Solids!

Last night, Luke had solids for the first time. His reaction is below.

Even though I started Chase and Brice on avocado, the doctor felt Luke would do better with rice cereal because of his reflux. So rice cereal it was!

Before we started, Luke was so hungry that he was eating his hands.

He wasn't so sure about the first bite- but he did eat it.

"Not so bad...."

"Hmmm...this is okay"

"Yes! More!"

"This is good stuff! I love you, Mommy!"

"Let me help you with that."

"Yum!"

"Yum yum, more more!"

"Rice cereal is #1!"

As you can see, Luke LOVED the rice cereal. Like, why-did-you-wait-so-long-to-feed-me-LOVED. At one point, I had to refill the bowl with cereal and he cried because he wanted more! This guy wants to eat big boy food. 

And, if his face didn't convince me...he slept from 7:30pm-4:30am!

Luke at 4 months!

Lukey, Luke, you are four months old. August just FLEW by in a whirl of camp and travel and camp Mommy and school starting. Luckily, you were feeling better for most of the month and mostly a happy participant in our adventures. Last week was a little rough, but you are getting back to the happier Luke again. As we enjoy our last week at home together, I am amazed at how much you are growing.

At 4 months, Luke is:

Growing: 15lbs 2oz, 25 inches, and a head circumference of 17 inches. That's 50th, 50th, and 90th (!!!) percentiles, respectively. You've outgrown 0-3 month clothes, but I'm so sad about it that I haven't packed them up yet. So you're living out of a laundry basket full of clean 3-6 month clothes.

Eating- still almost exclusively nursing  (12 bottles in your whole life- how do I even know that?) although that is about to come to come to an end. You still eat about every 2 hours during the day and every 3 at night. Your total nursing decreased to a little over an hour a day early in the month and then shot up (growth spurt? finally feeling better?) in the middle of the month to over 3 hours a day for a week. It's back down to a little less than 2 hours a day. When you do take a bottle, you usually take 3oz, tops.

Sleeping...sorta....Last night you  fell asleep at 7:30, needed your pacifier to stay asleep around 9, and then woke up at 12, 3:45 and 7am to eat. That's pretty typical of the last few days, but your sleep this month has not been great. You learned out to fight your way out of the swaddle, thereby waking yourself up. Then you learned how to roll over from your back to your belly- but you were not happy when you woke up on your belly. We didn't know whether we should swaddle you or put you back to sleep on your belly or what. There were a rough couple of nights where  you barely made it 2 hours at a time. Now you're sleeping more consistently for 3-4 hours at night on your belly, but you can do better this month!

Moving: About a week after you turned 3 months old, you started rolling over from your back to your belly. Only to the right and only from back to belly. Now when we put you on the playmat, you barely spend any time on your back and immediately roll onto your belly. Unfortunately, you don't love being on your belly- it makes it much harder to look in the mirror, kick, and grab your toys. Hopefully you'll learn to roll the other way too.

Having silly, happy conversations: Luke is becoming more interactive. He LOVES his Mommy and giggles and laughs at her. Daddy and big brothers have to catch him in the right mood to get the same response. Luke does stare in awe at his brothers moving all over the place. He's a bit slow to warm up to strangers, but once he does it's all smiles.

Enjoying the exersaucer- not only is it fun, it's also a great way for you to stay upright after eating, which helps your belly!

Trying big  boy things with the help of his brothers...like the swings at the park!

Reflux update:

Zantac did not work so we were switched to Prilosec and it made a difference pretty quickly. After about a week he was a much happier baby. But once we got on a schedule and I started to feel confident, it all went downhill: crying spells, screaming SCREAMING in the car, lots of spit-up. We were near the bottom of the medicine bottle and I think it stopped working as well since it was specially titrated for a baby. Then the pharmacy took 4 (!!!!) days to refill because it takes them 48 hours to refill and we called on Saturday after closing (1pm). Needless to say, they got an earfull from both Luke and I when we came in and were very apologetic. Luke is starting to get back to his happier self.

At his 4 month appointment, the doctor upped his dosage a bit. She said he should outgrow the reflux as he sits up more and starts eating solids. She also recommended we start him on rice cereal because it will expand in his stomach and make it harder to reflux.

We love you, Lukey!

Luke at 3 months!

Despite continued struggles with reflux and "cryin' crying all the time," Luke has grown a lot this month both in size and abilities. 

From 2 to 3 months always seems to fly by with our boys ( maybe because we always travel during that month), and marks the time when they go from a newborn to a baby. Maybe it's the end of the so-called 4th trimester.

With Luke, I think his crying and reflux have distracted us somewhat from his developmental progress. That, or our trip and out two other children. Whatever the reason, I have seen so many new abilities in Luke this past week when we got home and back into a Mommy-Luke routine that seemed to come out of nowhere. They have reminded me that everything is a phase (even reflux) and to lay attention because I might miss something!

At 3 months, Luke is:

At least 13lbs 8oz, a gain of a pound and a half in a month. We took him in to the doctor bout reflux and were pleasantly surprised by his continued strong weight gain.

It's no wonder he is growing- Luke nurses about every 2 hours from 7am-8 or 9pm. Nursing sessions are getting shorter- probably averaging 10 minutes. On occasion he'll eat very little during the day and make up for it by hanging out and lightly nursing for 30+ minutes before bed. Luke has only had 6 bottles so far- I'm sure that will increase over the next few months but I am proud that we have almost exclusively been breastfeeding because although difficult, it was one of my goals for Luke and I. 

Smiling a lot. His happy periods are growing longer. He loves to stare at faces and interact. He can tell faces now and it seems like he is trying to get a look at them even If they are not looking at him (his brothers and his parents distracted by his brothers).

Baby talking- "ahgoo" is his favorite phrase, but he also has a sound like "hi." He giggles and laughs. We have nice little  conversations-- I crack him up.

Sleeping pretty well- despite his schedule being off while we traveled, Luke seems to be back to a 6-7 hour stretch at the beginning and then 3 hours after each subsequent waking/feeding. The last few days he has only nursed 5-9 minutes during his night wakings so I may try to soothe him without the boob and see how that goes (aka see if I remember to do that in my sleep-deprived state).

Napping- again, things are in flux and highly dependent on what else we have going on, but he has been taking a short morning nap (25-30 minutes), a longer afternoon nap (sometimes 2-3 hours), and an evening short nap (25-30 minutes). 

Enjoying more time on his playmat and a teeny bit of time on his tummy. But because we're often holding him upright due to the reflux, he has good neck strength.

Still suffering from reflux: well, I think it's fair to say the Zantac did not work considering he would have fits of crying hysterically after we gave it to him and he is still spitting up. And he still screams in the car. We went back to the doctor and will be transitioning Luke to Prilosec. We got it at a real pharmacy because it had to be titrated to baby dose and it tastes Luke banana cream. We're really hoping it is the fix! We want Luke to feel better! 

Happy 3 months, sweet Luke. It is bittersweet to watch you grow out of the newborn phase and because more of a interactive baby who is (hopefully) growing out of the reflux!