One Little Snip

Bennett is getting so big so fast--but amazingly not as quickly as my other babies. Although he's gaining weight, he's only at the 50th percentile, and he started off at around the 75th percentile. My doctor isn't concerned about his weight, but I was concerned about one thing--his tongue. Bennett's frenulum, the flap of skin under his tongue was too long. This is commonly known as being tongue tied, and can lead to feeding and speech issues in the future. We have an ENT doctor for a friend, so he agreed to take a look at him and do a quick surgery on his tongue last week. Poor little boy has no idea what's coming. What started off as a good day for him with sole attention from his momma quickly turned into a nightmare for him!

We had some time on our hands as we waited for the doctor, so I set him up in the big patient chair...until he fell over!!

It really was a quick and simple procedure to snip that flap of skin with some sterile scissors, but it didn't change the fact that he did NOT like it one bit. He hated the numbing spray and cried from there on. He had a little blood, which ended up on his blanket. I guess you could consider it his war paint. He stopped crying very quickly after the procedure, but did NOT want to nurse or take a bottle. Poor baby--his little mouth had to hurt!

Bennett with Dr. Chad Ahn. I'm so glad that I went to Chad for the procedure, because it made me less nervous that someone I know was taking care of my baby. He had a little girl just a little older than Bennett, so he KNOWS babies!! I was so glad that Bennett's second surgery in his short life was over and done with. I can already tell a difference in how far he can stick his tongue out and his sucking has definitely strengthened as has sore mommy can attest! It will be interesting to see if he starts picking up weight more rapidly now. Let's just hope that this baby doesn't need any more surgeries for a long, long time.