6 month appt

Today we woke up at 8 AM and drove to Dexter's six month appointment. We were late because of traffic - we take a route neither of us normally take during our commute and as a result, the nurse told us that since we were late, we should limit our questions to one or two. That annoyed us. We had been feeling iffy about our pediatrician, not because of anything she has done, per se, but she actually took the time to answer all our questions and to go through the questionnaire I filled out beforehand and so we were happy about that.

She said that he should be functioning at a four month level right now and that he was hitting that milestone. He can hold his head up, roll over, smile, laugh, push himself up while on his stomach, and the only thing he doesn't really do is reach out to grab objects. We were told to wait another month or two before starting solids.

We explained our difficulty with bedtime .. with Chris, it seems like he can sleep nine hours fairly consistently, but with me, he sleeps six hours, wakes up to feed, and then sleeps another four hours or so. The doctor told us it's most likely because a) I give in too easily and rush to feed him when he starts to stir or b) he smells/senses me in the room or nearby and it reminds him that he's hungry.

I'm definitely guilty of rushing to feed him because I hate being hungry .. I'd hate for him to be hungry ! But I do agree that I should try to teach him to sleep through the night and told myself that I would try the pacifier trick tonight. The doctor said he was old enough and at the point he should be able to sleep through the night and that he could stand not eating for that long. We'll see how tonight goes !

I also asked about the jumperoo .. was it bad for his hips ? She said that excessive amounts of time in it wouldn't be good for him but if we were doing short periods of time that it was fine. I asked about the pacifier and she said that it didn't cause jaw/teeth issues and that her own kids used pacifiers until they were three years old. If anything, sucking causes an inward action which is better than thumb sucking, which may cause teeth to be pushed out.

Today he weighed 14 lbs 11.5 oz with a head circumference of 40 cms and length of 24.25 inches. W00t ! His weight gain has slowed down a lot (he isn't even hitting an ounce gain per day now) but she's rather happy about that since he's getting to be quite chunky. Our next appointment with her is in three months.

Dexter had three shots and an oral vaccine today, poor baby. It was supposed to be four shots but we deferred the Hepatitis B shot to next month when we'll be back for the second half of the flu vaccine.

After the doctor visit (which he handled well, btw, he didn't cry for long), he slept the whole way home, then we took a bath, he fed and slept. But around 2:30 PM, he suddenly started screaming the way he did last time after he had immunizations and even though we sang, danced, played (well, I did, he just screamed), sucked on sugar water, etc., he was still really unhappy and sounded like he was in pain and so I gave him his first ever dose of acetaminophen. The dosage is supposed to be 2.5 mLs (80 mg) but I gave him about 3/4 dose. Then I nursed and he fell asleep.

He's been doing so well with tummy time lately. Rolling over four times and holding his head up for seven plus minutes.