4 Months check up

Nathan had is 4 month check up a few days ago. He is still measuring up to be on the small side, but the pediatrician is happy with his growth progress. Head circumference and weight, he measures in the 3 percentile, but as far as height goes, he is in the 50th percentile. He has also reached many of the 4 month milestones and then some. He's even learning how to drive. He can't really drive yet because he can't reach the pedals or see above the wheel. But I think he gets it. 

Nathan received his vaccinations, took them like a champ, but became very fussy the rest of the day and had a low grade fever that night. Other than that, he's a happy baby. The pediatrician was a bit concerned about him not sleeping longer at night and suggested that I start to sleep train him and even start him on solids. I'm all about him sleeping for longer stretches at night, but I'm just afraid that I would be depriving him of much needed nutrition if I force him to sleep a bit longer. However, the pediatrician said that he would grow better if he was sleeping for longer stretches at night. I think I'm going to take baby steps as far as sleep training goes. Right now, Nathan wakes up a little under 3 hours at night to feed. I think I will stretch at least the first feeding to at least 4 hours. He was doing this before Christmas, so he should be able to do this now. We'll see how it goes tonight. 

I have to say, it is nice that he is able to fall asleep on his own. This week he has started to go down at around 7:30. We go through the sleep routine and once I put him down, he is asleep in less than 10 minutes with little to no fussing. 

Tomorrow, when I go to the store, I will pick up a box of rice cereal for him to try. I had him try a bit of avocado mixed with breast milk and he gave me the yuck face. I'll try rice cereal first, then sweet potato and banana. If he doesn't show any interest, I think I will wait a month before trying again. 

The baby party finally took place. It was good to see all the babies (and their parents). It was pretty cool seeing how differently each parent interacted with their baby. We did another pass the baby session, and still Nathan is the runt of the litter. Yesterday, I went walking at a local trail with some of the mommies. It was a beautiful cloudy day in the 70's with a slight breeze. I enjoyed the conversations that we had and before I knew it, we had gone 4.5 miles and it was lunch time. I am looking forward to the weekly walk sessions. 

I got a jumpy chair for Nathan at the baby consignment store. So far he likes to sit/stand in it, but he has not figured out how to jump in it. As far as milestones go, 1) he has become much more interested in his toes; 2) he has better aim when grabbing objects ; 3) once he grabs something, usually it goes straight into his mouth and 4) he can exchange a smaller toy from one hand to the other. He has also become quite vocal and his repertoire of sounds now include sounds from the "g" family, along with gurgling. 

This Sunday, he is going to get baptized. The outfit that he will be wearing was Steve's baptismal outfit. I will definitely post pics next week. 

The snot sucking adventures of week 17

If I thought last week was rough, the end of this week was even worse. Let me start at the beginning of the week. Nathan probably went through a growth spurt last week because the day after I wrote the last post, he started to sleep better. He's still sleeping 2.75 - 3 hour stretches at night, but I've come to accept that this is how it's going to be (Although last night, we had a 3.75 hr. stretch). He's still on the small side for his age, so I'm guessing that this is his way of catching up.

As far as milestones go, he is doing very well. This week I've noticed that Nathan is tracking objects better. There is no longer a long 5 second lag. He's also starting to bat at objects and will grab my hair and shirt. When I have him on the ground for tummy time, he is also grabbing the blanket that I have laid down underneath him. He can also sit upright on his Boppy pillow!

And stand up while holding onto something for support.

So it turns out that we were unable to have the baby party afterall. It turns out that the day before the party, I started to get the sniffles. I probably got it when I went to the doctor to get my carpel tunnel syndrome checked out. But, I was sad to have to send out the message to the other mommies, canceling the party. The next day, I felt pretty horrible. All I wanted to do was sleep. Luckily, Steve was home to help take care of Nathan, so I was able to get a bit of shut eye during the day. Fast forward a couple of days, and Nathan starts to cough occasionally. On Monday, he starts to have a stuffy/runny nose. I got a chance to use the Nose Frida for the first time. So if you use the picture below as a reference, you stick the blue end against one of his nostrils and as you suck on the red end, you will see and hear an oddly satisfying sound as snot gets sucked out of his nasal cavities and into the tip of the tube. It's pretty suckin' awesome!

That first 24 hours, I was pretty much sucking his boogers out every 45 minutes - 1.5 hours (even through the night) because he was start to get super fussy. With me getting over my own cold, and waking up every hour and a half, was not fun at all. Nevertheless, we got through that first night and daylight came once again.

That morning, Nathan felt a bit hot, so I took his temperature with the infrared ear thermometer and it read 99.5 degrees...a little hot for him. So, I called up the nurse and she told me that I should bring him in if his temperature was above 100.4 degrees and he was getting fussy. Oh, and I had to take his temperature rectally. I thought to myself, great. He doesn't like getting his boogers sucked out, good luck with sticking a thermometer up his butt. So, I put some lube on the thermometer, turned him onto his side and did it. To my surprise, he took it very well. The whole time, he was looking at stuff on the wall. Before I knew it, the thermometer started to beep and to my horror, it read 101.4.

I then went into panicky first time crazy mommy mode and thought I need to take him in. He has a fever and if it gets any higher, he's going to have brain damage and I don't want to give him Tylenol because there has been studies that correlate Tylenol usage for children under 7 to asthma. So, I called up the ped's office and made an appointment.

Later, when I was a bit more rational, I realized that maybe he didn't need to go in to see the doctor just quite yet. A fever is a body's way of fighting pathogens and plus his fever wasn't that high. Other than being a bit hot and congested, he was still a pretty happy baby. So, I decided to just wait it out, but call the nurse again, just to be sure. She advised me to give him Tylenol and if his fever didn't go down, to give him a nice long bath.

With a sick baby, we made the journey to the grocery store and picked up some grape Tylenol. The rest of the day went ok. He didn't sleep well, but I attributed that to the stuffiness. As obsessed as I was about sucking the snot out of him, it seems as more always returned as soon as I finished.

Last night was much better. We turned the humidifier on in his room and it seemed to help a lot. He was still able to breathe when I went in at night to nurse him. It seems like things are looking up...except Steve now has the sniffles and a sore throat. :(

Not So Sweet Sleep Regressions of Week 16

Oh baby, what has happened to you? This week has been a weird week. Our little one has not been sleeping as well as he did in the past few weeks. First of all, he's been waking up every 2 and a half hours at night wanting to nurse, and his feedings are taking over an hour. Then, during nap times, he is unable to self-soothe himself back to sleep after completing a 46 min sleep cycle. We have come to depend on white noise for him to fall asleep most of the time. Otherwise he will cry his head off when we put him down. I'm not quite sure what is going on, but I have a a few thoughts:

Sleeping like a baby under the blanket that his
 great grandmother made for him.

a) He's going through his 3 month growth spurt. If he was born on his due date, this week would mark his 3 months out of the womb.
b) He still needs to be swaddled. He has been breaking out of his swaddle, so he has been sleeping without a swaddle. I think I will try swaddling him tonight to see if that will help him sleep longer.
c) He's becoming aware of my absence. Maybe he's starting to understand object permanence.

As far as milestones, nothing has really happened this week. The only thing that I've noticed is that he tolerates car rides a bit better. Most of the car rides this week have been relatively cry-free.

After searching far and wide, I finally got a flu shot. Apparently the vaccine this year is 60% effective as opposed to the 0% for the past 7 years. (No wonder I got the flu each time I got the shot). My arm was a bit sore the day afterwards, but other than that, I'm ok.  Also, my wrist has been bothering me more so this week, so I decided to go see the doctor. I am officially diagnosed with having carpel tunnel syndrome. It's not too serious, but I'm just taking ibuprofen and wearing a splint for awhile. I must lay off of playing one handed angry birds at night while nursing.

I'm looking forward to this weekend when we will have many babies in the Havlir home. We're hosting a pot luck for our centering group. It will be a super cute event. Can't wait.

Until then, let's hope for a better week 17.

We Be Rollin' Into Week 15

This used to be Steve's Mickey

He At the beginning of this week, Nathan rolled over from his tummy to his back. He did it about 4 times before he got tired of me rolling him over. Later that evening, when Steve came home from work, I wanted to show him what Nathan could do. Of course, Nathan did not perform. However, the next day, Steve was able to witness the roll first hand. 

Nathan also giggled for the first time today. We were all sitting in his room and Nathan was on the Boppy for some tummy time. He was watching Teddy do his "speak" trick. Suddenly, Nathan started to giggle each time after Teddy would speak. It was really neat, considering that Nathan usually doesn't even pay attention to Teddy. It seemed like it was the first time Nathan noticed Teddy and really watched him. I definitely look forward to hearing more giggles from the boy.

His new favorite toy

Nathan has also started to like playing with toys. I noticed that he has started to chew on his hands a lot, so  I got him a Sophie and a chon. Both toys are made out of natural rubber and are painted with food grade paint. And both of them have very cute squeaks.  So far, he likes the Sophie the best. When I first showed Nathan the toys, he wasn't very interested. (However, the toys made Teddy very excited). Today as I was making lunch, I gave Nathan the Sophie, and when I looked over towards his direction, he was definitely chomping on one of the legs. At one point, he even had a whole leg shoved into his tiny little mouth. 

As far as bottle feeding goes, he is still rejecting the bottle. It's not a big problem, bu I really hope he gets over this eventually so that date nights will be possible for mommy and daddy. 

We've been using the Wii fit to keep track of Nathan's growth. This morning, when I weighed him, he finally reached 12.1 pounds. A few more ounces and he will have doubled his birth weight. What a big boy he is. 

As far as sleep goes, I think he's finally fallen into a pattern. I tried putting him to bed around 8 earlier this week and it was nice. I really didn't know what to do with the extra alone time that I had.  I dream fed him around 10. He woke up at around 2:30, nursed, and then didn't wake up until 6:30, 7ish. 

I found that if I turned on the ghetto white noise machine (static from clock radio), I could get him to sleep an extra 45 minutes. Making our day start at a reasonable 7 am. I've been tracking his sleep and he seems to sleep about 13 hours a day. Nathan then takes a 1-2 hour nap before lunch, and then a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. I'm really enjoying this predictable sleep/nap pattern because it really allows me to be more productive. 

Nathan really enjoys book time with us. He's usually able to sit through a whole story book without fussing. Sometimes he quietly studies the pages as we read, and sometimes he tries to read along with us. One night, I stumbled upon this sweet sight. 

So the news about the flu has been flooding the news. In the past, I've gotten flu shots and end up getting the flu anyways, so recently, I have not been getting a shot. Being a teacher probably exposed my immune system to so many strains of germs that I probably got the strain that was not in the vaccine. My friend Kathleen told me that this year's vaccine matches the prevalent strain that is out right now, so I decided to get a vaccine. Well, it's been a week and I have not been able to get the shot. All of the places that I've visited are out of the vaccine. Luckily, there are still places to try, but I hope to get vaccinated soon so Nathan is better protected.   

Nursery Pics

I just realized that I never really posted any pictures of the nursery. I think I'm pretty much done with it and I'm very happy with how it turned out. Now that Nathan's sleeping in his crib, I find myself spending more time in the nursery. Being in the nursery makes me happy.

View as you walk in. The mobile used to be Steve's.

Storage boxes made out of cardboard boxes.

Many hours are spent on this chair. 

Guess who that little bump in the crib is.

 Below are the pieces of art that I've created for Nathan. 

The Developmental Changes of Week 14

 After a delayed flight and a semi-tear filled car drive, we are glad to be home. We didn't get home until 10:30 on New Years Eve so that made a long 9 and half hour travel for our little guy. Again, the flight went well. The only difference was that he slept most of the trip. As we were getting off of the flight, so many people were like, we didn't even know you guys had a baby.

The original plan was to put Nathan in his own crib the night we got back. But since it was so late, we just put him back into the pack and play in our bedroom. Last night was his first night in the crib. He went to sleep on his own as usual, and slept a good 3.75 hours before he woke for a feeding. Afterwards, it was every 2 hours. So by 6 am this morning, I just brought him back to bed and snuggled with him until 9:30. It was nice.

For the past few months, we have been giving Nathan some of the saved up milk from my milk saver, which is about 2 oz. after his 10 pm feeding. I found that this helped him stay asleep longer. Well, in the past few days, he's been rejecting the bottle. Last week I was able to trick him by sliding the bottle in as he was latched on, but no sir, he didn't want anything to do with it. I finally had to use a medicine dropper and fed him 1 mL at a time. He took it, but it took awhile. I really hope this is a phase and that he will drink from a bottle soon.

Last night, during our final play time, I put Nathan on his exersaucer. We've been putting him on that thing for a couple of weeks, but for the first time last night, he actually reached for some of the toys that were surrounding him. He can also sit up on his own (with some modifications as shown below) and hold his head up pretty well.

I used some DVD drives to help overcome his shortness.

During our play sessions this past week, Nathan and I have been working on standing up and sitting down. He starts out laying on his back in front of me. I put my fingers in his hands and I pull my hand towards me slightly. He will bend his legs and lift his head to sit up. I then raise my arms a little bit and he straightens his legs to stand up. At that point, he is pretty much holding himself up, only holding my two fingers.
He still doesn't like tummy time (but he likes tummy time on the boppy).

As Nathan becomes more interactive, I find myself falling in love with him even more. His sweet smiles and gentle coos really makes me want to play with hiim 24/7. But I know he needs his nap times and things in the house need to be done. I really am lucky to have an opportunity to stay at home with Nathan. It's so neat to see all the new little things that is able to do each day.

Weird post pregnancy symptoms have appeared recently. 1) My hair is falling out like crazy and 2) While my arm doesn't go numb as often, I sometimes get this sharp shooting pains in my wrist when I apply pressure or lift objects with my wrist. I sure hope it's hormonal and will improve soon.  I know that the hair thing is pretty normal, although, I thought that it would occur immediately after the birth.

Today in yoga the instructor was saying some cheesy new year goal setting things during relaxation and she said something along the lines of try something new and give it 90 days because your body needs about 90 days to really learn how to do something new. I have been a mom for about 90 days. I'd say I kind of have it down, but there are still days where I get stumped. If I were to set a goal, or resolution for this new year, it would be confidence in my mothering abilities and the usual clean for 10 minutes each day.