NICU Follow up

Trey and Bella had their NICU follow up today with Doctor Kim.

Developmentally, they are doing amazingly well! They tested them at the level of 18 month olds (their adjusted age) and they flew through everything! They decided to test them at the 2 year old level (they had a 2 year old later in the day, so had the materials there), and they could do everything! They did puzzles with shapes, matched colors (had no idea they could do this!), put pegs in the holes, walked up and down the steps, kicked and threw the ball, rode a push toy, put the toys back in the right boxes, pointed to all body parts on a baby doll, took off socks and did an okay job putting them back on, put on sandals, pointed to a ton of pictures in a book and used the words for some of them. They can both use way more words then they are "supposed to" and are starting to combine words. Trey even said "tissue pease" after sneezing and the doc cracked up! It was really neat! The NICU doc said they are extremely advanced cogitatively!

Size is an extremely different matter! At 20 months old, Bella is 17 pounds 12 ounces and Trey is 20 pounds 8 ounces, both are way below the <3 percentile on the growth chart, and I think she was still adjusting for 10 weeks of prematurity (these are both less than their 18 month check up so we think the scale is a little off, but they are both low percentiles nonetheless).
As far as height, Bella is 32 inches tall (50% adjusted) and Trey is 32 1/2 inches tall (50% adjusted). FOr head circumference, Bella's head is 47 centimeters around (70% adjusted) and Trey's is 48 centimeters around (50% adjusted).

They have never been on the regular growth chart, but at one time were in the 5-10 % of the preemie (adjusted) chart, so their weight has fallen. Its possible that its genetic but we are watching this closely due their prematurity. Mommy and Daddy are not worried because we know they are healthy, but we would like to see them gain some weight.

The Doctor once again told us to give them pediasure (which we am fine with). She also recommended adding butter and oils to all of their foods. This, we refuse to do. We don't want to teach our children to eat butter and oil on everything because we want them to be healthy eaters. If we start adding butter to everything, what will happen in a year or two when they "catch up" weight wise and we start to leave off the butter? Most likely, they will not like their food without it! Not to mention, this would not be good for cholesterol, ect. and could cause other problems long term! Not a good solution in our opinion! There has to be another way! We will certainly add butter to foods that require butter and will continue to use olive oil in cooking.

We will also be looking for some new meal and snack ideas that contain more calories and more healthy fats. If anyone has any ideas, please pass them on!