Kitten Update June 5th, 2014

"Feed the Baby!"

Do you remember the old show called, "Dinosaurs"? Their was a baby on their whose phrase was, "feed the baby!" and "not the mama!"

I am reminded of this show because of how loud my little baby is getting! She knows me, and sometimes i'm the only one who can get her to quiet down. Her lungs are developing just fine, on that note though so is her purr! She has a great little motor. But just like every other baby their is a lot of wailing involved when she's hungry or if she has to go potty.

She is now capable of going potty on her own without any stimulation, but likes to cry a bit before actually using the litter box. I guess she just wants to inform me that she's doing her job.  

We're still working on introducing wet kitten food, last night my husband had the idea to smear a minute amount on a large plate so that she would have to lick it up instead of snorting it up her nose, that kind of worked but she wasn't very interested. So last night I hit the internet in search of other techniques, her little teeth have come in and are getting rather sharp!

Wonderful little snuggle baby.

How big is she?

Well I need to weigh her and will do that this evening but here is where she is in growth:

• Full sense of smell - she knows right where the bottle is! And recognizes my scent and voice.
• Eyes are becoming a more pronounced blue rather than dark blue.
• Can potty on her own.
• Grooming herself.
• Loud purr developing.
• Nearly full set of teeth are in.
• Walking - although still a bit wobbly.
• Speed walking
• Beginning to climb things.
• Starting to explore more of her surroundings.
• Playing with fingers - not quite following objects though.
• Still must be kept quite warm or she can catch cold and develop pneumonia. 

According to About.com she is approximately 3 1/2 weeks old.

She still must be fed every 3 hours, on a good note she is sleeping more soundly at night and we are getting 4 hour stretches of sleep in sometimes. Because of this I have to take her everywhere still, this means school (my professor was a good sport thankfully), and work (this baby owes my boss a big thank you!) after she is grown I think I'll bake him a cake to take home as a thank you.

Sleeping under my desk.

She's starting to get super active in between meals, and developing a rather feisty personality!

She likes to chew on fingers, this is a bad habit but since she doesn't have litter mates to play with we're being kind of lenient..

Look at how tiny she is! Barely bigger than my coffee cup.  :-)



Her new setup is a small crate, we have the heating pad located under the towel that she sleeps on. We switched her to the tiny cat travel crate because it gives her a bit more room if she decides to move around, it closes better than the duffel bag (I didn't like the idea of zipping her in even though its breathable), and I can open the gate so that she can get to her litter box on her own.

Peek-a-boo!

So far the new setup is working great! She's staying plenty warm and it is making the car travel much easier on us both.

So far she doesn't mind being in the car, this could change as she gets older although its possible she could get used to it too.

New Feeding Idea:
Starting this weekend, probably Friday night we're going to attempt a new way to teach her to eat from a bowl. One blog suggested putting her milk that she is already used to drinking (only from a bottle) in a shallow bowl, she'll recognize the scent and associate it with feeding time. Instead of using a bowl though we're going to try putting just a tiny puddle on a plate for her to lap up, keep it really shallow so that she can't plunger her whole face in again (she has no sense of depth yet), and hopefully she won't inhale it too badly.

Sweet baby.