Leo rolled over more times from his belly to back, and once from back to belly. He can also hold up his head unassisted and bring his hands together.
The biggest news this month was that Leo graduated from sleeping in our room in his bassinet to sleeping in his own room in his crib. One morning Charlie's alarm clock woke Leo up; that was when we knew it was time to move him!! He has done great in his crib so far and never seemed bothered by the move at all. In fact, given his new wiggle worm status it seems that he may like it even more than the bassinet.
So we had made the decision, Leo would no longer be in our room, he was ready to be on his own. We rocked Leo to sleep, laid him down and snuck out of the nursery. We then promptly went to our bedroom to watch him on the video monitor. Leo slept peacefully and Charlie and I drifted to sleep watching him on the monitor. We each woke up periodically to check on him. A few hours later Charlie woke up and looked on the monitor and was surprised to see that there was no baby there. After a brief moment of panic he realized what had happened; Leo had moved! See, the camera was only getting one half of the crib and Leo had wiggled himself (still in his swaddle) to the other half of the crib. Our little inch worm not only wiggled down to the other end, but he turned himself around and wiggled back to the side he started on. After a few nights of this we repositioned the camera so that it views the entire crib. He still inches around his crib each night, you never know where he will end up!
On the allergy front, Leo is doing better. His first round of allergy test came back negative. This was great news, but it was also a bit inconclusive. A blood test only tests for one way that our bodies react to allergens, so you can test negative on the blood test and then test positively on a skin prick test (which we can't do until Leo is 2). We talked to the Dr. about the results and the improvements we had seen since Stubby, our cat, had left the house. He agreed that if we had seen an improvement we should keep the cat out, there was no reason to take a chance of Leo backtracking. Since the milk allergy test had come back negative Dr. La Cour told me to go ahead and have a glass of milk and see how Leo reacted to my breast milk afterwards.
So that Friday I had my first glass of milk in 6 weeks...yummmm!!! Saturday Leo had my milk and Sunday he had a rash. :( I decided at that point that it was time to give it up, I had managed against every odd to breastfeed Leo for 3 months. Now that Leo could make his own antibodies I knew it would be better for him to get 100% on formula so we could try to isolate the cause of his diarrhea and rashes.
Charlie had a corn allergy as a child and I was starting to wonder if corn could be another source of Leo's issues. It sort of made sense, the first time we saw blood in his stool was after he was started on a daily vitamin supplement that contained corn syrup. Then he was placed on formula that contained corn. He continued to have episodes of bloody stool and then began having diarrhea with every feeding. His stool was cultured and it came back negative so we knew it wasn't an infection. I laid out the timeline with Dr. LaCour and he agreed that a corn allergy was a definite possibility with everything I had seen. We switched Leo to Similac Alimentum Ready to Feed (the ONLY corn free formula on the market, it's also free of Cow's milk protein) and saw immediate improvement. No more diarrhea!!! His eczema still flares up here and there, but we are able to manage it with the steroid ointment.
The reflux is also under better control with the new medication, though it took a little longer than usual for it to kick in. All in all, we are really pleased with the progress Leo is making under the new pediatrician.
Here are some pictures-enjoy!
