Stats? Lachlan weighs 17 lbs 6 oz. (92 %-tile) and is 25.75 inches long (81 %-tile). He currently wears 6 month clothes- occasionally some 6-9 or 6-12 month items.
Favorite Toys? Still loves the black and white book. We've started reading a few other books and seems to pay attention most times. We've been reading Peek-a-Who a lot, Hippos go Berserck, Moo Baa, and My First Illini Counting book. Plays with a variety of other small toys- Sofie the giraffe, Ellie a blue elephant, plastic rings, and a ball with holes that is easy for him to grab. we get a big smile when doing Peek-a-Book with him. And Wheels on the Bus is still his favorite song.
Eating Habits? In the last couple weeks we've started giving him larger bottles- so he now typically takes 6 oz. at each feeding. Still gets around 20 ounces of breastmilk and the rest formula. The last week has had a huge growth spurt and has been drinking 40 ounces total each day! Besides this growth spurt, he normally would have closer to 30 ounces. When awake, still seems to want to eat at the 2 hour mark! The doctor said we can start trying some cereal since he appears to have a large appetite.
Sleeping Habits? Ugh, where to even begin here. Still absolutely no nap schedule, but that is the least of my concerns. It was almost right after he turned 3 months that he decided to quit sleeping at night. It started with waking maybe once or twice a night, but would be screaming/crying and very hard to calm him down. I noticed several nights where he would be drawing his legs up and then straightening them while arching his back...so this signaled to me that he was in pain. He would have lots of gas during the night too. I'd be holding him and could see the poor guy making pained faces while sleeping. So I realized I had been "cheating" by eating dairy more than usual lately, so then felt really guilty that possibly this could be causing him pain and up at night. I've now gone back to really restricting my daity intake and that does seem to have helped with the gas pains. However, for some reason he was still waking during the night! I think some of it was due to his growth spurt and he just needed some extra food during the night cause he would SCARF his bottle in under 5 minutes...when normally it would take him 20+ minutes. We've tried a variety of things like not swaddling him- that was disastrous as he has zero control of his arms still. He has a bad cough, so for a few nights we put him back in the rock n play in our room so it would just be more convenient to have him close by knowing he'd wake up a ton. Now he is back in his crib in the nap nanny. Sleep is just hit or miss- one night this week he went 11 hours w/o waking...then another night was up 5 different times. My goal is always that he'll put himself back to sleep, which he is pretty good at some times...then if that doesn't work, I just dip the pacifier in gripe water and get him to take that....then if that doesn't work, I'll pick him up and walk/bounce around with him....and as last resort I'll give him a bottle. I'm just not sure where our good little sleeper has gone?!!? Maybe once this cough and stuffy nose is gone, he'll return.
Milestones? Dustin claims to have seen him roll over twice, but I've spent a lot of time with him on the floor and have yet to see it. He is definitely very smiley at times and we get an occasional laugh-- he first very clearly laughed on 3/30 when Dustin would blow on his belly. I know for sure he recognizes his bottle now, which was something he was supposed to do at 2 months according to our PAT milestone chart-- I'll show him the bottle and he'll open his mouth wide knowing that I'm about ready to give it to him. He definitely is holding his head up well-- at daycare he spends time in the jumparoo and exersaucer, at home he loves being held upright and just looking around the different rooms. He'll lay on his tummy and lift his head for a few minutes....but never really lasts more than 5 minutes on his tummy.
We celebrated our first Easter and Lachlan was a champ with me taking 100 goofy pictures of him.
Other
- Lachlan had his first instance of being bullied at school. We came to pick him up one night and he had been moved over to the infant/toddler room. A little boy who was no more than 2, walks up to Lachlan and points at him and says "FAT!" The teacher had to scold him saying, "No, that is not a nice thing to say." Lachlan then gave the kid a big ole smile...clueless he had just been insulted!
- We've had a lot of nice weather, so have been taking walks in the evening. Very rarely cries and is good about staying awake.
- Has had a really bad cough for a few weeks now and a little bit of a runny nose. The doctor prescribed some cough meds, but they just don't seem to be working. I think a lot of his sleep issues are due to this stupid cough waking him up and scaring him.
- Started using the cloth diapers at daycare, so we almost use them full-time. We still do the disposables at night-- since his sleep is already such a mess, I don't want to worry about diapers leaking and how to cloth diaper overnight. We had still been using the newborn inserts in the CDs until about a week ago, but started having some leaks so now use the full-size. No more leaks with the full-size! (You supposedly were supposed to stop using the newborn inserts at 10 lbs, so it was no wonder he had been leaking....oops!)
- Just as Lachlan turned 4 months, I thought I was coming down with the flu- just felt absolutely horrible with feverish/chills/sweats and very fatigued. Turns out I had a breast infection, so got some antibiotics and started feeling much better.
- The doctor told us Lachlan has eczema (dry skin patches). So we have to put vaseline on that and is already looking better.
- The doctor also said he is getting a flat spot on the back left side of his head. So we really need to encourage him leaning on the right side of his head and we go back in 4 weeks for a follow-up appt for her to check the progress.
- Completely hit or miss when he wakes depending on how he slept at night. I would say most days in the last month he would awake around 6...but lately now he is not waking until closer to 7.
- In the last week or so, I started being able to awake first so I could pump, get ready, get all his daycare items together. Then when he would wake, would just need to dress him and put him in the car to get to daycare and I'd let them give him the first bottle-- this was able to save me quite a bit of time.
- At daycare they typically give him 6 oz bottles- usually has 4-5 of these. He'll do 3 of breastmilk and the rest formula. He'll usually nap 3-4 times and I have yet to see a real pattern. He always seems so happy there and they say he is really good!
- I usually pick him up at 5:15 if I worked from home that day- if Dustin is in town then we usually don't get there until 5:30. He usually sleeps on the car ride home, then i let him sleep for 10-15 minutes once inside so I have time to get his bottles washed, etc.
- Around 6-6:30 I give him a bottle regardless of when he last ate. If he recently ate, then I'll just do 3-4 ounces....if it was a while ago, then will do the full bottle. I just like to get something in his belly so that he'll be ready to eat around 8 for his night bottle.
- When weather is nice, we'll try to take a 30 minute walk. Otherwise we play on the floor with reading books, singing songs, etc.
- About 7:30 I start the bathtub. We've had to limit his baths to 10 minutes since we do them every night and his skin is dry.
- We still swaddle him and give a bottle in the family room, then place him in the crib. He is sleeping in the Nap Nanny in the crib. Sometimes he will guzzle his bottle in like 5 minutes before bed and lays down wide awake. Other times he will take like 15-20 minutes to finish it and is practically asleep when we put him down.
- He is currently waking a lot during the night- I think some is due to his coughing attacks. If I'm lucky, he'll just take his pacifier dipped in some gripe water and suck on that and go back to sleep. I'd say a normal night as of now is that he wakes around 1 and I have to go in there. And he'll wake maybe 2 other times but put himself back to sleep.
