6 Month Appointment

Yesterday was Ellie's 6 month appointment. She got the full complement of vaccines and was not happy about that, but she bounced back to her happy self pretty quickly. The doctor's appointment was unusually prompt. We only had to wait to be called back about 20 minutes. Then, the doctor came in almost as soon as the nurse left. They are implementing a new system. Instead of patient folders, they are inputting info via laptops now. So, I had to answer a lot of goofy questions like, "do you live in a house built before 1958?" "How long and often does she nurse?" "Does she sit yet?" Etc.... Her stats are fairly consistent. She weighed 13 pounds, 9 ounces, which was consistently less than my guess of 14-15 pounds. She's in the 10th percentile for weight, but 57th percentile for height with an impressive 26 inches. Dr. L showed me her growth curve on the computer, and he's happy with it, so I'm going to try not to obsess over her weight. She seems happy and healthy and eats as much as she wants most of the time.

I asked Dr. L about the Baby-Led Weaning approach and he gave me the standard answer about starting with cereal and stage 1 purees and waiting 3 days between new foods. No nuts, no cow milk, no honey, etc.... I'm a little disheartened that he didn't want to discuss it really. I'll probably still offer her some real food when we get to that stage. However, I'll take a CPR class first. Just in case. He spent a lot of time entering stuff into the computer and not much actually looking at us. Ellie started babbling, screaching, and generally being conversational. He commented on what a happy child she seemed to be and that we were doing a good job. I mentioned that she sleeps on her stomach now most of the time and that she only rolls to the left. Neither seemed to concern him.

Over the weekend, Ellie was sleeping 8-8.5 hours at a stretch. Last night, she broke that streak with a series of wake-ups at 1-hour intervals 3 times. Luckily, I had gone to bed at 8:30, so it didn't kill me quite like it would have. Still, 5 am came way too soon. She did sleep an hour for her first nap. And, she snuck in a half hour at the Y. But, she shortchanged her afternoon nap with just 90 minutes. So, bedtime was early tonight and we started the sleep clock at 6:30. Cross your fingers.

Nice to meet you Mr. Pete. I like your haircut!