Ben’s 4 month stats

Today we finally had Ben’s 4 month well baby appointment.  We had to go to family practice for some reason, which was a little bit annoying.  I would have liked him to see a pediatrician for his well baby check, not a family practice doctor, but oh well.  We’ll be back in Italy for his 6 month appointment so I’ll get him with his normal pediatrician then.

I got him his Rotavirus oral vaccine and his PCV shot.  He was all smiles for the oral part but obviously didn’t like the shot too much.  He got over it quickly though.  After his shots, we went back downstairs to the family practice department.  We got checked in, and then they sent us back upstairs to see the doctor because apparently he works in a different department.  ??  The nurse called us back and didn’t even know we were there for a well baby check, so then we had to go back downstairs to get his measurements because they only have infant scales in the peds department.  After we got his measurements we had to go back upstairs to see the doctor, but not before they put us in a room with a treadmill.  ???  It was rather strange to say the least, but whatever.

So now Ben is 14lbs 8oz (naked) and he’s 25.75” long and his head circumference was 17”.  The nurse tried to tell me that he was 27.5” long and I was like, uh… I’m fairly positive that’s not right…  He’s a long baby, but not that long.  The doctor looked him over quickly and said everything looks good.  Looking over Ben’s weight stats from birth, he started off in the 80th % the day he was born.  (I just have big babies.)  At 2 months and 1 week, he’d dropped to the 5%.  (Yikes!!!)  We figured out we needed to put him on formula and by 2 months, 3 weeks he was up to the 10th %.  At 3 months, 2 weeks he was up to the 25% and a month later at 4.5 months he’s in the 37%.  So he’s slowly back on track.  I don’t ever expect him to be in the 80th % again because that’s not his build, but I hope that he’ll continue to gain and get up to the 50th % at least.  In the past 2 months he’s gained 5lbs 6oz’s and considering he’d gained 3 ounces in his first 2 months of life, I’m pretty happy about that almost 5.5lbs!  He’s also in the 75% for length now and he was over the 97% at birth.

Ben has also seemed to turn a corner with his sleep (THANK GOD!!!).  I have no doubt that we’d all be sleeping better if we weren’t sharing a room right now, but we don’t really have any other choice.  We’ve started putting him to bed at 8:30pm and sometimes he’ll wake up and need his paci once or twice during the night.  He’s usually needing a bottle between 4-5am and then I can usually get him to go back to sleep until 8-9am.  So not too bad.  Much better than him waking up every 2 hours or more like he was when we first got here.  He takes a nap sometime late morning from 30min-1hr and then he usually naps for at least 2 hours in the afternoon and then takes a short nap in the evening.  We’re definitely getting his schedule down, and he’s getting more predictable, which is another reason that this is one of my favorite ages.