Six Weeks

Sophie was 6 weeks old yesterday & we went back to her pediatrician for another check up. After weeks of waiting, she finally got vaccinated! Poor girl had to get 3 shots in both of her thighs :( I was surprised that one of the vaccines was a liquid that she slurped up & apparently she liked it:

 

The nurse said the medicine was really tart so Sophie may like sour food in the future! They also gave her sugar water before her shots & she thought that was great too:

 

 

Besides her shots, everything else went great. She is healthy & finally getting bigger! I hadn't written much about it on here, but we had problems with her gaining weight. I have been taking her in for weekly weigh ins since she was born & when she was a month old, she was still not at her birth weight. Most babies lose weight when they are discharged from the hospital, but usually they are back to their birth weight by one or two weeks. And they should start gaining about an ounce a day where she was only gaining an ounce a week. It had been a long process trying to figure out why she wasn't gaining. I was nursing exclusively & I thought she was doing great. Her doctor was concerned that I wasn't producing enough milk so I started pumping & giving her breast milk in bottles so we could measure everything. I was making enough milk, but that still wasn't enough. Then we started supplementing formula bottles after I nursed her & that still wasn't enough. Bryan & I always joked that the reason she wasn't gaining weight was because she went to the bathroom so much. I finally started keeping track of her diapers & sure enough, that was the problem! Most babies have closer to 10 dirty diapers a day, most of them pee diapers with 1 or 2 stool diapers but Sophie was having about 25 diapers a day & almost all of them had stool in them. Luckily she had 2 dirty diapers while I was at the doctor & when they tested them, they showed microscopic traces of blood. Apparently her digestive system cannot handle dairy & it only got worse when we were supplementing with a milk based formula :( Poor girl was losing weight & hurting every time she went to the bathroom because her digestive system couldn't handle it. We tested her early on because Sadie had this problem until she was almost 2 years old, but her diapers were clear, so we think she developed it later on. The good news is that her reaction has been different than Sadie's so I am hoping it won't be as severe or won't last as long. Since I nursed Sadie for 10 weeks & went through all of this with her, I didn't fight it this time around. I gave up nursing after 5 weeks & we switched her to a hypo-allergenic formula that is soy & dairy free. Needless to say her diapers cleaned up & were cut in half within 2 days & she is not nearly as fussy. And the best part about it is her weight gain - as of yesterday she officially broke 8 pounds! She is still on the smaller size weight wise, but she is definitely taller than Sadie & has a much bigger head - see her statistics below:

 

Weight: 8 lbs. 2 oz., 8.3%

Height: 21.5", 51%

Head:14.75", 69%

 

She is also sleeping like a champ:

 

 

Most of her morning naps happen in her car seat (sorry second child!) or around the house while Sadie is playing but I officially moved her upstairs to her nursery for her afternoon naps. I have had her & Sadie on the same schedule for a couple of weeks now so it is heavenly to have both of them sleeping upstairs all afternoon while I have time to myself :) She is also consistently sleeping 9-10 hours a night but we still have her downstairs. We usually feed her a late bottle around 10:30 o 11:00 & then she sleeps until 8:30 or 9:00 the next morning. I am hoping to move her upstairs at night soon - but I am waiting until the weekend just in case she doesn't like it. Don't want to keep Bryan up all night when he has to go to work the next day!

 

Overall Sophie is a healthy little girl & I can't believe she is already 6 weeks old. We have enjoyed every minute with her & I have a feeling it's only going to get better now that we can take her out of the house & get back to normal :)