Tate is 13 weeks old – 4 weeks adjusted age. He continues to do really well. The biggest news is his weight gain – he was 9 pounds, 3.5 ounces as of last Thursday when we went to the doctor! Getting so BIG! It’s hard to believe he started out so tiny if you see him now – as long as you don’t know how “old” he actually is! Also hard to believe that he has already tripled his birth weight. My sister-in-law pointed out that most babies triple their birth weight by one year – Tate did it in 13 weeks! Overachiever. About an hour after we got home from the weight check he had the hugest dirty diaper I have ever seen – so he probably lost a few ounces from that!
We finally made it in to the doctor on Thursday for his Synagis shot. We had to reschedule twice because of the snowstorm. Thursday was still really cold out, but at least it wasn’t snowing so I bundled him up and Tate and I went on our first outing together. We probably weren’t even gone for 30 minutes. But it was still nice to get out. I went 10 days without leaving the house. That’s a record for me for sure. Hudson went 19 days without leaving the house (except to play outside on the nice days). I took him to Gigi’s yesterday to make Valentine sugar cookies. That was the first time he’d left the house since I took him to the doctor when he was sick. He has adjusted really well to having Tate home and being stuck at the house. He has turned into quite the bookworm (just like his momma!). He has only asked to watch TV once the entire last week! He would much prefer to “read” his books. And the crazy part is he has most of them memorized. I was shocked when he recited a book to me the other day –almost word for word. Gigi says that’s exactly how I was when I was his age. He is doing really well playing on his own, and has started “pretend” play too. That’s good to see cause for so long he was so literal about everything. He’ll sit in his room for 20 minutes or so just looking at his books, and then bring 4 or 5 of them ot me to read. We’ve started a good routine of when I’m nursing Tate he gets to sit beside me on the bed and we read books. Works well since I can’t do anything else and it keeps him occupied (and out of trouble.)
I think Tate’s going to be a drooler. He seems to always have a small sliver of spit rolling down the side of his mouth when he wakes up. Bibs for this boy! He rolled over from his tummy to his back Sunday afternoon! We were shocked. It was probably mostly a fluke cause he was on the edge of a thick blanket and when he squirmed he rolled over the edge, but still took a little muscle to do it. We’ll see how long it is before he does it again.
The pediatrician told us we could stop using the formula supplement in his milk. It seems to have helped Tate out with all the gas he was having. He’s been less fussy the last few days (not that he was that fussy before.) He has gone from dirtying every diaper every 3 hours to only going once every 3 days. Makes for some very dirty diapers but he hasn’t acted like he is uncomfortable.
Tate’s doing better and better at nursing. We’re nursing twice a day now. His latch has improved a lot the last few days. There for awhile I was getting pretty frustrated with his latching but he seems to have finally figured it out. He still doesn’t seem to get enough milk though. I have been just nursing him and then letting him go to see how long he’ll go before eating again. Usually it’s just an hour. Twice he has slept 3 hours afterwards, but I think those were times he was just tired already, and then the breastfeeding wore him out. So sleep was more important than food at that moment. We’ll see. I might take him in to the breastfeeding clinic this week (I know I’ve probably said that every week…but sickness keeps preventing me going…)to get him weighed before and after just so I can know how much he’s getting. He seems to be getting 1-2 ounces every time, based on how much I pump afterwards. I feel like that’s a pretty good amount based on his weight. Most breastfed babies eat every hour and half to 2 hours so I think if he could just take a little more he’d be up to normal. I’m tempted to just switch to breastfeeding exclusively and see what he does, but I don’t think the pediatrician would be okay with that at this point. They want us to keep up the bottlefeeding because then we know for sure how much he’s taking so that he keeps gaining weight. He did tell us we could let him go 4-5 hours at night instead of every 3 hours, but to be sure to keep to every 3 hours during the day. Sometimes he’ll sleep an extra hour or two at night, but usually it’s just once a night, and the next time he’s up at 3 hours. Different from when we first brought him home and we had to set the alarm to wake him up every 3 hours!
As for the rest of us – we’ve been sick. Jamie came down with a cold last week and then it was my turn. No fun. Washing our hands again constantly (finally discovered something to help our hands – Aveeno Diaper Rash Cream –it’s worked wonders on mine.) plus wearing masks when we hold Tate. I’m feeling much better today but guess who started sneezing yesterday….Hudson’s turn. When he woke up yesterday he was pretty stuffed up so I told him that we had to be careful today and not touch, hold or kiss on Tate because we didn’t want him to get his germs. Hudson immediately asked for “his” mask! I got one out for him. He wore it long enough for me to take his picture, then just carried it around for awhile.
We’re supposed to have some gorgeous weather this week so we’re hoping to get outside and soak up some Vitamin D. So far though, the sun hasn’t shined. But it has been warm enough to get out. So far it’s just been Hudson and Jamie that have been out to play and I’ve only gotten out for 5-10 minutes. Hoping to change that today!
