Tag Archives: massage

the eric update – day 90: five pounds! infant massage. another bath.

while flickr has been having issues, i’ve been getting behind on posting updates. so for now, i’ll just post the super abridged version and maybe i’ll get around to posting the longer version when time permits. you can see annotated photos from the day here.

  • 5 pounds (2280 grams)! woohoo! he’s as heavy as a bag of sugar! weight gain despite reflux is a good thing.
  • infant massage. we’ve been giving him more massages lately to help keep the gas moving along. infant massage has also been shown to have all sorts of other benefits, so it’s a good thing to do regardless ( indeed, the nurses at the old nicu gave eric regular massages, but they don’t seem to think it’s as important at the new nicu ).
  • yet another bath. you can’t have too many bath pictures can you? no, you can’t, especially when you’re giving a bath to a baby swaddled in cloth diapers. it’s cute. honest

laaaater:

day 90: five pounds!

5 pounds (2280 grams)! woohoo! he’s as heavy as a bag of sugar! weight gain despite reflux is a good thing.

day 90: another bath?!@ I.

hmmmm. can you tell he’s hungry? putting a web cloth diaper on him worked so well, that we decided to go all out and swaddle him completely, only unwrapping the parts that we needed to wash when we needed to. bath times go a lot smoother now.

day 90: another bath?!@ II.

yeah, he’s hungry, but he’s pacified temporarily by the supersized paci. i imagine that he’s looking at me thinking, “i’m going to remember this when i’m 16.”

day 90: another bath?!@ III.

time to be dried off by pops. my hands still look purty large next to his head.

day 90: infant massage. I.

we’ve been giving him more massages lately to help keep the gas moving along. infant massage has also been shown to have all sorts of other benefits, so it’s a good thing to do regardless ( indeed, the nurses at the old nicu gave eric regular massages, but they don’t seem to think it’s as important at the new nicu ).

we’re following the techniques described in Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents. i’m not an infant massage expert, but it seems like a good book.

day 90: infant massage. II.

little odin loves to have his feet massaged. being in the nicu is tough work and after a long day, he thinks it’s just grand it you spend a little extra time on his feet.

day 90: infant massage. III.

don’t forget to massage the arm and hand! he’s strong and likes to flex his muscles in an effort to impress the nurses.

day 90: infant massage. IV.

this move is called “paddling the waves” or something like that. but really it should be called “letting out the gas”. the rice makes him less gassy than the barley, but since he’s still not supposed to even be born for two more weeks, any solid stuff is rough on his gastrointestinal tract. so we spend extra time getting the gas out.

day 90: infant massage: V.

after the bath and massage, he’s more eager than ever to show us that he doesn’t need any help keeping the supersized paci in his mouth.

day 90: infant massage.  VI.

the final step of a good massage, of course, is getting to sleep in your most comfortable ‘jammies.

the eric update – day 14: a late night massage from mama and holding hands!

day 14: a late night massage from mama

kris decides to give eric a late night massage to celebrate his 2nd week birthday. the massage helps keep his thin skin from drying out under the heat lamps.

day 14: holding hands

during the massage, eric decides he really just wants to hold kris’ hand.

it’s amazing to see him actively search out her finger, grasp it tighly and resist her pulling her hand away.

day 14: bruised foot

i’m on a self imposed massage hiatus, as you can see the results of what happened the last time i gave him a massage.

yes. i bruised my premature son’s foot because i rubbed it too hard. the lesson is that you don’t have to rub very hard at all to bruise a micropreem, which makes giving a massage more difficult than it might seem.