Just a HEAD's Up!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Lactation Consultant Advice (4m2days)

OK, I called and left a message for my pediatrician saying I am not comfortable starting solids at this time (I want to wait until 6 months) and to see if I could get a reflux medication for him and see if that helps us with his spit up.

I also called the lactation consultant that is in Ramona and told her what was going on. She gave me 3 things to do:

-eliminate ALL dairy in my diet for a week to see if he spits up less (because Nick is lactose intolerant he may be as well)

-while nursing compress my breast to make him get more milk/suck/swallow more since I told her I don't hear him swallowing the entire time he is nursing

-after he is done nursing, pump on the same side he just nursed to get out any extra hindmilk he hasn't sucked out and feed it to him via a bottle immediately to help him get more "Fatty good stuff"

She also said because he doesn't have frequent bowel movements doing these things may help with that as well and if we start seeing them increase in frequency to once every other day or so we know we are on the right track. In a week she wants me to call back and let her know how it's going and if we are still getting lots of spit up then she said maybe just maybe we would talk about solids (I didn't tell her about the asking for a reflux med yet).

I looked up the WHO growth charts and unfortunately they don't bump him up percentage-wise in weight. I plotted each of his lengths/weights and the percentiles have gone down each time:

Birth 8lb2oz (75%) 21in (95%)

3 weeks 8lb10oz (35%) 22in (85%)

6 weeks 9lb12oz (18%)

2 months 10lb10oz (15%) 23.75in (80%)

4 months 11lb13oz (less than 2%)>

I'll keep you updated on how the new suggestions from the LC go, no dairy is going to be interesting for me but if it fixes his spit up than I'm good with it!

4 month Appointment

Hey all!

At Brodie's four month old appointment we found that he is 25.25 inches long (55% ile), 11lb 13oz ( less than 5% ile), and has a 41cm head (25% ile). He is a little peanut!

The doctor wants us to start solids with him ASAP and come back in 3 weeks to see if he has gained some more weight and is spitting up less (he still spits up a TON). She said there was new research stating it's better to start solids earlier. I initially agreed, but after looking into it more and reading the "research" (I found the article they published stating it) when I got home I have decided I don't want to start solids (at all) until 6 months. We may just need some reflux medication to help him keep more food down. I just call the pediatrician and let them know. I'm waiting on a call back to see if I can get an over the phone prescription. If anything, I found out from the ped that usually they outgrow the spitting up by 9 months/when they start to crawl. That's encouraging...only 5 more months! And, when he does start solids she said to give him infant oatmeal/barley instead of rice cereal because

of his lack of pooping...apparently rice can make him more constipated and since he already only poops 1x every 6-9 days we don't wanna make that worse. For my records, she said to give him 2-3tsp (or 1 Tbs) of cereal watered down until very runny with breast milk. Then wash it down with a few sips of water.

I also told them about his adhesive allergy and they made a note of it on his chart. They had me help them use cotton balls and press down on the shot sites to stop bleeding instead of using a band-aid. The nurse ALMOST put a band-aid on him and I had to intercept her and put my hand over his leg to stop her (she said she forgot).

I also talked to the doctor about his dry skin, and since I didn't know the name of Nick's skin condition she said just keep putting vasaline lotion or olive oil on his skin 2x a day.

Oh and I asked about a schedule for him since I only have the nights/early mornings on a bit of a routine so far. She said that at about 6 months babies can form a nice schedule but before then we can suggest times for him to nap by dimming the room and keeping the times consistent. So, I'm trying for a 10-11am nap and a 2ishpm nap. She said 10-10:30pm was too late for a bedtime, and to make it more like 8pm. Sooo much stuff to digest and figure out as a new mom! The only thing I forgot to ask about was signs of teething/if he might be since Nick and I think he is possibly doing all the signs of it.

Other than doctor visit stuff Brodie is doing great! He turned 4 months old on Saturday and is soooo animated and fun to be with. He rolls over from tummy to back (started doing this at 10 weeks 2 days) and can get on his side when trying to roll back to tummy. He LOVES standing up (and can stay standing without getting tired for over 5 minutes) so we ordered a jumperoo thing for the doorway. I can't wait to see how he does with that.

Um, what else.... He "Talks" up a storm to us and chuckles when we talk back. He grabs at his toys and pulls them to his mouth with ease, loving to eat anything and everything his lips touch. We are so blessed by him and are loving every moment of being parents (even the 3am feeding times!).

Ok that was a long enough post...but I wanted to get that all out in writing before I forgot haha. Next post....how I'm becoming a crunchy mommy even though I never expected to be like this...

~Heather

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Sea World and Cousin Hangout

We did Sea World again with Brodie on Sunday (16w1d). We went this time with Sarah, Kenny (her fiance) and Josh. :) It was a nice, relaxing time and even tho we forgot the camera we got a few pics on the cell phone!

Also, last Friday Emelie and I were having our weekly hangout and we FINALLY got a few good pictures of Cali and Brodie together...took about 100 pics to get 3 good ones but whatevs!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Cloth Diapering Post FINALLY!!!! (15w5d)

All of my cloth diapering stuff finally got here last Thursday (so a week ago). My covers were held up in customs coming from Canada. I promptly washed them so I could make the big switch on Friday to cloth entirely. I guess I should back up and say why we went with cloth and what we chose to do. :)

Brodie had a diaper rash (red, scratchy, and raised) for over a month. After about 2 weeks of having a rash I decided that I needed to look into cloth diapers (Sarah and Bree already were doing cloth and said it was easy). When I started to research cloth diapering I discovered some VERY interesting facts:

-50 MILLION disposable diapers are thrown away EVERY DAY

-A disposable takes between 250-500 years to decompose

-You will spend over $2000 on disposable diapers for one child from birth to potty training

-You will spend another $500 on wipes per kid

-There are some things in disposables that can cause cancer

-Our wipes we were using have been shown to cause a rash

With my new found knowledge I told nick I was seriously considering switching to cloth diapers with Brodie and to my surprise he responded, "I'm actually really glad that we are going to switch to cloth diapers...I think they will be a lot better for us and him."

Then, I dove into the world of cloth diapers and all the different types that exist now a days. There are a lot more options than rubber pants and pinning cloth. Now there are prefolds w/ covers, fitteds with covers, pockets, AIO's, AI2's, and hybrid systems. After LOTS of research we decided to go with prefolds with covers as our main system with a few gdiapers and pockets thrown in there as well. I have yet to try the pockets and have only tried one gdiaper but the prefolds are working great! No leaks except a dime sized poo spot on his outfit this morning but that was to be expected since he hadn't pooped in literally a week.

I'm loving the cloth diapers. I feel like we are doing the best for our little man, we aren't contributing to the landfills, we are saving literally THOUSANDS of dollars (I think I spend less than 300 on all the diapers/accessories for diapers total), and Brodie's bum is soft like a baby's bottom should be.

With cloth diapering came the need to rearrange our house/nursery. We took Brodie out of our room (he was in a co-sleeper) and put him into his room (in his crib) 8 days ago. That's going great as well. We took off the changing pad/diaper storage on the pack n play to make it smaller since all the changes are happening in the nursery now. And the nursery, well, we had to TOTALLY rearrange it to better meet our needs. Now he has a wonderful changing station complete with a diaper pail, hangers for diaper covers, a changing pad, an organizer for many essentials, and my cloth wipes (which pop up like disposables in an old Huggies case!) with wipes solution. We even have a basket of burp cloths for easy access. The new nursery set up has a lot more storage, floor space, and is cleaner. :) I'm so happy with all the changes we are making around here and with how happy our little man is.