Monday, March 30, 2009

The Week of the 4 Month Shots



Lucien is now 19 weeks old and it is time for another doctor's appointment.  This time I had company with me and Lynn came along.  Dr. Rojas is a good doctor but the office visit is a treacherous ordeal because waiting time is never less than an hour and a half.  Lucien weighed in at a whooping 15 lbs 5 oz.  and grew to 25 inches tall.  He took his shot like a man (or a really pudgy baby) and had only a slight flinch thanks to his "turkey legs".

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Week of Hairy Tales




Lucien is 18 weeks old and is showing signs of development every day.  His hair growth has been pretty stunted until now.  It is long enough now that you can just barely make out a part.  In the back it is really long at the nape of his neck which causes a dark patch of hair on the back of his head - it's his baby mullet.  Pretty soon his hair will grow out on top and we won't be able to make out his spirals at the top of his head.  When Lucien was born Pau-Pau was interested in his spirals and told us that Lucien may be a naughty kid because he has 2 spirals in his hair.  Luckily it wasn't 3 spirals.  This week, Grandma Jean came over the other day and remarked on how much hair has grown in on his eyebrows.  She said "babies do not have eyebrows".  Is this true?  Well, Lucien must be getting his Conway eyebrows in early.
Lucien is still turning over a lot.  He is starting to turn back the other way so he doesn't stuck like he was the previous week.  He plays with his hands a lot more and loves checking all his little toys.  We think he has s
tarted teething or has some gum irritation because he keeps rubbing his mouth.  Lucien still eats his cereal once a day but now he takes rice cereal or the mixed grain cereal.  His digestion has become much better and his system is regular again.  The colic/reflux is pretty much non-existent these days.  
Now that Lucien isn't in pain anymore in the evening we started a night time routine to get him to fall asleep on his own.  He's getting too heavy to rock sleep each night.  His routine consists of a change into PJs, a feeding, being placed in the crib, a bedtime story, a kiss on the 
forehead, and a soothing CD to fall asleep to.  It also consists of his favorite thing to snuggle with - his little bear blankie buddy.  The first 2 nights he cried himself to sleep for about 10 minutes but since he drifts of to sleep without a peep.      

Monday, March 16, 2009

The Week of the Roll Over

Lucien is 17 weeks old and is super active.  He has really started rolling over but he cannot roll himself back.  This has caused him to continue waking in the night.  

Monday, March 9, 2009

The Week of Changing Times and Time Changes

Lucien is 16 weeks old.  He is starting to really like eating the rice cereal and we can't scoop it into his mouth fast enough.  Grandma and Grandpa came down from New York for a visit and Lucien was so excited that he forgot to take care of his "business".  Maybe it was the rice cereal, but Lucien went from Friday morning until Monday evening without a BM.  We got concerned on day 2 and then read in Dr. Spock's manual that once babies are about 4 months old it could be a few days in between bowel movements.  That is shocking for us because Lucien used to have 3-4 per day.  Saturday evening, daylight savings kicked in and come Sunday Lucien was in rare form.  He didn't feel too well that day and was cranky and crying for most of the night.  There is a silver lining though, Lucien slept through the night on that Sunday evening - a total of 7 hours straight.    

Monday, March 2, 2009

The Week of Rice Cereal 101

Lucien is now into Week 15.  He is almost four months old and we couldn't wait any longer.  It's time to introduce the rice cereal to get him on his way to eating solid foods and hopefully sleeping better.  Lucien has still been waking up through the night 1-2 times or about every 3 hours.  We started by mixing some rice cereal into his milk and then we tried spoon feeding him about 1 tbsp of rice cereal mixed with his milk.  He used his tongue thrusting technique to eat which caused him to wear most of his first rice cereal meal.  But all in all it was a success!  The sleeping hasn't changed though.  I guess I have to wait until he's eating the prime rib before he's sleeping through the night again.