September 25, 2009 Stats

9/25/09- 2 month checkup Stats:

Weight: 10 lbs 5.5 oz (10-20%) at birth he was 75%

Length: 23.5 inches (75%) at birth he was 90%

Head: 41 cm (75%) at birth he was 75%

So he is long and skinny with a big bobble head. We're still working on his weight gain- which he is slowly gaining again. I think it's because of the progress we've made with the bottle. He'll take it most of the time after a little bit of persistence. He's also napping better. However we jinxed the sleeping 9 hours at night-he hasn't done that since the doctor told me that I didn't have to wake him up. He now typically goes 5 hours- which I guess is good because he needs to eat. The lactation consultant thinks that he wouldn't wake up because he didn't have the energy from not much food in his system. Yesterday we did a weight check before and after a feed and with almost an hour of feeding he barely got an ounce. The lactation consultant said he should get that in less than 15 minutes. I'm not sure if that is how much he gets every time- because he was crying a lot during that feed which he doesn't normally do- but that would explain the poor weight gain. We just don't think he's very efficient at eating- not sucking right or something. But now I get to pump after every feed and try to make him take a couple ounces from the bottle as well to try to get him the amount he needs. We'll see if that helps.

I'm still avoiding all milk, eggs and soy- which is hard to do. I'm not sure if we're making progress or not. He still loves smiling and talking to his imaginary friends and not really for us. But at least I'm finding out that he has a fun time by himself so I can put him down and prepare dinner or something.

2 month update

Like father like son. Beckett loves to read and ride bikes (well, he will- right, Dan?).

You can't really see it but Beckett is wearing a library badge like Dan but his says "in training". We took these pictures for a spotlight on Dan in the library newsletter.

Beckett is two months old now. He's such a good active baby. There are two things everyone always comments on about him.

1. that he has such long fingers- I hope that means he'll be tall.

2. how wide-eyed alert he is- which is too true because I can't get him to sleep much during the day. That is something we are working on.

He still has had a few little problems.

1. At 3 weeks old a blocked tear duct surfaced. The doctor got us these eye drops that we were supposed to use for 5 days to fix it. Well it got better but Beckett's eye was still a little gunky so I continued using the drops and then it got worse again where his eye was sealed shut with gunk every few hours. I should have taken a picture when he'd try to open his eye- it was creepy. Anyways after a month of the drops and no progress someone in my ward told me to massage it- and within a day it got better- I kept doing it for a week and I haven't seen any gunk since. So in case any of you need to know, massage is very successful at clearing a blocked tear duct.

2. We started finding blood in his diaper- so we found out he has allergies to something I'm eating- not really a surprise there. So currently I am not supposed to eat soy, milk, cheese, or eggs- We will see if dairy is the culprit. We already are pretty good about no dairy because Dan is mildly allergic. But I have dairy every so often and now I'm going to have to be extra anal and looking at labels for hidden dairy.

3. Beckett has not gained any weight in over 2 weeks. He used be in the 75 percentile and now he's in the 10-20 percentile. Since he was 2 weeks we've been trying to get him to gain some good pounds- and we've still tried many ways to figure out how to do that, including me taking Goat's Rue (if you don't know what that is you should taste it). When he lost weight at 2 weeks they told me I needed to pump and find him from the bottle after he eats. But he refuses the bottle. So I just started freezing the milk. But now that he hasn't gained any weight in awhile- they want me to be more aggressive in getting him to take the bottle and try after every feed. So our feeding routine is 20 minutes on each side and then 20 minutes or so trying to force him the poison in the bottle (that's at least what he makes it seem like we're doing). And he eats every two hours so that plus burping and changing his diaper and frequently his outfit leaves a little over a half hour in between to play, nap (so he won't sleep when he eats), and get things I want done, like eat. And not to mention I also have to pump- thankfully not after every feed.

I can get him to nap but his feeds will be longer than 2 hours apart- which they don't really want. I'm trying to put him down for a nap when he's awake so he learns how to sleep on his own- that's the real challenge. Beckett's a good sleeper at night though- recently he's been going 9 hours (feed to feed during the night) I was afraid the doctor was going to tell me I needed to wake him up to eat since he wasn't gaining- but she said I didn't need to- that he should be make to make up for it during the day. My mom says I never really gained weight as a baby either- but I don't want Beckett to be my size!

Beckett has been talking and smiling recently. He still hasn't really smiled for us. For some reason staring at the plain white ceiling when he's on the changing table makes him happy. So we tried to record him entertaining himself- but didn't get a very good video- he always stopped when he saw the camera. Here's 2 of our attempts.