Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Evan: 7 months


Evan had his 6 month appt a month late because I wanted it to coordinate with the kids 2 and 4 year well child visits. What a circus that was! Bless my husband for wrangling the kids in the waiting room while I cycled through children in the exam room. Fortunately our pediatrician is simply wonderful and it was so great to be able to do all three kids at once. Anyway - I finally got some updates stats on Evan and got to ask some questions about lingering issues he's having. Despite his chunky thighs, he's actually not all that big for his age. At 17.5lbs and 27 inces long, he's in the 35-37% for weight and height. This is confusing to me because he's about to grow out of his 9-month bodysuits, so I'm not sure how a baby that fits in 12-month clothing is only in the 35% at 7 months old...but, he's sitting nicely on his growth curve so I'm not concerned.

He's cut his two front bottom teeth, which is a new experience for me in terms of nursing. Normally I wean around 6 months old, but I don't have any desire to do that with Evan so we're forging on. But teeth = not fun. So I guess I'll be cracking down on teaching him proper nursing behavior, because the latch and then turn your head to look at your siblings move is getting old (and painful). 

I had two other concerns at today's appointment, one being his undescended testicle and the other being that he's not rolling from back to stomach yet. I probably wont say much more about his undescended testicle just to respect his privacy, but from what I understand it's a simple procedure to correct and we'll find out more when we meet with the pediatric urologist in a few months. His ped was waiting until the 6 month mark to make the referral, and now it's time to move forward with accessing things further. 

I had a hunch that his superman reflex has something to do with him not rolling back to front, and his ped agreed. Whenever I pick him up or place him on his tummy, he pushes his arms out straight behind him (like superman pose). He also sleeps with his arms tucked under his back. His ped isn't too worried about this long term, but our county offers a program where a PT will come to your house and work with baby to correct any motor delays so I think we're going to take advantage of that. Fun times!

I'm still off dairy, although I think at this point he could tolerate it reasonably well. However, since I've been off dairy my headaches have nearly disappeared! I've suffered from tension type headaches for a decade, at least. Who knows if it was dairy related the whole time, but I figured it out when I trialed back on dairy a few months ago. I had such a strong headache the next day! So then I went back off dairy for several weeks, and 2 months later tried again and the headaches returned. So that was enough evidence for me to lead me to decide to give up dairy for good. At this point, if I can avoid it, I do. If I ingest a bit on accident though, I don't fret about it too much. I just know that I'll have a headache and Evan's spit-up will be more frequent for a few days.

He's still sleeping great. I've been extending his wake times a bit to keep up with his needs. He's down to 2 naps now (most days) which is nice!

Evan enjoys sitting up, his jumperoo, stroller rides, playing peek-a-boo with Drew, and smiling. He seriously smiles all day long and it's adorable. He's so squishy and happy and we just love him!