The second half of Dalton’s second month has been quite the roller-coaster ride. He now weighs a little over 11 lb, and is over 23″ tall.
Week 7 was a bit of a dream. Dalton really seemed to wake up and started smiling, laughing and playing much more. He developed a decently regular nap cycle and began to work himself to sleep often. He also kept up his fast growth by happily taking up to 5 oz per nursing session.
Week 8 started off on the wrong foot, as a flan I had made seemed to correlate to a lot more screaming and gas after feedings, which convinced me to go dairy free for awhile. Dalton also stopped eating as much, resulting in slower weight gain, and had a harder time staying asleep more than 25 mins at a time. This caused me to more closely regulate my caffeine intake, but may also have been correlated to an upwards growth spurt.
Week 9 has been even worse, since, despite the adjustments to my diet, he has been screaming and arching back strongly after every feeding. This makes it very difficult to get out the bubbles that are so obviously bothering him, and has caused no shortage of frustration on my part. He no longer likes being held very much, even in the K’Tan or with the Wubba, and is happiest laying on his back in his pack n play swatting at Bugaboo and kicking freely – preferably without pants. A few times, the only way to calm his screaming after feeding has been to lay him down and take off his diaper! While it is great that we can leave him to play while we tend to Sonia or ourselves, I worry about him getting a flat head, and about the reduced amount of direct interaction with Mommy and Daddy 🙁
This pattern of ups and downs does coincide with the Wonder Weeks calendar very well, so hopefully we’ll be through it in another week or so. At least he is still giving us one long 6+ hour stretch of sleep at night, and all that arching may have been improving his back and neck strength. With hands placed close together during tummy time he can even roll from front to back.
Right at 7 weeks we did give Dalton his first bottle, and he drinks from it about as well as he does the breast, which is slowly improving.
This did help relieve some of the stress of the ensuing 2 weeks by allowing me to get out of the house more, including to Cardio Barre 3x per week. Slowly but surely the baby weight is coming off – only about 10 lbs to go.
In the last week of this month, Dalton got to meet his Grandpa Wes and Auntie Cindi. While the fussiness kept the quality time to a minimum, he still got to enjoy a few reading sessions, and time out at the LA Arboretum.
Unfortunately, he was too fussy to come along to see Daddy at work, which is too bad, because he was all dressed up and ready to go 🙂
Wow, he sure is growing fast! I hope the fussiness gets better. Rachel, our #2, was fussier too. She got a lot better once she had tubes in ears at 6 months. Still think the ear problem caused all the nursing problems – she would nurse a little, pull away, arch her back and cry. Within a short time she was fine and wanting to nurse again. Hang in there. Love, Laura