Four Months Old

This month has been a good month! Matilda is becoming a much more pleasant and fun baby! I’m so glad we are out of the newborn phase and that she is a lot more social and active now.

Stats: At her four month appointment, Matilda weighed 11 pounds 5 ounces (3rd percentile), was 22.5 inches long (1st percentile), and had a head circumference of 15.75 inches (30th percentile). We moved her into 6 months clothes about a week ago.

Sleep: She still sleeps swaddled in her bouncer, but we’ve tried to 1) start weaning her from her swaddle (by leaving one hand out) and 2) lay her in her crib for some naps. Both have been met with limited success. Jason worries about what we’ll do when she doesn’t fit into her bouncer with her cast on, but I think it will be a hard adjustment either way and we’ll just address it once we’re there.

During the day, her naps are still all over the place. I would say the most common pattern is two 45 minute naps in the morning and two in the afternoon.  Most nights she goes down between 6-8 pm and wakes up between 6-7 am. She usually wakes once around 3 am to eat. We have a pretty good bedtime routine. She wakes up from her last nap shortly before I get home around 5:30 pm. Once I get home I feed her, play with her a bit, give her a bath (which might be her favorite part of the day), put her in her PJ’s, then nurse her to bed.

Eat: After two and a half weeks of being back at work and Matilda not taking a bottle during the day, we have given up on bottle feeding. Jason’s mom and grandma came to help the second full week I was back at work, and they could not get her to take a bottle either. I now come home during my lunch break to feed her, and then Jason brings her up to my work mid-afternoon so she can eat again. I’m basically a drive-through restaurant for my baby.

I think this has been one of the most frustrating things about parenting thus far, because nobody ever warns you your baby might not take a bottle. Sure, you get warned about colic and lack of sleep or even breastfeeding trouble, but nobody ever mentions that a baby could hate bottles. I always thought that all the different bottle designs were more for the benefit of the parents (i.e. which bottle the parents chose to use), not because babies are so picky and have preferences for how they eat.

We’re hoping to start her on rice cereal soon, so that way maybe I could just meet them once during the day instead of twice. Let’s hope we have better success with sippy cups, because eventually this girl is going to have to learn to eat/ drink on her own.

All that being said, I do enjoy breastfeeding and I’m very thankful that have the ability to see her several times during my work day. I’m thankful I live close to work and that my managers are flexible enough to allow this to happen. I’m also thankful I don’t have to deal with pumping and cleaning pump parts and bottles. I’m also going through an approval process to donate most of my frozen milk stash to babies in need, so I’m happy that someone will hopefully be able to benefit from it.

Play/ Milestones: Playtime is fun these days. One of Matilda’s favorite things to do is to smile and chat with you. Heck, she’ll even babble to herself if nobody is around to listen. We’ve also heard plenty of happy squeals and a few giggles (even though those are hard to get out of her!)

While she’s shown no interest in rolling yet, we still practice tummy time to help build those back and neck muscles. She loves to sit up supported, and if she’s leaning back or lying down she’ll try to do baby sit-ups to get in a sitting position.

Jason built a toy bar and Matilda loves to bat and grab the toys. I think her favorite toys are still the taggy blanket I made her last month, along with her green O’Ball rattle. About a week or so ago she discovered her feet and loves to grab onto them, especially her right foot.

She also enjoys being sung to. Jason plays children’s music on Pandora during the day, and sometimes singing to her is the easiest way to get her to stop fussing. Maybe she’ll have more musical talent than Jason and I.

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update: Not too much to report here.  We're just in a holding pattern until her surgery next week.  I give this first surgery a 50/50 chance of working.  It would be great if it works so we don't have to go through it again in 4-5 months, but if it doesn't we'll just enjoy her squishy legs for a bit longer.  She really loves being somewhat mobile and playing with her legs, so it's going to be a hard adjustment.  But, I know it's better to get her leg re-located sooner rather than later so the socket has more time to form correctly.  Wish us luck!

Three Months Old

Stats: At 12 weeks old, Matilda weighed 9 pounds 13 ounces (5th percentile).  She is filling out her 3 months clothes nicely.

Sleep: Matilda still only sleeps in her bouncer.  During the past week she's started napping in her room during the day, but she still sleeps in our room at night because it is easier for us.  She's slept through the night twice now (9.5 and 10.5 hours), although she usually wakes 2-3 times during the night.  Six to seven hour stretches aren't uncommon these days.

Eat: After 7 days of being back to work full-time, Matilda still refuses bottles.  Before you start offering suggestions of how to fix this, let me answer a few commonly asked questions.

Have you tried other bottles or nipples? Yes of course.  We refer to a cabinet in our kitchen as the bottle graveyard given how many we have tried and that have failed.

Oh ok.  But have you tried xyz bottle?  It is suppose to resemble the breast and mimic breastfeeding.  I'm guessing you haven't shopped for bottles lately, because nearly every bottle on the market claims to resemble the breast and mimic breastfeeding.  The bottle makers obviously didn't have Matilda in their product studies because she would have loudly explained how their bottles are nothing like the breast and "OMG get this bottle out of my face and give me a dang boob!"

Did you introduce the bottle before you went back to work? Yes, we've been trying to get her to take bottle since her first month.  We tried nearly everyday for weeks prior to me going back.

But did you have someone else try to give her the bottle?  I've heard if the mom is around the baby can smell milk and will only want to breastfeed.  I left the house for hours at a time while Jason tried to give her the bottle.

Have you tried different positions? Jason has walked around the house with her facing out, bounced on a bouncy ball, had her in her bouncer facing him, had her in the stroller, tried outside and inside, swaddled and not swaddled, and so forth.  Would you like him to pat his belly and rub his head while giving the bottle too?

What about the temperature of the milk?  Freshly pumped, cold, warmed, doesn't matter.

You could always try different methods of feeding.  What about cup feeding, syringe feeding, or spoon feeding?  Tried them all with no success. 

So, just to be clear, how does Matilda feel about bottles?

We'll continue trying to get her to eat from the bottle next week, but I imagine I'll be heading home on my lunch breaks to feed her for the foreseeable future.

Play/ Milestones: Matilda has perfected her smile this month.  At first she would only smile during diaper changes, but now we get spontaneous smiles all the time.

A few weeks ago she started wanting to sit up (with us supporting her).  Her neck strength is still a bit weak, so she bobbles around a lot.  We've really stepped up tummy time during the day.  She really hated it for the first two months, so we didn't force it, but now that she wants to sit up and look out all the time, she needs to improve her neck strength.  She even wants to face outward in the Bjorn carrier and sit up in her stroller (without the car seat attachment).

This month she has discovered her hands and loves to have them in her mouth.  She has also started noticing toys and book pages, and we're working on her grabbing things.  She can grab things if you set them on her, but she is still learning to reach out for them.  I sewed her a taggy blanket to help with this, which she seems to enjoy.

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update:  After four weeks in the rhino cruiser brace, she had a ultrasound to see if her leg was still dislocated.  Unfortunately it is.  She is set to have a closed reduction surgery once she's four months old next month.  The surgeon will cut a tendon and try to pop her bone into place.  If he feels it pop into place, he will put her in a spica cast and do an MRI to make sure it is in the right position and blood flow is good.  If he doesn't feel it pop in place, he won't do anything and she'll have an open reduction surgery when she is eight months old.  After whichever surgery is successful, she will be in the spica cast for 3 to 3.5 months, followed by a few more months in the rhino cruiser.  This isn't what we hoped for, but we're just happy that hip dysplasia is fixable. 

Weekend at the Lake

This weekend we headed to Sam Rayburn Lake to spend a few days at Ferryn and Steve's cabin.  It was a lot of fun and Matilda had a ton of firsts.  First time outside the city, first long car trip, first time to sleep through the night (9.5 hours), and first time in a body of water. 

Prior to the trip, we bought a new carseat because her brace was making her uncomfortable in her Chicco Keyfit.  The new carseat (a Britax Marathon) seemed to work because she did great in the car.  We couldn't believe it when she slept through the first night.  The longest stretch she had slept so far was 6 hours, so 9.5 hours was a huge surprise!  She loved getting in the lake, and she was even happier getting a bath afterwards.  She usually only gets bathed every 3 days (because she's supposed to have limited time outside of her brace) so getting in the water twice in one day was wonderful in her book. 

The hardest part of the trip was her only being awake for about an hour of the time.  When the first third of her awake time is spent changing her diaper and feeding her and the last third is spent soothing her back to sleep, it leaves limited time to do anything fun with her. 

After a fun day at the lake, the baby and dog were exhausted.

 

Thanks Ferryn and Steve for having us!!

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.

One Month Old

Stats:  At three weeks old, Matilda weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce (16th percentile), was 20 inches long (29th percentile), with a head circumference of 13.5 inches (21st percentile).

Sleep:  Still very sporadic.  She still sleeps in 1-3 hour increments for anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day.  It takes a bit more effort to get her to go down these days.  Usually it involves a lot of jiggling, rocking, bouncing, etc. for her to fall asleep.  She prefers to sleep on mom or in the bed, but we're trying to keep her in the bouncer or Pack N Play as much as possible.

Eat:  This girl loves to eat.  She gets so excited when it's time to nurse.  She's becoming a more efficient eater, nursing for about 2.5 to 3.5 hours a day.  We've tried introducing the bottle over the past week, but she's not a fan.  She'll have to work on this over the next few weeks so she's ready for me to go back to work.

Play/ Milestones: Matilda is a squirmer and loves to lift up her head and move it back and forth when you're holding her.  She's pretty strong and has good neck control.  She has some quiet awake time where she'll look around, but she can be pretty fussy and high need when she doesn't know what she wants.  She likes to be walked around and talked to.  I'm looking forward to when she'll be entertained by toys and do more than eat, sleep, poop, and cry. 

Hip Dysplasia/ Leg Update:  After being in the harness for two weeks, we had a checkup with the orthopedic surgeon.  We expressed concerns that it didn't seem like she had been moving her left leg much, so he said it would be best if we discontinued use of the harness for awhile and met with a neurologist to assess possible nerve damage.  Matilda can move her ankle and toes, but she doesn't extend her leg at all.  We had a quick x-ray done to rule out broken bones.  The neurologist thinks that the leg probably has nerve damage, and has ordered appointments for an MRI of the leg/ hip area and EMG to diagnose the issue.  If those tests don't confirm the nerve damage, then we'll have to move on to an MRI of the brain to see if brain damage is causing the paralysis.  The neurologist didn't think that brain damage is causing the issue since Matilda seems to have regular use of the rest of the left side of her body.

In the meantime, we're suppose to start going to physical therapy twice a week.  It's a bit complicated since the treatment for nerve damage is to continue to move the leg, and the treatment for hip dysplasia is to keep the leg fixed in the froggy position. 

Since the issues aren't completely diagnosed yet, our pediatrician told us to just focus on things we can control at this point, like her eating and sleeping habits.  However, it's still hard not to worry about her leg and everything that we might be faced with (months of physical therapy, all the diagnostic tests, possible surgeries, harness/ casts, etc.)  I know there are much worse conditions out there, but it still sucks that she's going through this.  At this point, all we can do is hope for the best and have trust that it will all work out.