Two Months Old

Stats: At two months old, Matilda weighs 8 pounds 12 ounces (3rd percentile), is 20.75 inches long (2nd percentile), and has a head circumference of 14.75 inches (27th percentile).  She moved up from a newborn to size 1 diaper, and we now have her in 0-3 months clothes.

Sleep: Matilda only wants to sleep in her bouncer these days, so it moves with us from the living room during the day to our room at night.  While her naps are sporadic during the day and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours long, she usually gives us a good 4-5 hour stretch at the beginning of night followed by shorter 1-3 hour stretches.  She usually goes down at 6 pm and wakes up around 6 am. 

Eat: She eats in short 5-10 increments every 1.5-2 hours.  We've had some issues with her fussing during and after feedings, so we're going to start her on acid-reflux medicine to see if it helps.  She still doesn't want to eat from the bottle, even though we've now tried 5 or so different bottles and nipples. 

Play/ Milestones:  Around seven weeks old Matilda became much more pleasant.  She has started noticing toys and random household objects (light fixtures, curtains, pictures, etc.), started cooing, and giving us glimpses of social smiles.  Her best part of the day is when she first wakes up around 6 am, so we try to get some nice play time in before she goes down for a nap. 

When Matilda does start fussing, we still have to do a lot of rocking, jiggling, bouncing, etc. to try to get her calm.  We did realize that one of her cries actually means that she doesn't want to cuddle and wants to be put down in her bouncer.  We've also found that she loves the band Wild Belle, so if all else fails, we can put that album on and she will usually relax. 

We've also tried our hand at baby-wearing this month and have exclusively switched to cloth diapers which has been nice. 

 

The past few weeks we've tried to get out of the house a bit more.  In addition to my weekly mom's group, she's gone to a Ska-B-Q (a ska band and Bar-B-Q), ran errands with us, and watched her dad run a 5k and go to breakfast afterwards.  The second picture below was at her two month checkup.  She had two vaccinations, and only had a quick cry from the shot.  After all she's been though with her leg issues, the shot was a breeze.

  

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update:  It's been a rough month as far as her leg goes.  For the MRI, Matilda couldn't eat for 8 hours beforehand, so it was a pretty terrible day.  They tried to first do the MRI without anesthesia, but because she hadn't eaten all day she screamed the entire time and moved too much.  They finally sedated her to get a good scan.  The EMG and nerve conduction study were pretty miserable as well.  They literally stuck her with needles and zapped her with electrodes to test her muscles and nerves.  The good news is that her spine, muscles, and nerves all looked good. 

The MRI did show that her hip was fully dislocated though.  Since she finally started moving her left leg, the orthopedic surgeon thinks that she just had femoral nerve palsy which usually resolves on its own.  He decided to put her in a different hip abduction brace (the Rhino Cruiser), so hopefully she doesn't get the femoral nerve palsy again.  The first 24 hours in the brace were absolutely horrible.  She cried and screamed in pain, and we finally gave her Tylenol to help. The surgeon wants to do an ultrasound after four weeks in the brace.  If the hip isn't in place, then he will probably want to do surgery.  Since her leg really needs to stay in the brace as much as possible (although we have to remove it for diaper changes and baths), we are holding off on physical therapy for now. 

We're trying to make the brace as pleasant of an experience as possible.  We even decorated it with stickers to make it happier looking.  We really, really hope it works because we don't want Matilda to have to be in a spica cast for months.  As terrible as the brace is, I can only imagine how much worse the cast is. 

The ultrasound and follow-up appointment are scheduled for the 1st of July, so we'd appreciate lots of prayers in the meantime.