Two Month Check Up

It's been over a week since my last post, but we have been exhaustingly busy.  Ryan and I have been navigating the world of bottles, nipples, formula, etc, etc.  I received a lot of good information at his two week check up, and am already seeing some improvement.  But first, the goods....

Two Month Stats

Weight:  11lbs 14oz  (50th percentile)

Length:  23 1/4 inches (50th percentile)

Head: 16 inches (75th percentile)

Chunker and I waiting for the doc.

Ryan is a bit longer and bit lighter than his brother at this point.  Same big Latta head, though.  But the most important part of this check up was to discuss the Tummy Issues.  Oh, how they have plagued us.  The squirming, the screaming, the tooting!  

It all started around 5 1/2 weeks, and I thought it was related to his six week growth spurt.  But then it kept going, and getting worse.  After a phone call to the doc and then this check up, we have been tweaking a little of everything.  If you could imagine a graphic equalizer (does anyone under 30 years old know what that is!?).  You tweak this nob, then this one, trying to get just the perfect sound out of your music.  Well, that has been us, but instead of bass and treble, I've been tweeking...bottle, nipple, nipple flow, formula brand, formula type, burping frequency, position, etc, etc!   And of course, you can't change them all at once, otherwise you don't know what's working.  

In the end, it seems that regular formula in a cheap-o bottle with a slow-flo, latex nipple may be the winner.  Though I'm not ready to call it just yet.  We're also burping every ounce, making sure there's a solid latch (no milk spilling out the sides!), sitting up for a bit afterwards. And while we've run the gammut on formulas, and we're actually back on regular Similac, I'm thinking I like Enfamil better.  I think he spits up less, and it definitely mixes better.  And hey, I have a crap load of Avent and Dr. Brown's bottles that were are not going to use - consignment sale, here we come!

The other great part of the two month check up - the OK to start sleep training!  I've been hesitant due to the tummy issues - I wasn't 100% sure my little guy didn't have GERD or something serious that would prevent me from letting him start to cry it out.  But the doc gave me the thumbs up.  I waited a few more days as we made some bottle/formula changes, and I slowly eliminated feedings, and didn't let him cry the first few nights.  But now, I'm officially letting him cry, and he's doing SO well!  (Better than his big brother!)  I'm waiting five minutes the first time he cries, 10 minutes the next time, and so on.  I haven't had to let him cry past 10 minutes - he's calming himself down.  WooHoo!  Looks like a 9pm-7am sleep pattern is emerging.  He keeps waking up around the 2am hour, but falls right back to sleep once I go in to soothe at the 5 minute mark.  Last night, he woke up again around 6am, but since I'm insisting on the 7am wake up time, he cried himself back to sleep and woke up at 7:30. I'm hoping by the end of the week, he'll be 100% trained!  

And he's so happy when he wakes up!  He sees me, and gives me his great big GRIN, gets his diaper changed and he's ready to eat!  Once we have the 9pm-7am time down, I'll work on getting that bedtime closer to 7:30.  Sean's pretty much been sleeping 12 hours since 10 weeks, but he was also a thumb sucker!  He self-soothed with no help from his Momma!  Ryan is not a thumb sucker that we can tell, and while he likes his paci, he's not dependent on it.  So we'll see how this continues.  I'm glad to see this going well, though, and glad to see a routine emerge to our days as well.  Is normal life around the corner??