It is hard to fathom that my baby girl is already one month old. In my sleep deprived oblivion, Cate has thrived despite a few challenges. She was a dream child her first two weeks. Eating every 3 hours, sleeping well - easy peasy. Then things seemed to change and I got a little concerned.
Nursing still hurt so bad I was in tears during every feeding. I was racking my brain trying to figure out what was going on. Since I had an atypical start to nursing with Cooper, I wasn't sure if the pain was normal or not. After lots of research, I came to the conclusion that Cate potentially had issues with her mouth. I met with my IBCLC and she agreed that things weren't right. I sent pictures to a friend whose littlest had a tongue tie. She pointed me toward a Facebook support group for local moms of babes with lip/tongue tie. That group then suggested making an appointment with Dr. Bailey Coleman. She is the only local dentist who is trained to do laser revision of ties.
Last week, I took Cate to see Dr. Coleman. She was diagnosed with lip, tongue and buccal ties. She also has an abnormally high palate. Altogether, this means she cannot suck properly in order to get a good latch. These issue also tend to cause reflux and excessive gas. We had the laser revision done the same day as our consultation. We do stretches 4 times a day to make sure the tissue doesn't grow back. It sounds awful, but it's not so bad. The tissue that was cut looked really bad for about a week. Then over a 24 hour period it healed completely and looks as if nothing ever happened. Except, of course, for the fact that she can use her mouth properly.
Thankfully, even with the nursing difficulties, Cate is still thriving. At exactly 10 pounds, she is definitely not struggling with weight gain! She loves to eat, snuggle and toot (still have pretty epic amounts of gas - haha!). Hopefully we can get back to a little better schedule; we went in to survival mode after the revision trying to make sure she wasn't in pain. She really only seemed to hurt for a few days, but that was all it took for our routine to fall apart.
Her brother is ridiculously sweet with her! Cooper talks to her and sings to her. It's so fun to watch him be a big brother. He keeps asking us when she will laugh at him. Since she smiled at Daddy for the very first time today, I don't think it will be long!
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