see other babies Siana’s age growing much bigger, sleeping through the night, on a predictable routine, reaching mile stones on target or earlier etc. She said that, for those children these things are just expected, but for a miracle baby like Siana, each one is an accomplishment worth a celebration. She’s such a good friend :0)

So Siana is still on Bioremferment probiotics, L-Glutamine for the gut inflammation and the remedy for intolerance to mother’s milk mixed with Mucosa comp. We have an appointment with her doctor tomorrow.

My mom showed me how to spoon feed a baby who is still learning. You gently press it up against the baby’s upper lip so that baby can suck the food off the spoon. It works so much better! I am keeping a food diary as recommended by Sally-Ann Creed so that I can monitor her reaction to each food. I need to give her one food once a day for 4 days (unless there’s an adverse reaction that is) before trying the next. In a few weeks time I’ll be able to give her one “known” food and one new food per day, and so it goes on. Some foods are fine when given once, but cause a reaction when given in accumulation. For example, if I give Siana banana (which she loves) one day, she’s fine, but if I give it for a second day in a row, she becomes constipated. And that’s where the food diary really comes in handy. I have a page in landscape (side ways) with 7 columns: Date, food, jar/fresh, Organic/not, amount eaten, taste (how much she liked in on a scale from 0: refused completely, to 5: Loved it), and reaction.

I’m struggling to get the food pureed really smooth though. If I use the hand held liquidizer, it all just ends up against the sides of the cup. If I mash it vigorously with a fork, there are still lumps. I’m asking around to figure this out.

Since Siana started on that homeopathic remedy for intolerance to mother’s milk, the reflux has stayed gone! It’s amazing! And the Fenugreek tablets are still doing wonders for my milk production.

Siana is getting so good at sitting now. She’s become quite stable. When I do exercises on the big ball to strengthen her back and tummy muscles, she just loves it! Sometimes she forgets that she is able to roll over by herself. So I just give her a little nudge on her hip and then she remembers, and rolls. She giggles from her belly when I do This Little Piggy, and as soon as she sees her dad, she smiles from ear to ear! I’ve also figured out that, when I’m dressing her after bath time, she doesn’t cry if I let her sit up while I do it. Yay!

Had a bit of a disastrous day yesterday though. I had been in Durbanville with her for the day for my mom’s birthday. Siana hadn’t slept long enough for her last nap and then we had to drive home in traffic to Bergvliet with her tired and cranky. She was over-tired by the time we got home and cried during the bath. Just as she started calming down, some soap went into her eye (thanks Murphy!) and then she began to scream blue murder for the rest of the bath and for the dressing! When I tried to feed her, she couldn’t catch her breath from the crying so she wasn’t able to feed! So I sat back, lay her against my chest and gently encouraged her to suck her fingers. Once she calmed down, I offered her my breast and she fed fine. Overstimulation and over-tiredness can be a nasty thing!

I bought a bath ring for Siana today. It even comes with a little sponge cushion that stops them from slipping. Siana loved being able to splash and play while sitting in it. It’s a bit too difficult to wash hair and lower body while she’s sitting in it, so I still use the netting bath chair for that. It works well. I can do some really nice massage techniques on her arms and back while she’s sitting in the ring, and Siana doesn’t mind at all! Later, when she’s able to stand up against the side, then it will be easier to wash her lower body without the bath chair. She won’t need the bath ring by then either :0)

Siana gave me a huge scare today! She was sleeping a little longer than usual, so I went through to wake her. I gently said her name but she didn’t move at all, I said it again and she still didn’t move. The blanket was slightly covering her face, so I moved it.  Siana was lying dead still, with her eyes wide open and motionless, her fingers in her mouth, but with no sucking! My heart rate shot up, I burst into tears and grabbed her shouting “SIANA!” I think I nearly gave her a heart attack!!! She was probably just starting to slowly wake up from me gently saying her name when I gave her the fright of her life! Poor thing. Must be hard to have such a paranoid mom ;0)

On Wednesday night, after the dream feed she only woke up once during the night and then slept through to 6am. That was a good night! Sometimes she is able to feed in normal cradle position on the left again, but usually it is still just too uncomfortable and I have to hold her in football position on that side.

Siana kept spitting out her meds and was refusing to swallow any of it. I tried different mixtures with gripe water, with my milk etc, but nothing was working. Then I just gave up and prayed for her instead. Should have done that from the beginning. Immediately after the prayer began swallowing all her meds perfectly as if nothing’s wrong!

On Friday night Mike took me out to Vaudeville to celebrate our 10 year anniversary since we first started dating (been married for the last 4 and half of those). Mike’s mom babysat. It was so nice to have a night out alone with Mike. We had so much fun. Then, just as we started driving home at 11, Mike’s mom phoned and, with Siana screaming in the her arms, she politely asked when we’d be home. Mike raced home. When we got there Bev was in the dark hallway gently rocking and singing to Siana who was completely calm. I realized I had forgotten to tell Bev that when she wakes up for her 10am feed, she must hold her on her right side, not her left. Oops.

The next night we went out to Madam Zingara (haven’t been out in ages and now its twice in one weekend!). My mom got back from Dubai on Friday so she babysat on Saturday. Siana stirred a bit, my mom gave her a bit of milk (holding her on the right side) and she went straight back to sleep. Yay! It was such a fun night! We all dressed up for it and our table won the prize for best dressed!

On Sunday she finally started rolling from her back onto her tummy by herself, and the very next day, she started sitting independently too! Go Siana! Then, on the same day, I gave her her first solids – soft boiled organic egg yolk. She didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it either. I think it’s going to take some getting used to. She didn’t seem to have any adverse reactions to it. But on Tuesday she had lots of winds and crying and was constipated, so I didn’t give her any egg yolk. But I had pizza on Monday night and it seems that there is a bit of a pattern with a fussy Siana each day after I’ve had pizza – even though it’s gluten free, perhaps there’s MSG on it. Then today (Wednesday) she made a huge, very smelly poo! So I gave her some more egg yolk.

Mike has been rather apprehensive about bathing her lately because he’s afraid she’s going to cry. So now, the two of us bath her together each evening – a bit of family time. Now that she is able to sit, we let her sit for a little while and splash around and play with the bath toys a bit first (obviously with our hands ready to catch her if she falls over) before she lies in the bath chair to be washed. She absolutely loves it! I must get her a bath ring!

Sally-Ann Creed (the clinical nutritionist) recommends that the first food to be introduced to a baby is organic egg yolk (no white!). You just soft boil the egg, peel off the white and feed the baby the warm, runny yolk. It’s full of omega oils and is easy to digest (the protein is left behind in the egg white). Dr Lindenburg (Siana’s doctor) thinks it’s a great idea!

Siana isn’t doing well at the moment though. She has diarrhea, tires really quickly and is really cranky. But Mike and I have similar symptoms. I thought it was just stress, but I spoke to Dr Lindenburg and she said it sounds like an underlying virus. So because of Siana’s stomach bug I have to wait until Monday before introducing the organic egg yolk.

Siana was on SO much medication and just decided that she had had enough. So on Friday, she started spitting all the meds back out at me. Poor thing, I don’t blame her. But spitting it all out means she’s not getting any of it in! I spoke to the doctor and she said to reduce her medication down to just the most essentials for the weekend: Bioremferment (probiotics), L-glutamine (for gut inflammation) and Mucosa comp (homeopathic remedy). Siana stopped spitting it out and it really makes it sooo much easier for me too!

On Monday morning I went to buy a feeding chair for Siana. My word, they are so expensive! I bought a middle-of-the-range one, which had all the same features as the top-of-the-range ones, only less expensive. Wow, babies are expensive!

On Monday afternoon I started Siana on a new treatment for her reflux. It is a homeopathic remedy for intolerance to mother’s milk that Dr Lindenburg mixed for her. By the next day her reflux was GONE!!!! Just like that!!! Amazing! After trying all the conventional methods – Losec etc – a simple bottle of little drops (which have no side effects!) worked immediately!

I have discovered the many wonderful uses of elastic. Not the rubber band kind, but rather the kind you use in clothing. I bought a roll of 6 strand elastic (it’s about 1cm thick) and use it for everything! I have a few pieces tying toys to her nappy changing stand so that she can tug on her toys that she grabs while I change her. I attached a piece to her feeding chair with a plastic link at the end so that I can attach a different toy to it each day. Apparently they soon learn the concept of playing “fetch” with mommy during feeds. This way I won’t break my back picking up her toys each time, and she will soon learn how to pull them back up by herself. I also have another piece that I keep in her nappy bag, which has a loop at one end (to tie around my wrist/the pram belt etc) so that, when I’m out with her, the toy she is playing with doesn’t end up on the floor. Works really well.

I went to visit my brother this weekend. He has a 5 year old daughter, Saskia and a 3 year old son, Sebastian. I was busy changing Siana’s nappy and Sebastian asked “Is she a girl?” Being the OT I am, I took the opportunity to teach them. I said “Yes she is. How do you know she’s a girl?” Saskia said “Because she’s wearing pink polka dots!” I said “Yes, but also because she has a ‘Gina’. Girls have a gina, and boys have a…” I paused not knowing what to call a boy part. Just then Sebastian piped up “And boys have a Johnson! I have a Johnson!!!!”, he shouted excitedly. It was hilarious!

On Saturday, we went to watch the big world cup soccer game with England vs Nigeria. What an amazing experience! Mike’s mom babysat and Siana didn’t wake up once! I gave her a dreamfeed when I got back at around midnight and then she slept through to 7am!!! Yet, the very next night she woke up 6 times!!! So confusing.

I phoned the doctor today and she recommended it was time for a few adjustments in her medication. The one thing is that I have had to up her probiotics from 1ml a day to 2ml twice a day! I must say, she is doing SO much better in the car already! Not completely comfortable yet, but definitely improving!

When Siana is lying on her tummy and is upset about something or wants to be picked up, she lifts her chest and legs completely off the surface and “swims” in the air. It looks so funny. I am amazed how good her muscle tone is! I don’t think I’d even be able to do that! She definitely has her father’s naturally firm tone.

My hair is still falling out and my nails are still breaking. But, on the plus side, I have found something that has worked WONDERS to boost my milk production. It’s called Fenugreek. You can either buy it in sprout form, or in tea, or like I did, take the easy route and get the capsules instead. After my first capsule that I took in the evening, the very next morning I had loads of milk! I hope this one keeps working. Every time I find something that works, it lasts for a few weeks and then my body seems to get immune to it and I have to find something else. But so far, Fenugreek seems to be the most effective thing I’ve found. And it’s quite affordable too.

She has finally been promoted to 3 – 6 months clothes! (She’s 6 months old now!) People often ask how old, which, when I answer, is always followed by “aah sweet” and then a slight look of confusion like they’ve just realised how tiny she is. Then they pretend they didn’t notice or they say “ah, she’s petite”. So of course I have to explain that she was 2 months prem and that she’s the right size for her “corrected age”.

We finally got the results from her stool sample test on Friday. It’s now very clear why she was in so much discomfort. She is riddled with gut problems: 2 strains of Candida, 2 strains of pathogenic (bad) bacteria, no Ecoli (which is essential for healthy gut function), low flora (good bacteria) and has a whole lot of gut inflammation. So we’re continuing the candida meds, the Bioremferment (probiotics) and L-glutamine, but I also needed to get some Ecoli! They didn’t have any in the Southern Suburbs that I could find so I had to get to Durbanville to get it. But there was no way I could get there on Friday. She was refusing to eat and screaming all morning. And she absolutely hates the car (makes her reflux SOO much worse) so driving to Durbanville and back just wasn’t an option. I went on Monday instead. And man, Ecoli really really stinks! It’s a yellowish fluid and smells a bit like poo. Nasty! She manages to swallow it if I mix it with alcohol free gripe water. Yuk!

I am a whale! I still haven’t been able to get rid of this flabby tummy of mine. Now I’m doing toning exercises 3 times a week during her morning awake time! I put her on the playmate next to me and count playfully in a bit of a song while I do my reps. It seems to work pretty well so far. She doesn’t seem to mind, and she enjoys the counting I do. Then I shower after I’ve put her down for her midmorning nap.

She’s just 6 months old and she’s nearly sitting on her own already (which is normal for a full term baby but very exciting for a premie!). I just need to hold her at her thighs (not even hips anymore) and she does the rest of the work herself. So proud of her!