4 Months

I can't believe it, Owen is 4 months old and we went to his check-up today. He is one healthy and TALL baby boy! We can't get over how long he is. He's going to be a model. We knew he had grown because several outfits that we just bought are too short for him in length and also in his torso. But he's a slim little guy so the next size up looks so huge on him. We're going to have to find him some slim outfits.

His stats below:

Length 27 inches - 95%-tile

Weight 15lbs 4ozs - 55%-tile

Head...well let's just say it's still huge and in the 90%-tile :)

We talked to Dr. Chris about getting Owen to sleep through the night. Yes, I am still getting up with him once a night and sometimes more. He does so good from 7:30-8pm and will sleep until about 3am but then he wakes up hungry. I feed him and he's back in bed by 3:30am and will sleep until around 7am, when we get him up. I have tried several approaches to cut out that night feeding and the only one that has worked so far is dreamfeeding. We have heard about it but after talking with our neighbor last night we decided to try it. Basically he will eat and go to bed at his usual time, 7:30pm then before we go to bed around 11pm, I get him up and feed him again while he's still asleep. We were surprised last night that we could change his diaper and feed him while he was fast asleep. I decided to bottlefeed him b/c he never nurses good when he's sleepy and as soon as I put the bottle to his lips, he started sucking...while asleep. He finished about 3ozs and was in a deep sleep. We put him down and went to bed. At 6:15am my alarm went off and I didn't remember hearing him at all...well, the I realized that I forgot to turn the volume up on the monitor so I am not sure if he woke up or not :) We asked Dr. Chris about it and he had never heard of this method and was not too sure that it was the best thing for Owen. Guess he thinks it could screw up how Owen acts when he is hungry since we are feeding him without him signaling to us that he's hungry. So I am back to deciding if we should continue the "dreamfeeding" of just let him dictate when he eats and sleeps. And as much as I would love a full nights sleep, I want what's best for Owen and if that means him chowing down at 3am for a bit longer, then so be it.

Dr. Chris also told us that we can start real foods now. I couldn't believe that he was saying that and thought for sure that we would start on cereal first. He said that he just went to a conference where they discussed the benefits of giving nutritious foods over cereal, which is basically empty calories. They discussed how in other countries they introduce fruits and veggies at a young age and babies/children are so much more healthy. The US is really behind when we introduce foods and it may be the reason we have a higher percentage of sickness. He even said that we could puree Thanksgiving dinner and give O some...not too sure that we're all ready to try that yet but we plan to introduce some basics in the next few weeks. And definitely will give O yogurt...it's so good for him.

This past weekend our friend Tina came over to take some pics of O for our Christmas cards. We all had so much fun and O was a perfect model. He was all smiles and giggles the whole time and she took 200+ pictures. It was so hard to pick just one but we love love the pic and card we choose.

Here's a pic of our little bugger...we are so blessed to have such a happy and healthy baby boy.

17 Weeks

I can't believe that Owen is 17 weeks and on Monday will be 4 months old! Where has the time gone. He's a big boy and full of laughs and smiles morning and night. We are so blessed to have such a happy boy. Even when he had an ear infection and didn't feel good, he was all smiles. We just love our little guy.

Things Owen is doing:

Rolling over from tummy to side and back. I was a little worried that he was behind b/c I couldn't get him to roll over more than just from his back to his side. But Miss Katie has been working with him and I have too at home and tonight he rolled over from his tummy to back several times. He still hasn't figured out how to go from back to tummy but think that will come soon. He knows how to kick his feet up and hold them and he leans to one side but he just hasn't been able to push himself over.

Feet in his mouth! Yes Owen has found his feet and he holds his legs and puts his feet in his mouth. A few days last week he came home from school with scratches on his legs and I thought, ok maybe another baby scratched him but he came home with more toward the end of the week. I was going to ask his teacher but then saw how those scratches got there. Owen constantly holds his legs now and he had a snagged nail so he was scratching himself :) I trimmed his little nail and no more scratches.

Pulling up and sitting up. Owen is starting to pull on our fingers to sit up and to stand up. We have been working with him to bear more weight on his legs and we found that he LOVES to pull up and bounce. He's getting better but I think he needs a little more practice. He has also started pulling up on his own when he lays back so that he's in a sitting position. He of course can't sit on his own but I was so impressed to see that he is able to pull his body to a 90 degree sitting position....then 2 seconds later he nose dives into the couch. Of course he thinks this is the funniest thing and laughs and wants to do it again.

Talking, talking and talking. Owen now talks all the time and talks very loud. We think he just likes to hear his own voice it's too funny to watch and listen to him. He will talk very fast and loud and then will laugh. For the first time this week we heard his laugh. He always has had this little laugh but yesterday he was flat out laughing. It's soo cute!

Drooling...yuck! Yes Owen has started to drool like crazy. He has been blowing bubbles and drooling a little for weeks but this week he has started drooling so much that we have to keep a bib on him all the time. I think he is teething now b/c he will put my finger in his mouth and chew/gum it. Where before he would suck on my finger.

Reflux...say goodbye (so we hope). We have been weaning O off his Zantac and so far so good. He is taking such a small dose now that it's probably not doing anything for him but he hasn't had any problems for weeks! And I have been able to add a few foods back in and he has tolerated those great too! Yeah for green veggies...I have missed you!

Here's a recent pic of our little guy! Will post updates at his 4 month appt next week.

Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! This post is a bit late but wanted to share a pic of our two pumpkins...ha! We dressed Owen up in his pumpkin outfit for school on Friday and also for our neighborhood cook-out on Sat, he was so cute :) We didn't keep him out too late b/c he had an ear infection but it was fun to take him around other children. I can't wait until next halloween when he can walk and we can go trick-or-treating.

Our Little Pumpkin

Our Family & the cutest pumpkins ever!

Positive Note

This post is several weeks late but it's a positive one. From my last post I thought my world was coming to an end with going back to work. I had a very hard time adjusting to my new schedule and also not being able to spend my days with my buddy. It was the hardest two weeks I have ever had to go through and I made it and am doing great with the new schedule. Owen really likes his school and his teacher Miss Katie is great. She gives him her full attention all day and really listens to my concerns. Owen has started napping better at school so when he gets home he's not a complete zombie. We figured it out, if O takes a nap around 4pm then he's wide awake when Chris picks him up and then I get a good 2 hours to play with him before he goes to bed. Some afternoons he doesn't get his nap and he is super sleepy but I have learned to love our cuddle time while he has a quick nap and then we can play. So no, the world didn't come to an end and it did get easier. Everyone was right but a few weeks ago I didn't think so.