Our Little Life: September 2009

Leo has recently been dubbed the "Mad Scientist" and here is why:

His hair continues to grow longer each week and really only has 2 styles; comb-over and what I call the mad scientist look. Everywhere we go people are constantly commenting on his funny hair. If his personality ends up matching his funny, crazy hair we are certainly in for it!!! We have a new camera now, so I'll try to catch some better pictures of his funny do.

Now for the dirty "C" word...Colic. Leo does have a touch of Colic, but it is no where near as bad as it could be. Luckily, we were steered towards a good book early on and it has been a life saver (Dr. Karp's "Happiest Baby on the Block"). His techniques work like a charm on Leo. Contributing to Leo's over all fussiness has been his tummy issues too. The medicine for his GERD kicked in after about two weeks. Leo doesn't throw his head back in pain when he burps anymore, but that issue got replaced with another one; the "2 ounce freak out".

Like clock work, 2 ounces into a bottle Leo gets incredibly fussy. We can change his diaper, try to help him move some gas out, burp him and swaddle him, but nothing works consistently. After he calms down and takes a break he will finally finish the bottle. Then, last Thursday I noticed blood in Leo's poop. The pediatrician confirmed what we were afraid of, Leo has a Cow's Milk Protein Allergy. (Charlie had a milk allergy as a child so we weren't terribly surprised). So what now? Well, we immediately switched Leo over to a hypoallergenic formula with no milk protein. It also contains some probiotics to help heal his digestive tract. In the mean time I had to cut ALL dairy from my diet and dump my breast milk for a week. (So freaking heartbreaking to dump it down the drain, not to mention everything I have pumped and frozen that is now no good). After a week of no dairy for me I'll be able to let Leo have breast milk again, and we will probably supplement with formula as well. So far, removing dairy from his diet has helped further with the fussiness. Cutting dairy has been a challenge!! No milk, no cheese, no butter, no yogurt...the baby weight will be off in no time!! (I've lost about 4-5 pounds in the first week of my new diet!).

Aside from the fussy eating, Leo is still an absolute joy. He is starting to coo like crazy and makes the sweetest little noises I have ever heard in my life. We purchased a play mat for him and he loves it. (Tiny Love Kick n Play) He will lay there staring at the hanging animals and even bats at them with his hands. His favorite one right now is the purple hippo; he just stares and stares at it. He loves tummy time and is holding his head up more and more each day. I do have to watch him when he is on his tummy though, he is quite a scooter. I left him to play on his tummy for just a minute the other day while I was cooking dinner. When I came in the living room to check on him he had scooted himself half way off his mat. We might have an early crawler on our hands! :)

I'll post more pictures as soon as possible!

It's really hard to believe that Charlie and I have been parents for a solid month already!! Our little fussy pants now weighs 10 lbs 12 ounces! (I measured him, which is sort of hard, but by my calculations he is 22.5 inches long)

Leo is doing great so far. Our only real hurdle has been acid reflux. The day before he turned one month old he was diagnosed with GERD, which is acid reflux disease. We had a really rough few days where he would refuse to eat after he burped midway through his bottle. The acid is literally burning his little throat...so sad. Dr. John started him on infant Zantac. We have seen a slight improvement but real results will take 1-2 weeks. The medicine tastes like Peppermint and he HATES it, but it will be worth it to not seeing him throw his little head back in pain when he is eating. This was the day he was diagnosed.

From Leo - 1st month

Otherwise, Leo is really a great baby. He can now focus on our faces, move his head to follow a toy or sound and hold his head up for brief moments. We are starting to hear some coo's and getting a few smiles that don't seem to be gas (though he has LOTS of gas, so that's hard to say!!). He's only peed on me twice, but he did manage to squirt poo clear across the room and on Charlie during his first week home. He also pooped all over himself during diapers changes for both grandmothers. Leo absolutely LOVES bath time, he gets this total look of calm on his face when we put him in the warm water and he never fusses until you take him out. He also loves tummy time and is really soothed by classical music.

From Leo - 1st month

The big question I get is "how is he sleeping?. He sleeps great, just not very long yet. Usually he sleeps in 2-3 hour stretches before he wants to eat, every once in a while we will get a 4 hour stretch, but that is not the norm yet.

We are still exclusively on breast milk, but he now gets it all via a bottle. He has struggled with his latch since day 1 due to a high palette. Then to make it more difficult, he gets snuggled up next to me and wants to fall asleep. Around his 3 week growth spurt, he would start eating, fall asleep 10-15 minutes into the feeding and then wake up 30 minutes later screaming with hunger. It was a really frustrating cycle for him and me. But, if we gave him a 4 ounce bottle he was happy as a clam. After 2-3 days of this I gave in to what he needed and started pumping exclusively, giving him all of his feedings via a bottle. In return, Charlie and I had a MUCH happier little Leo (and a happier Mommy). It was a tough decision for me though. I had all these "breast feeding visions" in my head. Like most women, even though I had heard how hard it could be to breastfeed, I believed in the back of my mind that it would come naturally and it would be this beautiful easy thing in no time. Geez was I wrong!! When I finally put my preconceived notions aside and looked at what Leo truly needed the answer was quite clear. Needless to say, it was an emotional few days. Pumping has turned out to be a little bit of a pain some days (it's hard to hold him while I am pumping) but, like anything, you adapt and make it work for you.

Leo has been with Charlie and I many places. He's been with us out to eat, grocery shopping, and most importantly, Leo attended his first Astro's game. On Labor Day, we ventured out as a family to the Juice Box and watched the Astros win a ball game. Really only Charlie and I watched the game, Leo slept through the entire thing except when he woke up to eat. I think this kid could sleep through anything. We were in a fairly loud section as the announcers were literally right behind us, the train went off for a home run, and a ball came right into our section; Leo hardly stirred thorough any of it!

From Leo - 1st month

Now, for the part no one really cares about, Charlie and I :) We are tired, but having a blast being parents. Charlie bought me a new car when Leo was about 3 weeks. It's a beautiful charcoal grey Nissan Maxima. The car drives like a dream, and I just LOVE it. It's also much easier to get Leo in and out of for me than the Xterra was. Charlie had a minor injury to his toe last Thursday and had to have the entire nail removed (ICK!!) That's really about it for us, our entire world is revolving around our new little guy.

Here are a few more pictures of Leo. Enjoy!