4 month check up

Warning: This will be a picture less post, so if you only come for the pics, you will be sadly disappointed.

We went last Friday for Emily's wellness check with her Ped. She looks great! She weighs 13lbs 10 oz and is 24 inches long. She is the 50-75th percentile for height and in the 50th for weight. The doctor is really happy with her weight gain from her last appointment. She got 2 shots. Boo. I made the mistake of not moving her legs around a lot afterward and she was REALLY sore that evening. She has always been a really easy baby and has NEVER cried to the point where I couldn't console her. It was terrible and I felt so bad. We gave her some Tylenol because she got a little fever and it really helped with her pain too. She was perfectly normal the next day, thankfully.

On another note, we are having some serious sleep regression issues. Emily has always been a good sleeper. Even as a newborn she would only get up once at night. Around 7 weeks or so, she was consistently sleeping through the night. When I went back to work, she started to get up around 4 or so, but would go back to bed after a quick feed. The doc said we really needed to work on getting her to sleep all night again. Well this week has been really rough. She started getting up several times a night and going through what I think is the "4 month wakeful" period, which is similar to the 3 week/6 week growth spurt etc. Basically, "this ages marks a huge cognitive and emotional turning point for babies, as they become much more aware of -- and interested in -- the world around them." GREAT. The good thing is she goes right back to bed, the bad thing is that if I go in to console her, she wants food and she wants it NOW! I fortunately am used to waking up at night, but Zig is not. He has been such a trooper, but I rely so much on him to help now. She is still in between the age where she is waking up for nutritive needs and not just waking up because she wants to see us. We don't want her to get into the habit of waking up at 4 just because she expects a meal. In theory, we want her to take in the calories she needs during the day, so she doesn't need them at night. Anyway, we figured out partially what the problem is. My supply has TANKED and I don't know how long it has been this way. I still pump enough for her to eat during the day, with extra, but come 6:30 when she is ready for her first night feeding, I am pretty dry. We thought this may be the problem, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. After 3 hours since my last pump session, I was only able to get 2 oz total. HORRIFYING. My heart hurt. I love that time with just Emmy and I and I know that I can feed her a bottle and it's still ok, because we are still snuggling, but it's still sad that I don't get to nurse her. My goal is to really work to try and build my supply back up so hopefully I can start again. My fear is that this is the beginning of the end of my nursing. So to back track, we gave her 2 5 oz bottles in place of my regular nursing sessions and we put her to bed with one arm out of the swaddle (we'd like to break this too and teach her to self soothe, plus she gets pissed when she can't move which is what I think is waking her up too.) She slept awesome from about 8:15 till 4:30. Zig went in, consoled her for about 5 mins and she was out till it was time to wake up for the day. Now last night was a giant FAIL. She ate a 5 oz bottle and then a 6 oz bottle. We put her down at 8:30, fully swaddled because it was kind of chilly and she was out. That is till 12:30, then she woke up, we consoled, she fell asleep till 2:30. I tried to console, but she wasn't having it. She went down after about 10 minutes of eating till 4:30. WTF! Zig went in and she slept till about 7. Now all the books I read, say that a healthy 4 month old should be able to sleep 6 hours with out food, but she has always done good before. Growth spurt maybe, hopefully? We plan to ferberize (GASP!) her at 5 months when she is developmentally ready to self soothe, but for now she is in charge. At least for the time being. We are still going to try and cut out the feeding time and hopefully we can load her up with some big bottles and continue to break the swaddle, but we will just have to see how it goes.

On a lighter note, Zig's cousin Todd is coming to town this weekend and while he is here, he is going to baptize Emily. Jenn sent us Dad's baptism gown and Emily is going to wear that for the ceremony. It is beautiful. Jenn said she'd like to start a tradition that all the grandbabies be baptized in that dress, so going forward that's the plan. And I love that plan. Ryan was a bit to big for the gown, but hopefully it will fit baby Olivia when she is ready.

That's it for now! I will upload the Easter pics this weekend and post them for you guys! Sorry for the long post!