Four Months!

Emrick turned 4 months old yesterday and this morning he had his check-up with the pediatrician. To get him ready, we gave him a thorough bath last night.

After his bath, his jammies were still in the dryer so he hung out in his diaper and a blanket until they were ready.

Little Buddha!

His appointment went well. He got his second round of vaccinations, and was measured and weighed. He weighed 14 lbs, 6 oz. And his length was 23.5 inches. I was skeptical of the length measurement because the other day Marcus and I measured him and came up with 22.5. That measurement had concerned me because we measured him at very nearly 22.5 a whole month ago. I would like to THINK he really is 23.5 inches just like the nurse measured, but I wasn’t sure that Marcus and I really could have been so far off the other day. So I did what any good mother would do ( 😉 ) —  When the nurse left the room, I helped myself to one of the drawers in the exam room and pulled out the tape measure and a pen. I measured him (hastily) a total of four times: twice I got 22.5 and twice I got 23.5. Oy vey.

So later this morning I went to the grocery store, headed straight to the school supply section, and bought a piece of foam poster board that had a grid printed on it. Each square in the board is half an inch. When we got home, I laid him on it and very carefully held his leg straight, and at a straight angle, and marked where his heel was. Then I held the pencil flush with the top of his head, making sure I wasn’t leaning it inward, and I marked that spot, too. I got a measurement of 23 inches exactly. So that’s what I’ve decided his length is. At the doctor’s office his length has been officially recorded as 23.5, though, which I was told put him in the 7th percentile. So I guess he is a little lower than that in reality. As low as 7th is, that’s actually the highest height percentile that he has ever registered. His weight is at the 39th percentile, and his head circumference is at the 70th.

Anyway, I went in with a list of questions. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, one of my concerns was his rolling over and sleeping on his face. The doctor agreed that if Emrick is actually falling asleep with his face in the mattress and staying that way, then intervention of some sort is called for. He said I could try putting a rolled up receiving blanket next to him to keep him from doing that, but he acknowledged that putting blankets in the crib comes with its own risks. Besides that, Emrick is such a darned squirmer, often rotating his body a full 180 degrees in his crib, that no wimpy receiving blanket is going to stop him from burrowing his face in the mattress if he bloody well feels like doing so! And wedges have been declared a SIDS risk, so that is out. So the doc said that having him sleep in the co-sleeper for now is fine, and that when Emrick shows that he can consistently roll over in both directions (front to back as well as the reverse), then I probably won’t have to worry about the face thing anymore. He has rolled over front to back, but he doesn’t always remember that he can do that. Sometimes when he gets tired of tummy time, he just cries and cries until I flip him over to his back, and then he stops. I always wait, though, to see if he will roll over on his own. He just needs more time to perfect his rolling, I guess.

We discussed other things as well, like Emrick’s spitting up, which has gotten worse lately, and whether he is ready to begin “practicing” with solids. The doc suggested that rice cereal would be a good way to give him a modest start on solids, and that it may even help with the spitting up. So we’ll give that a try later this week. It is too soon for any kind of solid food to actually replace a milk feeding. He still needs as much milk as before, and probably will until he is 6 months old… At 6 months, the doc said, Emrick should be ready for his first ribeye… rare.