Living WIth a Pediatrician

So, DH is a pediatrician. He is not officially our little girl's pediatrician, but he's still the first line of defense. This has its many advantages and disadvantages.

On the plus side:

1. And this is the biggest one - he can tell me when something is worth worrying about, or more often, completely normal. Bumps, rashes, odd stools, whatever. Being able to text DH about a poop question is pretty handy. How many other people send their DH's messages that say, "poop has been getting runnier all day, should I be worried?" and get a response, "Probably just from her cold. As long as they aren't more frequent, no need to worry."

2. Medicine: He can tell me when to up the dose on Zantac or whether this is an appropriate occasion for Tylenol. He even ran out to get Motrin when she first started teething because she was now officially six months old and he thought it would help more. When it says, "consult pediatrician," he's very handy.

3. He has connections. Need an appointment? No problem. Just want someone to take a quick peak into the ears? Just swing by the office. Want to weigh her? Come by around lunch time. He can get a prescription or an extra bulb syringe or just a second opinion about mundane baby stuff.

The downside:

1. He sees really, really sick babies. This means that a) He tells me about them, which makes me sad and concerned and b) He tends to jump to conclusions sometimes and worry about a worst-case-scenario that would have never crossed my mind. It's kind of like on our honeymoon when my legs hurt from wearing heels all day the day before and he was all worried about blood clots. It can stress me out.

2. No rule bending: If it says for 9-months and older, then we wait until she's 9 months. I wanted to try giving her some puffs or other finger foods, but no dice. He says she's fine and there's no hurry and I know he's right, but still. No snuggling in bed or bumpers or loveys or mirrors in the car...you get the idea.

3. He works a lot. His practice is very busy and he works on rotation with the other physicians to cover the hospital, too. When he's on call, he attends c-sections and has to go in when a child comes into the ER and has to be admitted. He works some weekends and a lot of holidays.

There are plenty more, I'm sure, but those are the first things that come to mind. In general, I feel very blessed to have an "expert" in the house. He also says that Sprout and I have made him a better doctor in a lot of ways. I hope that's true. Maybe some of our struggles help other mommies get better help and advice from their pediatrician!

Things I don't want to forget

So, the amazing Shannon over at Double the Blessings, Twice the love (sshannonlea-baby.blogspot.com) started "Things I Don't Want to Forget Thursdays" (TIDWFT). I'm hoping that this will be an inspiration to me to actually blog every week. So here are a few amazing things that our little girl has been doing this week.

She started shaking her head like she's saying, "No." I don't think she's trying to communicate anything, but it is adorable. I have a feeling that when it actually does mean something, I might not think it's so cute, though.

She actually started eating green beans willingly. She had been boycotting green veggies, but I continued offering a little bit to her every meal. Over the last couple of days she decided they weren't so bad and has been eating more of them. I hope this trend continues. I was worried she was going to turn orange from the carrots and sweet potatoes.

She's trying to figure out how to move. She sticks her bottom up in the air and wiggles around and has figured out how to inch-worm a little bit, though she can't really control the direction too well. I'm scared of what the next step will be!

And very exciting to me is that she finally decided to babble a bit. When she's mad, we hear "nananananana." When she's happy, "babababababa!" She found her voice a long time ago and can be pretty expressive with those vowel sounds, but I'm glad she is throwing some consonants in there now.

Thank you for the inspiration, Shannon. The change so much all the time, it's sometimes hard to believe that just a few months ago, she was just learning to hold her head up.

Seven Months Old

When did that happen? There always seems to be so much to say and so little time!

Sprout is sitting up quite well, now, though it now startles her when she tips over and gets her upset sometimes. DH set her up in her crib a couple of nights ago and she fell over and hit her head. Scared me to death because she didn't let out the big wail I was waiting for. She didn't move. I think she was just stunned, though, because when he picked her up, she was all smiles. Didn't even phase her. Go figure.

She just started a few little babbles. Finally! She's been using her voice for a long time, but she's starting to throw a few consonants into the mix. Mostly it's "bububububu!" She's also doing this funny scooting thing when she's trying to get to a toy. It only gets her a couple of inches at a time, but it scares me. I realize that she's going to be mobile before too long and I am soooo not ready for that!

Her hair has almost completely turned a sandy blond color now. I never saw that coming. She was born with thick dark brown hair. It turned a little red for awhile and now it's blond. She still has a little dark patch at the nape of her neck, though, which cracks me up. Her bald spot is almost filled in now, too. It's looking a lot like my hair as a child. That secretly makes me happy because she looks so much like DH, I am happy to see a little more of me in her. I also expected her eyes to turn brown, and perhaps they will, but for now, they are still mostly blue-gray, with a few flecks of gold or green. They are beautiful, of course.

And, at last, she is gaining weight well (Yay!). She weighed in at 15 pounds, 12 ounces just after her 7 month-day, which is a solid weight gain. We'll take her in for the official weight check in the next couple of weeks. Breastfeeding is great. I'm scared to say that because I'm worried I'm setting myself up for another problem, but this is how it's supposed to be. We had a little hiccup earlier this week when she decided to try out her two new chompers while nursing a few times. Ouch! But I think we have it under control for the moment. I fear the top teeth coming in, though.

I am often overwhelmed with how much I love that little girl. She is just so adorable and wonderful. Her smiles and laughs just make me melt sometimes. I love seeing the little personality that is starting to develop and I wonder more and more about the little girl and young woman she will become.

My Happy Baby

Sophia did not smile early. I read and read about people's babies smiling at them at 6 weeks and how their two month olds greeted them with smiles every morning. I was sad. I felt like I must be doing something wrong or that I was a bad mom. She didn't smile. We got a few fleeting ones here and there, but they were random and never directed at us. She didn't really interact with us much at all unless she was nuzzling so that I would feed her. She reacted to toys sometimes, but didn't seem to care that much about people.

We went to her four month appointment and expressed our concerns to her pediatrician. My pediatrician husband started looking at her and saying things like, "Please don't be autistic." (Not that we would love her any less or that she showed any other signs. He even admitted then that he was over analyzing and that such delays can be perfectly normal and not mean anything.).

Two days after the appointment, a light went on. She was smiling at us. She was happy when we walked into the room. She lit up at the dog more than anything, but I try not to take that personally. He is a pretty funny-looking dog. Then began the laughs. She laughs she squeals. She is a happy baby. Two months later, I know something is wrong when she doesn't smile. At her six month appointment, her doctor marveled at how she was a completely different baby.

We loved her through it all, even when I spent day after day, just trying to stop her from crying or get her to sleep. From the day she was born, people have commented on how her big wide eyes were always checking things out. It turns out that she just took a little extra time to warm up. Maybe she just thought we were strange that whole time and finally figured out that we weren't that bad and really did try hard and love her, so she gave us a chance. Maybe they put something in the four month vaccines.

Whatever it was, we are thankful, because being a mom is so much fun now. I am so incredibly grateful to spend my days with her. DH comes home a little faster and makes it home for lunch more often and I fall in love all over again when I see him melt when she smiles at him. I know there will be many questions and difficult days ahead, but for right now, life is pretty good.

6 Month Check-up and Feeding

So, we went in for Sprout's 6 month physical on Monday. She was 14 pounds, 8 ounces and 27 inches long. Her weight was in the 14th percentile, which was moving enough in the right direction to keep us from extra tests or supplementation. Mommy was quite relieved. It seems that she's back to growing well. Yay!

She's right on track developmentally, and her doctor commented on how different she was from 2 months ago when she was still so serious and we expressed some concerns about her lack of interaction. Now she's all smiles, sitting up on her own, and grabbing anything she can get her hands on. It's really amazing and she has become so much fun. DH and I feel like we've come out of a fog.

Right now, she's still nursing 6 times a day, but some feedings are much more successful than others. She has become so distractable! We're now feeding her 3 solid meals a day. Each one consists of about 2 tablespoons of oatmeal mixed with an ounce of formula plus a vegetable or fruit. We then give her the rest of the 2 ounces of formula we mixed up in a bottle. Normally, we might not give her so much cereal, but since we really need to get some meat on her bones, that's the way we decided to get her supplemented. She's quite a good eater most of the time and looooves her sweet potatoes!

We decided to use mainly Earth's Best organic baby food. I'd love to make my own and I hear it's pretty easy, but since there is very little organic produce available around here, we decided that it was probably healthier to just buy organic baby food. My entomologist step-father is loving the extra baby food jars.

I'm still really trying to figure out how to meet some mommy friends. I tried the library story time for babies, but there were only 3 people there and this week was the last week. Why do they need a summer break for infant story time? I'm so sad. We'll probably do a baby & me swim class over the summer, so maybe that will be more successful. I'm not sure what else to do. I'm not a very outgoing person in general, so it's tough, but I need friends.

Breastfeeding Update & Solids

So, we introduced solids after Sophia's not-so-good weigh in a few weeks ago. She is a great eater and started plumping up well. Then we went on vacation and she caught a cold. The combination led to some poor eating. We went into DH's office for an informal weight check at the beginning of the week and she'd gained 6 ounces in 2 weeks. Definitely still a lot lower than where she should be. So, we're mixing her cereal with an ounce of formula and giving her the other ounce in a bottle, since you can't mix less than 2 ounces very easily. We also started introducing vegetables and Sophia is a fan.

She took to the formula quite well, which is honestly kind of a relief to me. As a consequence, I decided to stop pumping unless I miss a feeding. I have enough in my freezer stash for a missed feeding here and there, though a big portion will likely be depleted when DH and I go on our date next week to see Wicked (I can't wait). When it's gone, we'll just give her formula for missed feedings. As I said, I'll still pump when I miss a feeding to maintain supply (and relieve pressure) and I may change my mind when we use the end of our freezer stash, but not having to take half an hour of my precious little time with DH in the evenings to pump has definitely made me a happier woman.

Breastfeeding is generally going well, though I did have a bout of blisters while traveling. I guess it just came from having to feed her in strange places in positions that aren't quite right. It gets so discouraging when it's really painful, but it's so nice when it's not, that I keep trucking through it.

Things to bring when traveling with baby

So, I'm not going to go through all the obvious stuff - clothes, diapers, etc., but a few extra things we needed:

• Bring your own car seat no matter how much DH tries to convince you that borrowing from the rental car place is a good idea. We ended up buying one because the one they gave us was awful.
• Wet bags (or Ziploc). I'm a cloth diaperer, so I had wet bags, but they'd be helpful for anyone while traveling to stow messy outfits, dirty bibs, etc.
• Diaper covers. Again, I use cloth diapers, but we used disposables on the trip. Last time we traveled with disposables, LO blew out every single time she pooped. Yuk! This time went much better. We put Thirsties covers over disposables and they worked like a charm to keep in the poo.
• A largish blanket to use as a play mat.
• A pacifier, even if LO doesn't usually take one. Our little girl doesn't love them and used to refuse them entirely, but she'll suck on one for a little while now, and that few minutes provides just enough time to get through security or other situation where I can't feed her change her right that second. With the paci clip, it also served as a toy that she couldn't drop.
• Everything you need if LO gets a cold, because she probably will. (snot sucker, Tylenol, saline)

We went to Target the first morning there to stock up on diapers, wipes & baby food so that we didn't have to pack them. We also ended up buying a Boppy. I was already getting blisters from nursing in odd places/positions, so it was worth it, even though we had to leave it. I'll be sending back that card to get $7 back instead of the parenting magazine, though.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but since it's nap time, I'm going to try to start getting this house back in some semblance of order.