4 Month Doctor's Visit

Last week, Keelyn turned 4 months old. It is just crazy how fast it flying by this time. In ways I am so happy (because I just love when they get older, can play with toys, be more content w/o mommy holding her 24/7) and in other ways I'm sad that she is growing up so quickly. And it's just crazy because when you are cooking dinner with a fussy baby attached to you and a toddler hanging on your feet, time cannot move fast enough and then all of sudden you look back and say, where'd the time go???

Anyways, I digress..... Since Keelyn turned 4 months old, we had her regular doctor's visit last week. And once again, I just seem to grow small babies..... I really wish I could chub them up a little to make sure they weren't so small on the charts, but this time I'm not nearly as worried about it. She weighed in at 10 lbs, 13 oz (just 1 oz shy of her sister at this juncture!) which is the 5%. Her height was 24 inches, or about 50%. So, she's growing nice and skinny :)

The doctor wasn't too concerned about the weight. She said she's happy and healthy and fine on all other points she looked at, including an impressively strong head/neck control :) That's my girl! She said she wished they didn't focus on the percentiles sometimes (and noted that as an adult, I might be in the 5% myself, HA!). She's gaining weight and that's what is important. It's just always hard when you have a 100% breastfed baby, I'd like to know exactly what she's getting, but she seems content after feedings, so we'll assume it's okay.

She also reassured me that Keelyn's sleeping habits were quite normal and told me we were just lucky with Mackenzie (I pretty much knew this!). She said I should start putting her down sleepy but not asleep to let her learn to soothe herself, especially since she won't take a paci. And if I wanted/needed to, she might need to cry it out at night if she's wanting to eat every 3 hours or so. I had been worried b/c being on the small side, I didn't want her to really need to eat if she was crying. Ironically, since that visit, literally that night.....Keelyn has been sleeping better/longer at night. Guess she heard what her option was, and didn't want to cry it out either! So, for the last week, she goes down around 9pm (last feeding around 8:30) and I wake her back up a bit by putting her sleep sack on her and lay her in the crib with eyes open. She nods off easily (that goodness!). I then wake her around 11pm for a little extra food before I go to bed! And she's slept til at least 5am, and sometimes 6 or 7am. This morning was a 7am'er and it felt GREAT! Please keep it up baby girl! I really don't want to do the cry it out in the middle of the night thing. Of course, I also don't want to be your personal pacifier for the next year!

Although due to the low weight, we did decide to go ahead and start her on solid foods right at 4 months. So far, she's not impressed, but with Mackenzie we started around 4 1/2 months and by 5 months she was eating, so I'm counting on a few weeks of spitting it out & crying before she'll actually eat anything! Here's a video of her response to the first feeding: