New pics and 9 mo appt

I put up a few pics from this past Sunday.  She was so cute in her little red tutu!

We had her nine month appointment today.  John was able to come to this one, which was great!  I always forget half of what I wanted to ask and half of what she tells me, lol!

Eleanor’s weight has dropped to the 15th percentile, while her height has gone up to the 81st!  She’s long and lean.  A little too lean though, so her doc wants us to add more fat to her diet.  We’re also going to add in a second meal every day, which I’ve been doing occasionally but without any consistency.  Her doc wasn’t too concerned about it though, and said it could just be her body type since her daddy is tall and we’re both pretty thin.  Other than that she’s doing quite well, and meeting all of her milestones.

She had her second flu shot and first polio vacc (we’re still following Dr. Sears’ alternative schedule), and did well for both.  We picked up vitamin D drops at the pharmacy, since her doc wants her on those during the winter, but we haven’t tried giving them to her yet.  Her doc also wants us to cruch up one Tums twice a week and mix it in with some fruit puree to feed her, since she can’t have any dairy.  I need to go look that up and see if there’s something better to give her.  Her doc didn’t seem so sure about it, and I remember Tums making me sick as a kid.  I don’t want her to be calcium deficient though, so if that’s the only choice we’ll have to do it!  Mmm, Tums-apple sauce!

Four mo appt and laughing her tiny patootie off

Eleanor has started really laughing in earnest now, and it’s a crack up!  I love baby laughs in general, but hers is of course the cutest.  ; )  I can usually get her to laugh a couple times a day, sometimes doing things that she didn’t used to react to.  I remember how stoked I was when I could get her to smile a few times a day.  Now I get all upset if she doesn’t smile at me when she wakes up, haha!  How quickly you take these little things for granted.

We took her in yesterday for her four month appt.  I finally talked to her ped about her dairy sensitivity, and her ped agress that that’s what’s going on.  She was actually really surprised.  I started off by saying that I think she’s sensitive to dairy, and the ped din’t really say anything.  So I listed off her symptoms and she looks at me with her eyebrows high and goes “oh, wow, so it probably is then!”  LOL!  She said she gets moms telling her all the time that their babies are sensitive to dairy, but it’s rarely the case.  Apparently the GI difficulties (diarrhea and gassiness especially) I listed were the tipping point for her.  She told me to avoid dairy but keep trying it every once in a while.  Nothing I didn’t already know, but I’m glad that it’s in Eleanor’s chart now.  She also said that we’ll have to talk more about it when it comes time for Nora to start eating dairy, if she hasn’t outgrown it by then.  That shouldn’t be for a while (I think it’s nine months for yogurt/cheese, though that could be wrong.)

Other than that, the appt went well!  Nora is now 12lbs 10oz – I was guessing 13lbs, so I was a little off.  She’s 24″ exactly, and her little noggin is 16″.  That’s 28%, 41%, and 40%.  I think she was 32%, 50%, and 50% last month, so she seems to be heading back toward her birth percentiles.  Apparently BFed babies get ahead of the charts for the first few months, then they slow down and FF babies catch up to them.  At one year and beyond, they’re the same.  So she’s normal.  : )

She got her second round of DTaP shot and rotavirus oral vaccines, and did fine.  Screamed for a second during the shot, but once we picked her up she was all smiles for everyone.  Crazy baby!  We didn’t give her any Tylenol this time, and I’m just playing it by ear today.

She’s been doing the classic four mo old eating/sleeping thing, where she doesn’t eat terribly well during the day and then makes up for it at night.  It’s tiring!  Plus she somehow gave me a blood blister on one side the other night, and it’s excruciating now.  I pumped that side all day yesterday, but then fed her once right before bed (little painful, but fine), and again at 5am today.  That 5am feed was a huge mistake.  It didn’t hurt much while I was feeding her, but 2.5 hours and two ibuprofen later it still feels like someone’s poking me with a hot needle.  Youch!  So I guess it’s back to pumping that side all day today, too.  I hate doing that!  I hate pumping in general, it’s a pain to wash the pump and bottles several times a day, it’s always bad for my supply, and I don’t like giving her so many bottles.  But I hate the pain more, so I’ll deal, lol!

I’m putting a couple more pics up.  They’re from the last few days.  Enjoy!

Long time, no write!

OK, I’m back!  From where I’m not sure, but I’m back nonetheless.  : )  Maybe from new-mommy fogland?

Where to begin…  Well, John went back to work on May 12th, which is the main reason I haven’t written a new post on here in ages.  Nora has been quite the handful for me, and since I’ve also taken on the majority of the night shift (John needs to sleep on weekdays, and he can’t breastfeed anyway) I’ve been pretty tired. Every time I think we’ve gotten on a nice little schedule, Nora throws a curve ball and it seems we’re back to square one.  She does go to bed at about the same time every night – 9pm – though she wakes pretty erratically.  Some nights she’ll go seven straight hours, others she wakes every two hours.  Ack!

Nora has gotten one round of vaccinations so far.  We decided to follow Dr. Sears’ alternative schedule, so at two months she got the rotavirus oral vaccine, and the DTaP shot.  She seemed to do ok.  She slept most of that day, and we gave her Tylenol every four hours which kept her fairly happy when she was awake.  She was supposed to get Pc (pneumococcal) and HiB (hemophaelus influenza B) this past week, but there’s apparently a nationwide shortage of HiB and they were out.  We’re going back next Tuesday to get those.

Cutting dairy out of my diet worked, yay!  Her colic and reflux got much much better.  Every time I eat too much dairy (she can tolerate small amounts, depending on what it is) she has a very bad, fussy day, and gets diarrhea and diaper rashes.  Poor thing.  : (  It really stinks not eating dairy – I miss pizza! – but it’s worth it.  Supposedly she should start growing out of this in the next few months, but we’ll see.  In the meantime I’m taking lots of calcium supplements.

New fun thing making her fussy though: teething!!!  She started at 10 weeks!  She’s chewing everything, especially her own hands, drooling like crazy, fussier than usual, and sleeping poorly (hence the tired mom!)  I didn’t really believe that was what was going on until I talked to my parents and found out that I had two teeth at eight weeks.  Unfortunately for us, Nora is now almost 14 weeks old and still hasn’t popped a tooth.  I keep hearing that the worst is over once the teeth show themselves, but that it can sometimes take months.  I look every morning, but nothing yet!

Milestone-wise, she’s doing great!  She’s holding her head up very well now.  She still gets a little wobbly after a while, but will hold it up almost indefinitely in any position you put her in.  She likes to sit or stand, and will do either one with minimal support.  She’s not quite ready for her Exersaucer, but I think in a couple more weeks she will be.  She’s not rolling yet, but can lift herself up pretty well while doing tummy time, so she’s not as miserable doing that anymore.  She lasts about five minutes on her belly before yelling at us for mistreating her, instead of the previous two, haha!  She’s down to about eight nursings a day, which is apparently a little more than average for her age but I’m thrilled with it!  She’s cooing and smiling like crazy, and is learning how to squeal.  She definitely knows mommy and daddy and gets very excited when she sees us.  It’s so sweet.  : )  She’s not quite grabbing things yet, but will bring anything in her hand – our fingers, a terry cloth burp rag – to her mouth and chow down on it.  We bought her a little floor gym last weekend, and after a couple days she figured out how to kick her toys to make them swing and rattle.  She loves it and will happily play there for up to half an hour at a time!  It’s wonderful for her and great for me.  ; )

The cloth diapering is going well, too.  I think the Thirsties pocket-AIOs, and the Thirsties wraps with Kissaluvs contours are my favorite methods currently.  The Thirsties just seem to fit her best right now.  She’s pretty skinny for a baby (32nd percentile for weight, but 55th for height) and a lot of the diapers seem to have leg openings that are too big.  When we tighten them enough to fit well around the legs, they become too tight around her tummy.  I’m sure things will change as she grows, though, as they have so far.  (We liked the Proraps and BumGenius one-size pockets best when she was littler.)

Oh, what else…  Oh, we made our first real car trip with her!  We drove to my parents’ across the state, which is normally about a four hour drive.  The way there was awful.  We stopped twice to feed her, which I had expected, but then she was so unhappy most of the rest of the drive.  We ended up stopping another time so I could get in the back with her and keep her happy.  She fell asleep immediately, so I think she was just lonely back there.  The way back was great – she slept most the way – and the visit itself was wonderful!  My family is absolutely in love with her, and she seems to return the affection.  It was great having so many people around to entertain her and keep her happy, and it was like a little vacation for John and me, lol!  I think our next trip will be in Sept, when we go for a friend’s wedding.

OK, Nora just woke up from a nap and is hungry.  : )  I’ll post a pic or two really quickly, in the pictures section.  The Super Nora one is my new favorite!

She can hear!

We took Eleanor to the audiologist today, and she passed in both ears!  The test apparently can only say if the baby can hear, not how well they can hear, but there’s no reason to suspect she has a problem now.  The lady said that some people just lack the response that the hospital test requires, which is part of why so many infants fail it.

After that appt we took Eleanor to the ped: she’s been really congested for the past couple days and yesterday her voice became hoarse.  At first we just figured it was a cold and it would pass, and the hoarseness was probably from all her midnight crying,  but then we started reading all this stuff about RSV and that with an infant under three months you should always take them to the doc when they exhibit signs of a cold, so we decided to take her in.  We explained all of the fussiness of the past week as well as her new issues, and the doc said it was all because of reflux, even the hoarseness!  Thankfully, she doesn’t feel it’s bad enough to warrant meds – Eleanor looks great and is gaining weight well – so we just need to keep an eye on her.  She told us basically to do everything we have been doing, with propping her up after feedings, etc., and to “be prepared for some more bad nights.”  Fun!  I’m happy she doesn’t have a cold on top of the reflux, though.  One thing is quite enough to be going on with!

About the weight gain: she’s officially 8lbs 9oz now!  That’s a gain of almost two pounds since birth, the little chunk-a-lunk.  : )  She’s just starting to grow out of some her newborn onesies, which is kind of sad.  We have tons of cute 3 mos clothing for her though, so I’m not too sad about it!

After those appts, we went to the store and bought her a new bed: it’s a little nest thing that will (hopefully) fit between us in our bed and that we’ll be able to prop up on an incline.  She likes to sleep with us, but this should give us more peace of mind that she’s in a safe zone.  It’ll be a lot easier to prop her up with it than on our arms too, and much more comfortable for us!  We’ll see how it works tonight.

We also (finally) turned in our last set of taxes without her on them.  It’s been quite an eventful day!

She’s growing!

We had her latest ped visit on Friday, and she was up to 7lbs even!! Grow baby, grow! She was healthy in all other ways, and may have gained a bit in height too, though she wiggles so much that she messes up the measurement every time. : ) She also had to have her second set of labs done for the PKU, etc. testing that our state requires. I haven’t heard anything from the first set yet (done in the hospital), but maybe they just combine it all.

Her next ped appt is at two months, which seems like a really long time away! We do need to get her in for a hearing test in the next two weeks, though. I don’t think I ever mentioned it on here, but she failed the screening test in her right ear at the hospital. Her left was fine, but they tried four times on the right over three days, and nothing. About 95% of babies who fail the screening are perfectly fine, and I’m almost positive she can hear in that ear, so we’re not really worried. It’s just another appt!

She’s been doing the reflexive smile – where they smile for no apparent reason – pretty much since birth, and she’s also responded to me a couple times with smiles that I’m pretty sure are genuine, since a few days old. I was just reading in What’s Going on in There that the difference between a reflexive smile and a real one is the eye muscles move in a real one. It looks to me like she crinkles her eyes up a bit, though I’m not entirely sure. Anyway, I finally got one on camera the other day! It’s not the best pic (I had to snap it very quickly with no flash) but it’s so cute! You can also see her double chin and chubby little cheeks:

Oodles of news

In the last three days we’ve had a pediatrician appt, two blood draws, and another LC appointment.  Whew!  We have had an appt or lab visit every single day since we’ve been home with Eleanor, and are so looking forward to a quiet weekend!

Pediatrician on Wednesday:  Nora was up to 6lbs 5oz, which was a gain of 3.6 oz in the 28 hours between the first LC appt and this visit.  Woo-hoo!  She was perfect in all ways but one: I had been worried that she had more jaundice than she should, and the ped shared my concern.  She ordered blood draws so we headed there next.   Her billirubin came back at 17.7.  Under 12 is considered normal, 12-18 is the “watch” zone, and above 18 calls for UV light treatment.  Since she came in just barely in the watch zone this meant another blood draw the next day to see if it would go down.  If it did, then she would be declared ok and no further testing would be necessary.

Blood draw Thursday, and visiting Daddy’s work: we went for the second blood draw on Thursday, and it came back at 15.2!  Still high but dropping, which is what matters.  Even at 15 it’s the likely culprit behind Nora’s sleepiness, so hopefully it’ll be gone soon. 

We did the draw at the same health campus where my husband works, so of course we had to make the rounds!  I was having a good day, pain-wise (I actually stopped taking the Percocet that day and switched to normal acetaminophen), so we wandered around for a good hour showing Nora off to all his co-workers.  They were thrilled to meet her, and I’m glad we got her first round of stranger-meetings in while she still has all my immunities.  I keep reading that the first few weeks are the safest time for babies to be exposed to new people, which is really counter-intuitive to me, but I guess it makes sense. 

LC appt today: This appt went really well!  She’s now up to 6lbs 8oz, and is on track to be up to her birth weight by ten days, which is what they like to see.   My milk supply is now keeping up with her demand, so I’m not surprised she’s started putting on weight so well.  Even better: we were able to get her to latch on to me using a nipple shield, and without causing me a ridiculous amount of pain!  Apparently the problem is that she has a very “narrow palette”, which basically means she can’t latch on to me without causing pain, no matter how good the latch is.  We’ve been doing it mostly right since day one, which was comforting to hear, though I got a few pointers today which I think will help.  This will get better as she gets bigger, and then I’ll be able to wean her off the shield.  I wish I didn’t have shield-weaning to look forward to as I’ve heard it can be very difficult, but at this point I am so happy to have her getting nourishment straight from me that I just don’t care! 

It still hurts a little with the shield, so we’re going to do BFing on the breast in the morning/early afternoon and then just pump during the evening/night and continue with finger-feeding, since she’s more fussy and frantic later in the day.  I’m also only to give her 20 minutes at the breast unless she’s nursing well, and if she’s still hungry at that point we’ll do some finger-feeding to fill her up.  This is both to help me continue to heal and also to encourage her to not dawdle.  She has a tendency to latch on and fall right to sleep, which would be cute if it weren’t so frustrating!  We’re also supposed to keep up with the skin-to-skin, so she thinks of mommy as a safe place to be.  

All in all we’re doing well!  Tired and still trying to figure out her schedule – or rather, dealing with the fact that she has no schedule and there’s precious little we can do to change that at this early stage – but things are improving.   I took some new pics of her last night, but haven’t had time to load them on the comp yet.  Hopefully I’ll have those on the picture page in the next couple days.  She’s developing a little double chin, which is a crack-up!  Nice to see that milk going somewhere.  : ) 

My milk came in!!

I pumped twice overnight and got only 5mL between both pumping sessions, which was disheartening.  That’s about what I was getting in single sessions yesterday.  Then I took a two hour nap this morning with Nora on my chest, and woke up with engorged breasts!  I pumped and got 22mL – about 2/3 of an oz!!  Holy milky!  That’s the maximum amount Nora has taken in a single feeding (either of formula alone or combined formula and colostrum), so she’ll get at least one milk-only meal today.  Woo-hoo!  We have her first pediatrician’s appt this afternoon, and I’m so glad we worked all of this out before the appt.  I hope she’s gained a bit of weight since yesterday.  : )