Half a year old already! WOW! (6 months old)

My handsome Brodie Cole is 6 months old today! I can't believe how fast this time has gone and know it's going to continue to speed by if I'm not careful. I am trying my hardest to savor and remember every moment with my family.

Brodie is definitely growing up more and more. He now makes the "ba" sound combined with "da", "goo", screetches, and raspberries. It's getting louder in this house the last couple of weeks hehe.

Brodie is also sitting up unassisted for short periods of time. If you even keep one hand on him he can sit there forever and today he sat down in the corner for probably 30-60 seconds happily without face planting.

In terms of rolling over, he does it with more ease but not every time I put him on his playmat. He likes cuddling with me and hanging out in his rocker chair so maybe I'm not giving

him enough opportunities to roll over. Hopefully it doesn't impend his development. :(

Brodie is making tons of facial expressions in the last couple of months too! He has a scrunchy face he does when he's super happy, a funny lip type thing, and a very wide mouthed smile when he screeches. This is in addition to a pouty face that reminds me of Joshua so much its freaky and a smile that melts my heart every morning.

He is still sleeping through the night (he has since Feb 18th) and his "schedule" is to go to bed between 8-9pm and he wakes up betwe

en 6:20-7am. This is LOVELY for my sanity in terms of how rested I feel but has also resulted in him eating less times per day because he is up less hours a day. He now eats between 5-6 times a day instead of 8-10 times a day. I think he eats more efficiently now though and can suck more milk out faster than he did before.

Brodie grabs on to anything and everything

with his hands, crossing the midline ALL THE TIME and getting my hair in his grasp constantly. I think I'm going to be switching back to contacts soon because of the sheer number of fingerprints that get on my glasses every day and the amount of cleanings I have to do. When he does get something in his mouth he nom noms on it and makes biting motions with his gums. I think he may be teething because this is associated with drool.

We had Brodie's 6 month pediatrician appointment yesterday and it went ok. Vital stats:

Weight: 13lb 1oz (only up 3oz from his FIVE month weight of 12lb 14oz)

Length: 25.5 inches (up .25 inches from his FOUR month length of 12.25 in)

Head: 42.5cm circumference (up 1.5cm from his FOUR month circ. of 41cm)

The pediatrician is getting pretty concerned about his weight because he is still not even on th

e percentile chart and he only gained 3oz in a month

(which is pretty much his morning breakfast feeding amount, if not less than a feeding amount). He was very happy when I told him I was going to start solids with Brodie this weekend. He said "he isn't thriving right now" and that solids would "help him bulk up with the extra calories they provide." He's probably right, and either way I'm not freaking out about it. He's happy and healthy! :)

The ped also said to continue with the reflux meds but not up the dose with an increase in weight because he wants to phase it out since it only helps with the barfing about 1/2 the days.

Brodie got the 3rd round of shots and the rotavirus oral vaccination. He received 2 out of the 3 standard ones...whatever those are (can't remember the abbreviations). The one he didn't get was HepB since we opted out of that one. The doc wants to give it to him at his 9 month but I told him that I want to wait until much later in life to give it to him...like right before Brodie goes into junior high. I also declined the flu shot for this year. I got a long lecture on the importance of both of the shots I declined and you would think that I was killing my kid by not giving him these shots. Well, I questioned the doctor after the lecture on HepB and he finally admitted that Brodie wasn't at risk until he engaged in sex or drugs with someone who was contaminated with HepB virus. In terms of the flu virus, we are going to research it more and possibly give it to him next flu season (since the season's almost over I didn't want to bother with it this year).

Anyway, back to baby food.... We are going to make our own baby food because it is healthier, fresher, and cheaper. Tomorrow we are starting our first meal meal of solids besides the cereal he had for the 4th month of life. And, what is that meal you may ask? AVOCADO! :) I'm excited and am looking forward to the messy pictures and video that will come from it.

I leave you with a few 6 month photoshoot pictures I took of Brodie this afternoon. He was being an absolute HAM! :)

~Heather

I LOVE this little boy with all my heart! (Photo bomb!)

I love my little man!

Belated 5 month post

Brodie turned 5 months on the 2nd and it seems like he is becoming more like a "baby" and less like an "infant" with each passing day. This past week has consisted of Brodie discovering some new things with his voice, including how to screech and how to blow raspberries. While very cute and very fun, the screeching sometimes causes my ears to bleed and makes my head feel like it's going to explode! :P I love our little man and am so impressed by how strong and smart he is :)

Here are the videos of his "screech" and raspberries.

Hope you enjoyed!
~Heather

Weight Check (2 days shy of 5 months)

Yesterday was Brodie's weight check-up to see if the oatmeal had helped him gain a bit of weight (since he was so little at his 4 month check up). Right after we checked in, I sat down with him while waiting to be called back and he spit up all over his bib, my pants, and left a nice puddle on the floor. I asked for something to clean it up with and did so. He had already spit up 3-4 big times at home from his 9:45-10:25 feeding and it was now 11:30 so I didn't think much of it. Then, our name was called and as we were walking down the hallway we saw the doctor coming towards us from the opposite direction. Before we passed her Brodie proceeded to projectile vomit onto the floor and all over himself again. She saw the spit up and us as well as every nurse heard the splatting of it against the floor. The nurses said they would clean it up and told me to just get him undressed for the weight check in the room. As soon as I laid him down on the bench he barfed again, all over the bench/paper stuff. I got him undressed (nekkid cause cloth diapers are heavy) and we weighed him. He weighed... drum roll please....

12lbs 14oz!!!

The doctor was really happy with that number, because it was 1lb 1oz weight gain in only 25 days. He still is not even in the 2 percentile on the growth charts but she said he is following his own curve and that is good.

Then, I asked her how they check for acid reflux in babies. She said the studies were invasive. She saw him barf so much in the hallway and knew that was associated with more barfing (I told her about all the other times associated with the previous feeding alone) and that he makes a face when he barfs sometimes like, "Ewww that tasted nasty!" So, she said she was going to put him on baby reflux medication. She wrote us a prescription for baby Zantac and told me to give him 1ml in the morning and 1ml at night. FINALLY!!! I have been thinking we needed reflux medication since 2-3 months old and they finally prescribed it!

We have an appointment on March 21st to see how he is doing weight wise again and to see how the Zantac is working for him. Then, we have the 6 month check up a few weeks after that. :)

I gave Brodie the first dose of medicine today at about 9:30am and about 5 minutes ago was the first time he spit up! I'm praying the medicine works great and in turn he gains a good amount of weight. We are supposed to continue the baby oatmeal 1x a day with him since he doesn't throw that up and go from there.

YAY for encouraging news!!!!

~Heather

Crunchy Mama Love/Overall Brodie update (stolen from Sarah's post idea a while ago)

Before I was a mom and even at the beginning of my pregnancy I never thought I would become a "crunchy" mom. I hadn't given more than a passing thought to natural birth control, how I would give birth, breastfeeding, diapering, vaccinations, etc. I guess I just figured what the majority of the people did was sort of the norm and what was best for my baby. Then, I started researching each subject when the right time came around and discovered that the "norm" wasn't what I wanted.

First we chose to get off the hormonal birth control and switch to FAM (including temping and checking CM) with a non hormonal barrier method for fertile times. When we decided to get pregnant, it only took us 2 cycles (which were abnormal as well), 2.5 months to get pregnant! It was an awesome time practicing FAM and getting to know my body in more detail.

Then, when we got pregnant, I started researching natural childbirth. My friend Jessica had gone through the Bradley Child birthing course. I was immediately intrigued, especially since Jessica's birth/recovery was the best of anyone I knew. So, we watched a lot of informational videos, read a lot of research articles, and attended 25 hours of birthing class. We made a birth plan and had plans to not use any pain meds at all. Because of Brodie's heart decelerating/me being strapped to a bed and back labor I caved and got an epidural but besides limited movement and the epidural my birth went as I wished. No coached pushing, no episiotomy, delayed cord cutting, immediate skin/skin contact, no weighing/measuring for 2hrs, breastfeeding on demand, and alone time with just me, my husband and my son. LOVED IT! Next time I know not to go to the hospital as soon as my water breaks (I will be waiting til I can't stand the pain, then heading down) and I will be more assertive during labor.

I used to think it was just standard to have bottles in the diaper bag and feed said bottles to the child. I knew people breastfed, but didn't really think too much about the in public/all the time aspect of it. When I got pregnant I realized I wanted to exclusively breastfeed. Luckily for me, my child latched on really well in the hospital and despite some "potential difficulties" and a hard few days of engorgement that has been going GREAT! :) He is a nursing pro, still nursing every 2-3 hours and getting lots of great nutritional foodstuffs from my boobies. :) I'm very PRO breastfeeding in public and don't care if someone sees my boob...sucks to be them if they are offended. :P

I was convinced that I would be using disposable diapers with my child because the idea of cloth diapering was "icky" to me. I could never wash and deal with pee/poo in that way. Well, when Brodie was about a month old he got a rash that just didn't go away. I tried everything to get it to disappear, to no avail. After a month of this I decided I had to do something drastic. I looked up the possibility of allergies disposable diapers/wipes and found the advantages of cloth and some scary things about disposables. We decided then to make the switch to cloth diapers. It took us another month to order/gather all the necessary supplies and build up a stash large enough to go to cloth 100%, and we did when Brodie was just over 3 months old. Within 24 hours there was NO rash and since then his bottom has actually been "soft as a baby's bottom" and so much happier. :) It's saving us over 2000 dollars per kid as well. I feel so great about this decision and Nick is stoked that we went to cloth as well. I wish more people cloth diapered and discovered the cloth diaper goodness!

In terms of baby wearing, that was a relatively new term for me that I stumbled across while on a pregnancy forum. There are so many cool carriers and benefits to baby wearing that there was no way that I WASN'T going to baby wear. I currently have a stretchy wrap, a Mei tai, and an ergo ssc. :) I love all three and use them very very often. I just used one this morning while cooking breakfast and will use one tomorrow while gallivanting around doing errands. They all have some advantages that make them better for certain things. I've shared my knowledge with friends and because of my talks with them (and probably their own research as well) I now have 5 more people baby wearing with proper carriers! :)

We have started giving Brodie 1 pumped feedings worth of breast milk mixed with baby oatmeal/barley a day. The ped recommended this because he is so tiny for his age (weight wise). But, it has always been my intention to delay solids until AT LEAST 6 months. I don't totally consider what we are giving him a solid since it's just a thickened breast milk, but I'm also not going to give him any more than we are now until 6 months. I will not add water to the oatmeal instead of milk because I don't want him to miss out on ANY good nutrition from breast milk. People may say "what's the big deal?" Well, there are a lot of reasons to not give solids until 6 months at the minimum. This article has some great info: http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/delay-solids.html . When we do start solids I'd like to make my own baby food :)

Lastly, delayed vaccinations. We declined the eye goo in the hospital as well as the Hep B shot. There was no need for either of these with Brodie because they are STD related and we don't have ST D's. I have continued to decline Hep B and after the rest of his 6 month vaccinations will be researching all of the ones he is scheduled to get at his 1 year appointment and weigh pros/cons to each. I may be delaying/denying some of those vaccinations if they are not necessary at such a young age or at all.

So, all in all I have become quite the hippy/crunchy mom. The only thing we don't do is co-sleep (yet we did have him in a co-sleeper bassinet for the first 3 months). I'm happy with my decisions and encourage people to do research on the major aspects of parenting before they just go with what everyone else is doing. You'd be surprised with how much is out there to learn and is different than it may seem on the outside. Make informed decisions and do what is best for your family. :) I'd be happy to answer any questions if anyone wants more info on anything we are doing/have found.

GO CRUNCHY MAMAS!