He Rolled!

Yesterday I placed Braxton on the floor next to me, while I sat down at the computer.  I put him on his back, but after a few minutes I looked and saw that he was close to rolling over to his tummy.  So I grabbed the video camera and caught his very first roll-over!

I get excited when any of my babies do something new like this.  But for Braxton, this is especially sweet.  Babies with Down syndrome are typically behind, developmentally.  And so far, Braxton has been no exception to that.  He is, of course, very small - partly due to all the complications he's had from Hirschsprung's that have kept him from gaining weight very fast.  He is also still very much like a newborn when it comes to head/neck control.  Although he is gradually making improvements in that area, too.

We have been blessed with some wonderful therapists for Braxton.  One of his Occupational Therapists comes to our house weekly, and she is awesome.  She is working on things like muscle development, head control, core strength...all things to help Braxton meet his milestones like crawling and walking and well...rolling over!

We also have another Occupational Therapist who specializes in head and mouth issues.  Braxton's tongue is set back a little far, which makes it harder for him to nurse efficiently.  He is able to nurse, but he could be even better at it, so we have little exercises that we do to help with that.  He also drastically favors resting his head on his right side, which has caused some issues with the shape of his head and also pushed his right ear forward slightly.  This therapist is known as the "head expert" and is confident that Braxton's are easy fixes and that it should only take a few weeks to correct them.

Three cheers for baby steps forward!