Craft's 2-Month Doctor Visit

Well, folks, we made it back from Charlotte in one piece barely.  We had a fun week and weekend with my family, which I'll post about soon, but we're all pretty happy to be home and are trying to get settled back into our normal routine.  Lilly started telling us she was tired and asking to go to bed at 6:00 pm last night, bless her - we were all pretty worn out.  

Anyway, I realized that Craft's 2-month appointment with Dr. V was last week and I posted his 2-month update but never posted his official stats since his appointment was a little off from his actual 2-month birthday.

Someone was pretty happy to be at the doctor, probably only because he was about to get shots and didn't even know.  :-(

I'll get right to the stats since I know you're all waiting with baited breath to see how big my sweet chunker is.  Drum roll, please...

Height:  23.5 inches, 50th percentile (up from 22 1/4 inches and 75% at one month old)
Weight:  16 lbs 14.5 oz, >97th percentile (up from 13 lbs 8.5 oz and same %)
Head:  16.5 inches, 85th percentile (up from 15 3/4 inches and 85%)

True story:  My little chunk weighs almost 17 lbs at 2 months old.  I was surprised to see that he's only in the 50th percentile for height because he looks long to me as well, but maybe it's all that meat on his little body.  Sweet boy!  To put this in perspective, my nephew Mason is a big boy as well, and at 9 months old weighed 22 lbs.  C is almost as big as Mase!

The doctor confirmed that all is well with our little man.  Most of our conversation revolved around sleep and getting him on a more normal sleep schedule during the day.  Dr. V said that at night, C is doing great and is actually above average - that the average 2-month-old still wakes up at 1, 4 and 7 (he has been all over the place the past week since we were visiting my parents, but the week or so prior to our trip he was up once sometime between 3-4 and up again sometime between 7-8 and then sleeping again until 9 or so).  The daytime naps, though, are cray with a capital "c."  Dr. V said that if C was sleeping in 45-minute intervals she'd be okay with it since that is a full sleep cycle, but the naps that are less than that (which are all of them, most days, except for the random one or two times a week when he'll give me a 3+-hour nap) are not good news and probably mean he's over-tired at night (trust  me doc, I know).  I also asked her why he wants to eat even when I know he isn't hungry, which causes him to spit up.  She said the reason he isn't following is cues is probably partially because he's still learning them but mostly because he's tired and is trying to use that to get to sleep, just as I suspected.  She followed that up by telling me that it's time to start putting Craft down awake and letting him cry a little so he gets the hang of self-soothing, and that she'd like for us to move his bedtime up to around 9:00 pm.  She made sure that I understood that by "cry it out" she doesn't mean she expects him to go from 6p-6a without a feeding, but that we can let him cry for a good 25-30 minutes if we need to.  My goal was to move bedtime up gradually - he's been going to bed between 10-11pm so I was going to try to move it up each night by 20-30 minutes, but he was exhausted tonight so we jumped in cold turkey, eek.  She also suggested that I try to hold him off so that there are at least 1.5 hours (preferably 2) between naps, which she told me will probably be rough for a few days but will hopefully help him to sleep longer when he gets to sleep. 

We did a modified Ferber method somewhere between 4-5 months with Lilly to transition her out of her swaddle, and I remember hating every second of it.  It worked for her, though, and took not quite even two days for her to get the hang of things, so that's where we're starting with C, too.  It may not work for him, I know that every child is different, but it's what I know so that's where we're starting (and it isn't going badly at all so far, knock on wood).  The difference is, with L I waited until a weekend so I could go drink and sob outside on the back porch where I couldn't hear her crying and let Dan deal with it.  This time around, though, I got brave and decided to start with naps today because I really need for C to start sleeping consistently during the day so that he's not a nightmare in the evenings.  Torture, I tell you.  I was contemplating whether it was wrong to pour myself a bottle glass of wine at 10:30 this morning.

Dr. V said that C will start to get on his own schedule/routine around 4 months, and until then to follow his cues.  He is so tired, and I know when he's tired, but this kid fights sleep like no other.  I've never seen anything like it.  I've had several folks recommend the "Moms on Call" program to me, so I asked the doctor about that as well.  She said that she's had several patients swear by it so she looked into it briefly, and from what she could glean from their website she thinks it's a good program, but that she's by no means an expert on it and has not read the book.  She told me that if I want to try it, I should try for a week and see how it goes and then reevaluate whether to continue.  I have done some research on the program on the internet and I'm just on the fence about it.  I am all for a routine, and would like for C to start getting into one because trust me, it would  make my life a lot easier, but the program just seems so...structured.  Those of you who know me, know that if I think it is very structured it has to be hardcore.  If anyone out there knows much about it or has tried it and has any thoughts, I'd love to hear.  

We didn't really discuss much other than naps.  I did ask when to stop swaddling and she said by 5 months.  We'll see if we make it that long, Craft is pretty strong so I'm wondering if he's going to bust out of the swaddle.  I'm anxious to see how he sleeps when he's not swaddled - whether he sleeps on his belly and sucks his thumb like big sister.  

Future Craft, if you grow up and decide to read this blog, I apologize in advance for the next paragraph because it will probably embarrass you.  

I asked the doc to look at C's pen15 to make sure the circumcision took because it looks kind of different, and she assured me that everything looks great, it's just that Craft is such a chunker that his little friend basically gets pushed inward so it looks inverted.  Not to worry, he'll grow out of it once he thins out.  Hilarious.

Other than that, all is well with little (big) man!  He got three shots (Pentacel, Prevnar and Rotateq) and they were just as horrible as I remember them being with Lilly.  Like his big sister, Craft was so happy and was smiling, cooing and giggling at the nurse when I laid him down on the table but was very pitiful after the shots.  He reacted to them similarly - slept a lot more than usual for the rest of the day but was more crabby than I remember L being when he was awake.  I know the shots are necessary and I'm fully supportive of vaccinating but good gosh it is pitiful. 

That's all for now, I suppose!  Here are a few pics I took of my sweet boy last night.  He is growing up so quickly already, it seems like he's getting bigger and doing fun, new things by the day.  Slow down, time!

Hope your week is off to a great start!  I'm off to finish out my Monday with another glass of wine and the addressing of birth announcements (so late, I know, but worth the wait for sure thanks to Deb Hall/Olive Paper!).

Sarah

Craft: 2 Months Old

I feel like I blink and it's time for another one of these updates.  I always felt like time flew with Lilly, like I blinked and she was 2 and then a big sister, but I feel like it's moving at warp speed for sweet Craft.  He is growing and changing so much seemingly every day, I look at him sometimes and think he has grown since five minutes before.  Dan is attending a work dinner tonight which means I was in charge of bath and bed for both kiddies and that never fails to exhaust me, so I'll get right to the update.

Weight/Length:  Why I even include this on non-doctor-update posts, I'm not sure.  I am betting that my big boy is somewhere around 15-16 lbs by now.  Absolutely no clue on length.  I intended to try to weigh and measure today but forgot, whoops.

Sleep:  Every time I think we are onto something here, Craft changes it up on me (like last night when he was exhausted but refused to go to sleep).  Usually, C is ready to go down some time around 9pm.  Sometimes it's earlier than that, sometimes later.  Over the past few weeks, he's gradually pushed his own feedings out.  Around one month, he was waking up at 1:30 and then again at 4:30.  Since then, he's dropped down to one feeding and pushed that feeding back to 2:30 and then 3:30 and now for about the past week he's pushed it back to somewhere between 4:30 - 5:00 am.  He goes right back down after that feeding and normally sleeps until somewhere between 8:00 - 9:00 am.  I am hoping he will phase himself out of needing that feeding shortly, but I realize that I can't in good conscience complain about a child who at 2 months old is sleeping from roughly 9p - 9a with one wake up around 5a.  Please understand that there have definitely been nights where there have been more wake ups (like 2 weeks ago when my in-laws were here and he was up about every hour and I wanted to die), but he's gotten much better even in the past week it seems like.  Naps for this kid are crazy - he is never usually awake for more than an hour or an hour and a half tops before he's ready to sleep again.  Sometimes he will sleep 30 minutes or an hour, and then other days he will take a 3+ hour nap.  I have yet to figure out what I am doing differently on those days to make him sleep for a large chunk of time in the afternoon at the same time as his big sister, but I surely hope it continues and gets more consistent.  

We've also been dealing with getting C to sleep in his crib, which is something we never had to deal with when L was a baby so I'm flying blind.  We started Craft out in his crib on night one, just like we did Lilly, and he did fine - as well as any infant can do.  Sometime around or maybe shortly after the one month mark, he caught a cold that Lilly and Kinsley were passing back and forth and was horribly congested.  We have a crib wedge in his crib, but it wasn't elevated enough to help him breathe well since he was so congested, so after two horrible nights of wake ups we borrowed a rock n' play sleeper from Bo & Meagan and set it up in his room and let him sleep in that in hopes that it would help.  It helped a lot - he could breathe much better and his sleep started to improve around that time.  However, when I tried to move him back to the crib, he was not having it - he loved that rock n' play.  After a few days of battling, my friend Jen let me borrow her Dex Daydreamer sleeper (basically the new version of the nap nanny that was recalled).  I put it in his crib and started transitioning him by letting him sleep in that for naps and then in the rock n' play at night.  After a few good days of naps, I moved him to the daydreamer at night as well.  After a few days of him getting used to being in the crib in the daydreamer, yesterday I started the transition to the crib by taking the daydreamer out of the crib for naps and putting the crib wedge back in.  He did okay for naps, and then I let him sleep in the daydreamer last night with the intention of putting him in the crib for naps only until he got more used to it, at which point I would move him to the crib full-time.  However, he started doing this thing where he slid down in the daydreamer to where his feet were basically hanging off and since he is swaddled (yes, I forced it) it was hard to strap him in, so today I went for it and we battled it out in the crib.  He didn't really nap more than 15 minutes at a time all morning but I could tell he was exhausted, and finally around 1:30 he went down in the crib and slept for 4 hours (actually I woke him up at 4 hours because (1) I was about to explode since it had been 6 hours since he'd eaten and (2) I wanted him to sleep tonight ha).  Tonight, he has been in the crib for over 2 hours as I type, and so far so good.  Fingers crossed it continues and we are finally back in the crib for good.  I was thinking earlier today that about the time I get his sleeping location situated, it will be time to transition out of the swaddle and then we'll be back to square 1.  Lord help me.

Another thing that's different from Lilly is that Craft definitely requires more help getting to sleep.  He likes to be bounced, and rarely will fall asleep on his own.  I can't remember whether Lilly was falling asleep on her own this early, but I do not remember her needing quite as much help getting to sleep.  I also have stopped doing the dream feed with Craft.  For Lilly, it worked wonders, but for Craft it seemed like he was waking up at the same time regardless - almost like I was teaching him that he needed to wake up, so I dropped it.  If he doesn't drop that 4:30-5:00 am feeding soon I may try it again to see what happens.

One final thing to note is that I've been tracking C's sleep trying to figure out some kind of pattern so that we can implement, at a minimum, a bed time routine.  I know it's too early for routines, but if we do the same thing every night I am a firm believer that he'll get used to it and know what to expect.  Right now, we give him a bath every night, but I've not done a good job of figuring out timing because by the time we're done he's always either exhausted or starving so we haven't been able to work books into our routine yet.  In due time, I suppose.

Feeding:  Again, this varies.  I mentioned above that he only typically eats once overnight now.  During the day, he usually eats every 3.5-4 hours, sometimes longer.  Today, due to the aforementioned 4-hour nap, he went 6 hours between feedings. Hopefully he won't decide to make up for it tonight!  We also finally got him to take a bottle, he hearts the comotomo (probably because it resembles a boob).  They are $14/bottle, so we only have two for now but he really doesn't take a bottle very often.  I think I'm going to try at some point in the next few weeks having him take one bottle a day to get him used to it before I go back to work, and I am hoping we can transition him to the Dr. Brown's since we have a bajillion of those so we don't have to buy more!

Another difference with this sweet boy is spit up.  I don't remember Lilly spitting up a ton, but Craft does spit up some.  It's usually only during the day and not at every feeding but it's enough that I always make sure to have a burp cloth handy.  It doesn't seem to bother him, but it's gross.  It almost seems like he doesn't know when to stop eating or something, I'm not sure.  Anyway, I thought it was worth noting.

Firsts This Month:  First Easter Egg Hunt and first time visiting Daddy at work.  First road trip, which I did not blog about, but it was to Charlotte to my parents' house because one of our family friends got married.  Katy blogged about the weekend here.  C did well both ways, luckily - we had to stop twice on the way and once on the way back because at that point he was still eating every 2 hours and it is a 3-hour trip, but he was a gem!  I'm sure there are more "firsts" that I've been horrible at keeping track of.

Developments:  Craft is a strong little guy and has had good head control from day one, but he's getting better and better.  He does not showcase this much during tummy time, though, because he prefers to try to sleep, but I think we may be turning a corner on that one - we'll see.  He rolls onto his side quite frequently now, to the point where I don't feel quite as comfortable leaving him laying on any elevated surface anymore.  I think it will be a while before he rolls over - he has a lot of weight to move, ha! - but again, we'll see.  He has discovered his tongue and is forever sticking it out.  C has also discovered his voice and has started "talking."  Every time I take the camera out to try to video he stops, but it's really cute.  He started smiling on purpose a few weeks ago to anyone that smiles at him, and it's adorable.  I have also gotten a few laughs - teeny tiny ones, but I can't wait for the belly laughs!

Likes:  Not too many changes here: bath. sleeping. eating.  play mat.  bouncy seat. being outside.  observing Lilly and Layla.  snuggling.  ceiling fans.  kicking his legs.  chewing/drooling/slobbering on his hands. playing with his tongue.  talking/singing to mommy.  spitting up in my hair only on days when I've actually managed to wash and dry it UGH.

Dislikes:  being cold.  lotioning up after bath.  being tired.  burping.

What I'm Thankful For:  A great support system.  Dan was out of town at the beginning of the week and has work dinners every night, so family and friends have been coming to help me out with the kids to give me a break and I am more appreciative than they will ever know!

What I'm Looking Forward To:  We are spending almost a week with my family for Easter, and have lots of fun things planned.  

Next Pediatrician Appointment:  Next Tuesday, April 15.  I'm not sure why we scheduled this one so far after his 2-month-birthday, but I have a lot of questions for the doctor per the usual!  I'll report back with the stats.

The length of this post has yet again gotten away from me and I'm too tired to upload the photos I took on the camera and edit them so here are some that I took of C with my iPhone on Saturday, which was his actual 2-month-birthday.  So many expressions, this kid.

Craft is such a sweet, smiley, generally happy (with the exception of witching hours when we have them, luckily they do not appear to be happening as frequently these days!) baby and I can't help but think that although he is different than Lilly in many ways, we got very lucky for a second time.  We love our sweet boy and are having so much fun watching him grow!

Sarah

Two Months Old

Well, officially someone has pressed fast forward and made time FLY.  I can't believe my baby is two months old today!  I feel like I say this every post, but she is growing and changing so much.  It's crazy to think that just two months ago we hadn't met her yet - she brings so much joy to our lives each and every day.  I will get to the stats before I start crying and go into major mushy mode.  :-)

Weight/Length:  Again, why do I even leave this on?!  We go to the pediatrician on Tuesday for her 2-month check-up, so I'll report back.  If I had to guess, I'd say she's somewhere between 11-12 lbs at least.  She is so chunky and eats all of the time!  I feel like she may be storing away food for the winter in those pound-puppy like jowls she has, ha! We did graduate to 3M clothes this week, as well as Size 1 diapers.  Chunkster!

Sleep:  Lilly is quite the sleeper - she's doing great, waking up only once/night!  She normally falls asleep somewhere between 8-9 pm.  We wake her up between 10-11 pm for a dream feed, and then put her back down for the night.  Typically, she wakes up around 4:00 or 4:30 to eat, then sleeps again until 8:00 or 8:30.  After that feeding, she normally goes back down yet again until 11:00 or 11:30.  She is awake a lot more during the day and will fall asleep a few times but never sleeps for more than an hour at a time - typically it is more like 30 minutes aka just long enough for me to start doing something I need to get done around the house and not finish.  I'm not sure whether I should be encouraging more of a schedule, like a morning nap and an afternoon nap, or what.  I'll talk to the pediatrician about it on Tuesday.  I'm sure it was just a fluke, but last night she slept through the night for the first time!  Granted, she took a long nap yesterday afternoon (very abnormal) so she didn't fall asleep until 10, woke up on her own at 11 to eat and then went back down around 11:30 pm.  But she slept until 6:30 and then went back down until 9:30, and it was glorious.  Go L!

Feeding:   As you will soon see when I post pictures below, the child is clearly starving (NOT).  She eats a LOT.  We have been exclusively pumping since around the 1-month mark (see this week's update), and other than it being a lot of work, it's going well.  Up until this week she's been taking 4 oz of breast milk every 3-4 hours during the day (normally closer to 3 hours) and then once overnight.  This week, she has acted like we're starving her - I'm still trying to figure out whether it's a growth spurt or we need to be feeding her bigger bottles!  But we are lucky, she eats well and rarely (knock on wood) spits up.

Firsts This Month:  Lots of firsts to report I'm sure - I feel like I should write them all down so I won't miss any since I'm only posting updates once/month, but I'll wing it this time around.  She had her first road trip to grandmommy's, and she did great both on the way there and on the way back.  Since she finally hit the 8-week mark, we had our first outing this week - she ran errands with Mommy and did wonderfully!  I told Dan I felt like she was the only child NOT screaming in Target when we went.  Guess I just timed it well.  She spent part of the time looking around and taking everything in and then fell asleep.  She had her first cold and subsequent "sick visit" to the doctor, but she never really got fussy or anything like that, so we were lucky - and she's much better now!  She is going to have her first church visit tomorrow for Hadley's baptism! 

Developments:  Lots of these.  She has pretty good control of her head now and can hold it up for quite a bit of time when she's on her tummy.  She is not rolling over yet, but she's almost there - just this week she's been rolling onto her side every time she's on her play mat.  She subsequently gets mad because she can't kick her piano keys when she does that, so I keep wondering when she'll make it the whole way!  She has discovered her tongue big time and plays with it all of the time, and blows a lot of bubbles (is that considered a development?).  She's discovered that she loves her hands and she sucks on her thumb and sometimes her whole fist.  She focuses on things for long periods of time, and recognizes Mommy and Daddy's voices.  She has started cooing and talking and exploring her voice, and it is SO beyond cute.  I just love hearing those little baby noises!  She also in the past two weeks has started consciously smiling at us when we talk to her!  I captured a cute video to send to Dan when he was in Florida (please excuse my baby talk, and also yes I called her a poopy head, ha!):

Likes: Lilly LOVES bath time, eating, cuddling, being held (thanks to grandmommy), stroller rides, being worn in the baby k'tan (after you get her in, that is), singing and music, her swing, her bouncy chair, her piano gym play mat, tummy time (sometimes, and only for short periods of time), being outside, kicking her legs (especially when she's wearing the rattles on them that grandmommy gave her), the sunshine (unless it's shining in her face in the car seat), Layla, watching the ceiling fan and shopping with mommy.  And more eating.

Dislikes:  Being hungry, being cold, having her diaper changed (all the same from last month), not being held immediately when she wants to be held.  Oh and burping - it's a LOT of work with this child.  Also having her clothes changed, particularly clothes that have to go over her head. This is unfortunate as we had to graduate to size one diapers, which fit her buddha belly just fine but are too big on her legs, causing her to poop on at LEAST 2-3 outfits daily.  I realize that her legs look chunky, but while she does have some rolls they're still relatively skinny in proportion to the rest of her body so poop leaks out a lot.  Yuck.
 
What I'm Thankful For:  A happy baby.  I would say 90% of the time she is so happy, and is such a great baby - we are so lucky and thankful for that!

What I'm Looking Forward To:  Lilly's first beach trip to visit Grandma Susie and Papa for Easter, and her baptism at the beginning of May.

Next Pediatrician Appointment:  Next week - March 27.  I'm not looking forward to the shots, but I am again looking forward to getting her stats.

How Mommy's Doing:  Doing great!  My gym regimen starts again on Monday, so I'm sure I will not feel so great afterwards.  I do not by any means claim to be an expert, but my confidence in my mothering skills has greatly improved.  I'm still a little tired, but I think our girl will start sleeping through the night before we know it.  Really my only complaint is that I need more hours in the day/longer afternoon naps for Lilly.  :-)  I've started to worry about going back to work - I still have several weeks before that happens but I'll be very sad to leave Lilly.  Dan and I had a date night this week, and I was telling him that it's amazing how dressing up and going out for a night on the town can make me feel like a normal human being again!

I guess that's all for this update - I will likely think of a million things I forgot later.  I'll try to do better at documenting things as we go along so I don't forget!  I will leave you with our 2-month photo shoot.  Lilly was cooperative for all of about one minute and then got mad, so I thought I'd continue with the tradition of a "Mom I'm over this photo shoot" meltdown picture.  I also need to learn how to use my camera/not let my shadow get in the way of awesome photos. 

 Sarah