9 months old

On the 20th of this month, JJ turned 9 months old (yes, I'm behind on my blogging...don't remind me). We took him to his pediatrician and he weighed in at 19lbs 13 oz. He was 27 inches long. She felt he was a little behind on his motor skills so she recommended OT and PT for him. She was mostly noticing that his hands are still closed (and should be open), he doesn't sit up from a laying position and that he didn't try to scoot or reach for an object that was in front of him. I'm going to wait a bit and see because this weekend, he was really active. I think he's just taking his time with things. I find that I'm a bit more relaxed about when he does things vs when Christian did things. I find that it's mostly because I don't have any other babies his age to compare him to (whereas with CMan, there were 3 other babies born around his same time that always did everything before he did).

He doesn't crawl yet, but I think that's coming soon because as I said, this past weekend he was Mr. Antsinmypants. I put him down and he lunged himself towards any object that grabbed his attention. Unfortunately that meant he came close to face planting more often than not. He then ended up on his belly and he totally hates that. When I try to help him lift his knees, he tries to stand up instead. Maybe he'll skip the crawling and go straight to standing.

I'm also teaching him to sit up from a lying position by pushing off with his little arms. Even though, he's my second child, I think he's got first child syndrome. Mommy carries him too much and babies him too much, so he doesn't get the chance to learn new locomotion skills.

As far as his eating goes, he still hates baby food. He has started eating some finger foods now though. At meal time, we sit him in his high chair to "eat" with the rest of the family. We put little puffs on his tray and he picks them up (pincer grasp!) and puts them in his mouth. At first he would drop most of them, but this weekend, he really became a pro at it. If I'm eating something soft that he can eat, I give him some of that too. Either he picks it up off the tray or takes it from my finger. So far he's had noodles, potatoes, papaya, yobaby yogurt, rice and zucchini. I'm hoping that if we keep this up, each day he will eat a little bit more. Maybe we can skip the baby food and go straight to solids.

G.I. Jordan

Jordan is 8 months old today!

To celebrate we took him to the G.I. doctor due to several ongoing concerns of mine:

1. Does not like baby food one bit. On a good day, he eats 3 spoonfuls. On a bad day, he screams when he sees it.

2. Green poop (he does not eat any green food).

3. Not sleeping through the night.

4. Heart shaped tongue (tongue-tied?).

The verdict?

1. He weighed in at 18+ lbs. and measured 27.5 inches (37% and 50%) so he's not starving. The doc says we need to give him baby food and if he doesn't want it, try again in half an hour and keep doing that until it's time for his next feeding. In other words, don't be so quick to give him the bottle if he refuses the food because he is manipulating us. If I say no to food, they give me bottle/boob. He said he should be eating breakfast, lunch, dinner (a whole jar of the big baby food...HA!) and milk bottles of 6-8 oz (with cereal) (18 oz a day is fine) and eating every 4 or 5 hours.

2. Green poop is OK sometimes. Will do poop culture to make sure there isn't any bad stuff in it.

3. Need to cut out the boob...and do a cry it out...and not put him in our bed (easier said than done buddy). If he has his bottle with cereal at 11pm, he should be fine until 6am. Any crying before that is due to bad habit and not hunger.

4. Tongue is prob not the reason he won't eat. Will do an upper G.I. to make sure the rest of his swallowing/eating anatomy is OK.

Fun times ahead huh?

In other news, his two bottom teeth are showing really well now, so I was able to photograph them. They came out approx 2 or 3 weeks ago. Check it out!

Oy, I forgot the Easter photos! Next time, oh and I also have to remember to tell you about Christian's swimming class fiasco. Let's just say it's very similar to the first time I took him to swim class.

6 months old!

Jordan is six months old (as of the 20th)! He sometimes sits unassisted, but is still a little wobbly, so I only sit him on the bed because he still faceplants once in a while. He's started eating baby food fruits (bananas, pears...he already eats veggies) and has recently (this past week) gotten the hang of how you eat solids from a spoon. He doesn't thrust his tongue out so much and actually swallows most of the food I give him (whereas before it ended up on the bib). He likes to babble and his first word was "cake" (he's definitely my child). When I say "CAKE?" to him he cracks up. Every time I try to make him laugh, he gets the hiccups, so I try to refrain from doing so even though he looks so darn cute when he's laughing. He's also doing the D sound, so Dada is close on the horizon I think.

Much to my amazement (the whole breastfeeding thing has been amazing to me) he is still breastfeeding. I was thinking about starting to wean (am scared of the incoming teeth), but my boy HATES formula, so I don't know what I'm going to do. I've tried Similac and Isomil. Perhaps I will try Enfamil next and if not, then Good Start. If not, then the weaning will have to wait. The weaning issue came up because my supply is going down (I've gotten lazy with the pumping and I sometimes go too long between pumps) and I really don't want to take Fenugreek like I did last time because it makes me smell like Aunt Jemima. We went to the pediatrician yesterday and she recommended that we try to feed him with a cup. Yeah. Ok.

Jordan hates the playpen, but he'll tolerate the swing. He goes to sleep around 8 or 9pm and then wakes up at around 1am to eat and then again at 4 or 5am. I have tried dreamfeeding him at 11pm with formula or breast milk, and he won't take it. He only wants mama. Because of the constant waking and feeding, he usually sleeps in my bed after the 1 am feeding. He gets really fussy in his crib and wakes up often which means less sleep for me, so I'm just trying to make things easier on myself. I will pay for it later, I just know it.

Christian LOVES his little brother, sometimes a little too much. He hugs him and kisses him and pulls his legs and gets right up in his face. Sometimes he wants to share his toys, but other times he gets mad. I think all the love is going to go away quickly once JJ starts walking and taking Christian's things though...ah, I can visualize the fights now.

I'm so glad I started this blog when Chris was 3 months old because it's fun to look back and see what similarities and differences they have. At this point with CMan, I had already done the cryitout at night and he had already slept through the night. The difference is that Cman drank formula, so that would hold him through the night. I can't do cryitout with Jordan because breast milk won't fill him up for long periods of time and I'm afraid that I'd be starving him. CMan was also sitting up by himself at this point too. Perhaps Jordan is carried too much (what a spoiled 2nd child!). Last but not least, Christian had more hair. Yesterday at the pediatrician Jordan weighed 17 lbs 3.5 oz (CMan was 17 lbs) and 26.5 inches in length (CMan was 25.5). He was in the 75% and 60th% (for weight and height) and the doc said he looks good. She would like him to transfer objects from one hand to the other and for him to play with his feet, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that. Last but not least, the Prevacid was discontinued (for two weeks-wait and see) because JJ hasn't been throwing up anymore, so we're hoping that he's outgrown the reflux. Cross your fingers!

On another note, thanks for your input on the hairstyle issue. Yesterday, I went and made the cut. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out which style I chose though...ah the suspense!

Appointments

Thank you for the comments on the biopsy post. I had the procedure done on Tuesday and Meredith was right, it didn't hurt much. Just the needle pinch and the stinging from the numbing medicine they used. The area is a little tender, but other than that, no pain, no problems. I get the results today or tomorrow.

I also went to the pediatric cardiologist on the same day (talk about double-whammy). The arrhythmia did not show up on the fetal echo this time (yay!). The doc said everything looked great, continue total caffeine avoidance (no soda, no coffee, no chocolate, no tea) and call him when the baby's born so he can go seem him in the hospital. Finally, some good news.

A funny thing happened last night. I keep a cup of water on my nightstand in case I get thirsty in the middle of the night. Last night Cman woke me up and as I tried to reach for the clock to see what time it was (2 am) , I knocked over my glass of water. R heard me making a ruckus as I tried to clean it up and he asked what the matter was. I told him my water fell. Telling your half asleep husband that your water has fallen when you are 36 weeks pregnant is not a nice thing to do. "WHAT? Your water?".... "no babe, not THAT water...my cup of water".

Baby check-up

I had a follow up OB appointment yesterday. I'm one pound over my recommended pound per week rigmarole, oh well, blame it on my morning indulgence of Starbucks Fourbucks.

Anyway, Little Wiggly was still showing signs of arrhythmia, so I'm going to be scheduled for a fetal echo. Hopefully that will give us an insight into what is going on. The doc didn't seem too concerned and said that this happens all the time and the babies are born OK. I guess the fact that she didn't send me to do it right away should be an indication of her non-worriedness. It still freaks me out though...

Feverish times and ABC's

I haven't gotten much work done for the past 5 days because CMan had been sporting a runny nose/fever/vomiting spell on and off since Friday. A trip to the doctor on Monday revealed nothing concrete, so she had to order some blood work. Poor baby, I hate it when they order blood work. After the visit we stepped outside and discovered these cute little friends in the grass. They were all over the place and Chris was having a great time picking them up. I just had to make sure he didn't squeeze them too hard.

In other news, CMan surprised me by singing his ABC's in the car the other day. Since then, I've been trying to get him to do it on film, but every time he sees the camera he freaks out and wants to play with it instead of doing whatever he was doing. I finally got a little spy cam action going on, but I got busted at the end...check it out:



Amidst the fever spikes, he also managed to go #1 and #2 in the potty again on his own (before bath time). This time I had stickers on hand. Yay stickers. I bought a grab bag of small toys so I can give him one whenever he goes; hopefully those will be a bit more of an incentive since he's got lots of stickers already anyway.

At daycare they were focusing on colors last week, so he's learned his colors now too. Speaking of daycare, his fevers were gone yesterday and he should be ready to go back to daycare today, but R has the day off, so I think he's going to keep him home one more day just to be sure.

Last but not least, check out the drawing he did by himself the other day.

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In Little Wiggly news, I've got a doctor's apppointment today, so I'll let you know how that goes too.

...and knowing is half the battle

Cman saw a pediatric G.I. Joe specialist yesterday. It's so nice when a doctor actually agrees with you and sees that there's a problem. It's so nice when they listen to you about things that don't work and give you other options. It's so nice when they don't keep on suggesting the same thing over and over. It's so nice when they don't make you feel like it's your fault that your child won't eat sold food. So nice.

So I guess you can gather that the visit went well and that we really liked the doctor (as opposed to the pediatrician who wouldn't listen and kept pushing the solid food, when it obviously was not getting eaten by no fault of our own). Cman was weighed and measured. He lost another pound again since he's been sick for 10 days (cough, runny nose), so he's at 21.1 pounds (32.5 inches tall). He's 20 months old, so this put him in the 3% range, which I'm lead to believe is OK if your child has always been in that range. It is not OK however when the child has fallen down to that level after having been in a higher range most of the time.

The doc agreed that Chris was underweight and that something else had to be done. He told us that if he didn't want to eat solid food then we should go back to the pureed food (if that's what he liked to eat). He said he knew 3 year olds that still ate pureed food and there was nothing wrong with that. The point was to make him gain weight. He asked us to do the following things:

-Make his food with more fat. When cooking meat leave the fat in, when cooking chicken leave the skin on (it can be removed prior to pureeing it). After the meal has been cooked, add a tablespoon of (real) butter or olive oil to it. (It looks like my mom's healthy cooking habits are good for adults, but not good for growing toddlers that need more fat in their diets).

-Cut down on the fruits, let him get full on just the fatty food. Before we were giving him a bite of food and then a bite of fruit so that he wouldn't get bored of the same thing over and over, but the Dr. said to give him the fruit last if he still wants it.

- Give him one bottle of Pediasure per day (he liked it the first time he tried it, but now...not so much) in addition to the whole milk that he drinks.

- When he's full don't force him. If he wants to eat every three hours, then that's fine, but give him fatty snacks...perhaps some bread with butter.

-No juices (he doesn't like juice, so he doesn't really drink any).

I think that's about it. The doctor will also run the usual blood and poop tests to see if there is an underlying cause other than not enough fat in the meals. He will see him again in 8 weeks. Let's see how it goes!

I still owe you the answers from the movie meme and Chris said seven new words yesterday...SEVEN! So stay tuned for more posts this weekend.

Issues of the dietary kind

Yesterday C had his 18 month check up with the pediatrician. He's 32.5" tall (50th percentile wow!), but he weighed in at only 21.5 lbs (5th percentile boo), so the doc was concerned that his weight had gone down. I'm not sure if it's because he was a little sick last week or what, but I promise, we do feed him.

She told us that we were going about it all wrong and told us to make some feeding changes such as:
-give him three six ounce bottles instead of two 10 ounce bottles.
-better yet, get rid of the bottles and use sippy cups exclusively
-no snacks between meals
-he must eat meals together with the rest of the family (not realistic because R works late, I eat late, C eats early)
-do not puree his food (we puree it because he only has 8 teeth, so he's not the best chewer in the world, so he takes FOREVER to eat just one bite).
-put the food on his high chair tray and let him feed himself, even if he makes a mess (not realistic, he usually throws the food, or ignores it completely).
-do not force him to eat, let him eat whatever he wants

In theory these things sound wonderful and dandy, but in practice it's another story. I don't see how he's going to eat more food with these changes. Perhaps if he has less milk and no snacks it will make him more hungry for meal times, but as far as letting him feed himself, all the food will end up in his hair, on the floor, or on his shirt. Whereas if we puree it, he generally eats it all and it only takes about 30 minutes to feed him. The downside of that is that it is usually a battle to get him to eat it all. From the first bite, he starts to nod his head no and closing his mouth real tight, before he's even tried it. We usually have to pile up about a million toys on his high chair to distract him enough to sneak the food in his mouth. Sometimes, that doesn't even work and I tend to lose my patience and let's just say, I hate meal time.

I told the Dr. that I would try to do what she said, but that I would come back in two weeks and have him weighed again to make sure he's not losing even more weight.

Tonight was my first attempt at "Operation feed yourself".

I put the (un-pureed) food on his tray, he started nodding no. I tried to keep a positive attitude the whole time and not lose my patience with him. I pretended like I didn't care whether he ate it or threw it. He ignored the food. I ended up having to feed him myself with the spoon. Once in a while he would pick something from the tray and eat it; that's a start I guess. He spit out the fish and the potatoes (see, if it's pureed, it's mixed in all together so he can't pull this little stunt). He only wanted to eat the pasta, so I had to hide the fish and potatoes under the noodles and feed him with the spoon. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. He also didn't want the pears (he usually loves his pureed fruit no matter what it is). The good thing is that he ate 80% of the food, the bad thing is that it took over an hour. OVER AN HOUR! He did eat some of the food on his own off of the tray, but for the most part I had to feed him with the spoon because he didn't really care enough about it to feed himself.

I hate to compare, but I see other kids his age eating and they practically devour their food as if they haven't eaten in days. Chris looks at it and couldn't care less...bleh. I really don't know what to do anymore. What can I feed him that has lots of calories and will help him put some weight on? Does what the dr says make sense? What did/do you do with your toddler?

Anyway, speaking of food here are some pictures from the picnic last Sunday. He didn't go in the bounce house, but he did have a great time playing in the sand box and was fascinated by the trees.