Questing.
You all must have been much better prepared for motherhood than I, because only three people responded to my request for questions-you-were-too-embarrassed-or-forgetful-to-ask-your-pediatrician. However I did get many assurances that I am unlikely to accidentally give Simone Shaken Baby Syndrome, which is a relief, particularly assuming that this information also applies to her Jumperoo, which has been the subject of many a terrifying daydream wherein my baby bounces herself into a brain injury and I am unfairly blamed and not only lose custody but am summarily jailed. And anyone who has seen Law & Order knows that inmates are not especially kind to their child-abusing compatriots, so even if I were eventually cleared, I would likely be by then a haunted-eyed shell of my former self, prone to terrifying jailhouse flashbacks. I have such lovely daydreams. Actually, my daydreams don’t hold a candle to my regular dreams, which Scott has long mocked me for, so uniformly horrifying are they. A recent example? A dream in which I was at some odd, Chinoiserie themed party in a New York hotel, and then went down in the elevator and couldn’t convince the doorman to let me back in, at which point several buildings collapsed, a la 9/11, and corpses began raining from the sky. I was forced to enter a Wal-Mart and choose a pair of sweatpants for the journey ahead and then trek across a corpsey post-apocalyptic landscape to another hotel where I would be helping with some corpse-related task, and then it turned out that the floor of the hotel I was sent to was actually the inside of a toilet. Oh! And I had been carrying some book of jokes by Bill Maher on my trek and bequeathed it to someone with a lecture about comedy being the only way through disaster. This lecture occurring, naturally, around a campfire, while I was wearing my new Wal-Mart sweatpants and surveying the blackened, burning, smoke clogged landscape. I should write children’s books, don’t you think?
One question a few of you had for ME was how I get such lovely pictures of Simone, which inquiry I found both flattering and hilarious. Believe me, if you got a glimpse of everything I have in iPhoto, you wouldn’t be asking me for any tips. The truth is that I take about 75 pictures for every one that is nice enough to post, and my photography advice is brief:
1. Buy a better camera. I have a Nikon D40, for which I paid $500. I wish I had bought it earlier. I have almost no usable pictures from the NICU because Simone couldn’t tolerate the flash (and it made her look awful anyway) and my old point-and-shoot was terrible in low-light situations. It had such a lag between pressing the button and the actual picture being taken that I almost NEVER got anything in focus—babies are twitchy, you know. I use the D40 exactly like I used the old camera—on the automatic-but-no-flash setting—but get vastly better results.
2. Don’t use the in-camera flash. At some point I might buy of those fancy flashes that you can point upwards, away from the subject, but for now I just open the shades all the way and put Simone by a window. Much better.
3. Take a million pictures. The delightful thing about a digital camera is that you aren’t wasting film by clicking manically away in the hopes that you will get something pretty. I have a big memory card I got for $50, so I never run out of room.
And that’s it. I am too impatient to learn Photoshop—I pull my pictures into Picnik on Flickr and crop them, press the “automatically fix exposure” button, and fiddle with the saturation and temperature a little because Flickr does a funny thing to color profiles.
I have a hell of a time getting pictures of Simone smiling, because she is too busy looking at the camera to notice me waving my hand at her in an amusing fashion. I finally got one yesterday by getting her SO excited by waggling my ponytail around that she was still smiling when I raised the camera and snapped it at her. Still, most of those pictures were terribly out of focus because she was bobbing her head around with glee.
On a totally unrelated note, those of you with reflux-y preemies who used Danny Slings and elevated crib mattresses: when did you stop? Simone still has reflux, but I am wondering if it is time to put the crib mattress down and retire the Danny Sling, as her reflux is no longer of the constant terrifying threat of apnea variety, more of the all that extra laundry is a nuisance sort—in other words, probably no worse than many regular babies, who are probably NOT sleeping with elevated crib mattresses and Danny Slings. They discharged us from the apnea program months ago and said we would “just know” when it was time to stop the reflux precautions. Well, this is yet another thing that I do NOT, in fact, “just know.” Do you? Also “sitting unassisted”: how does this happen? Do I just prop Simone up over and over until she stays that way? Will she somehow sit up on her own? The child isn’t even rolling over yet, people. I feel like there is something I should be doing that I’m not—tiny baby obstacle courses, maybe?
41 Comments
My son (5.5 months) has acid reflux. We never used a sling and he is not a preemie so you may want to skip the rest of this comment.
We elevated his mattress until he went into the crib (around 2 or 3 months). He is still on Zantac and I’m wondering if he will ever get off of it.
As for the sitting, I’m wondering the same thing myself!
Some babies sit up well before they roll over. I learned this the hard way..by convincing myself that my third child had some rare congenital agenesis of the roll-over muscle. I was sure we’d have to kick his right-side up like a turtle the rest of his life!
Anyway. They really just develop naturally when they darn well feel like it. For “sitting-up practice”, I would prop my kids kind of like in the tripod position (sitting legs apart with their hands supporting them between their legs) and just let go and see what happens! Eventually they get tired of falling over ;)
Rolling over and sitting up are great questions for your early intervention people. They have lots of tricks in their bag for teaching those skills.
I used to put my baby inside the boppy pillow, so that he was sort of sitting up, sort of leaning on the boppy. It let him practice without falling and hitting his head all the time.
I had a reflux-y full-term baby who slept sitting up in his bouncy chair (wore out 2 motors) until he went to day care at age 4.5 months…crib mattress was elevated at home till about 6 months…stayed on the meds till exactly 1 year. I didn’t “just know” – the day care told us we couldn’t do the bouncy seat there so that’s when we bit the bullet. We only knew we could stop the meds when we did an experiment of lengthening the time between the doses and it appeared to have no effect at all.
sitting unassisted – yes, we practiced this in my lap and by propping him on the couch. Kneel in front of couch, prop up baby, pull arms away, lurch in to catch baby before tipover, repeat repeat repeat until about 6.5 months, after which he could sit up but still tipped over frequently for another month. BTW there is another big lag of time between sitting up when an adult puts them in a sitting position, and when they are able to pull themselves from lying down to a seated position. Many more muscles needed for the latter…mine rolled onto his side and pushed up from there, before he was able to do it from lying on his back.
Our pediatrician was all about the “tummy time” to build up neck/abdominal muscles, but boy did he hate it (due to the reflux, I think).
In answer to the other question about waxy ears – the nurse at the ped’s office has a strange miniature-melon-balling looking disposable plastic gizmo that she used – she called it “digging up the potatoes”. Maybe your doc could give you one and show you how to use it?
i have a wedge that goes under the sheet in our crib for our reflux daughter, she slept in a swing (not moving) for the first 4 months of life because it propped her up a bit higher but now that the reflux seems to have slowed down somewhat we have just recently moved her to the crib with the slight wedge (and no sling)……..its working well so far.
As for sitting up, i have been putting my little on inside the boppy, she sort of leans one way or the other most of the time, but if i put a toy between her legs she will sometimes sit more upright (to play)…..but its short lived at this point. I cant remember how it was with my first born but yes i think eventually you sit them up and they just stay put!
To all of the people who are going to respond with “tummy time” – I have a question. What do you do when your child breaks into hysterical screams .5 seconds after commencing tummy time. I can only tolerate it for 1 minute. That’s it. Am I destining her to have a flat head / poor muscle control? How can I make her tolerate it?
I missed your last post by virtue of groaning horribly in bed – I repeatedly forget to ask our paediatrician how close Harry was to dying shortly after his birth. Perhaps I’m even forgetting deliberately. I know he’s unlikely to remember clearly enough to say – or tell me the unvarnished truth if he did – but I was hoping that he might be able to whitewash the nastier elements out of my nightmares. Also, I keep forgetting to ask him to have a close look at Harry’s willy. Our local children’s nurse – a deeply dippy soul, whose services I have since unregretfully dispensed with – forecast much general doom and gloom, and seemed to think his foreskin was pulling his willy ‘down’ slightly, when she saw his 4 week old tackle. Hubby and I were so aghast that anything might be even slightly wrong with his little equipment that we clutched one another in horror and failed to robustly enquire quite what she was seeing that his parents and a battery of NICU paediatricians has missed. Nevertheless, one likes to be sure about these things!
What a fabulous nightmare. Well paced, good changes of location, a rich cast of corpses, just the right amount of surrealism. I specialise in the actual apocalyptic-type mare, myself – mile-high walls of water, Independence Day-like spaceships appearing to detroy us all. Although, the one I had whilst in the early days of breastfeeding agony was a lulu – some machiavellian soul was inflating my breasts with a bicycle pump. And then it got horribly, unspeakably worse. Argggh.
Harry took forever to sit up. Perhaps prop Simone up with cushions on three sides, and give her balance muscles a bit of a try-out. So disappointing when you’ve padded them silly from behind – and then they nosedive ignominiously to the floor.
Yup, we practiced sitting a lot on the bed, where if she fell over, nothing untoward would happen. BTW, she also sat up long before she rolled over well.
To MommyAttorney: my daughter also loathed “tummy time.” She is now 21 months and strong as an ox (ok, a baby ox), so I wouldn’t worry too much. If you really want to continue tummy time, you could try laying your daughter on your chest on her stomach, or propping her chest up on a pillow so her head is not flat down against the ground.
We used a Bumbo seat with our little guy for sitting up – no it’s not on his own, but did help to get him using the right muscles. We also did the inside the boppy pillow sitting (gives a nice cushion to crash into) and sitting in the corner of the couch – all with something to lean on.
For the lady’s whose baby hates tummy time, have you ever tried to do tummy time over the boppy pillow? Basically chest is on boppy, arms are on and over (hope that makes sense) my little guy hated being flat, but if I elevated him a bit with the boppy – he loved it. Good luck!
I think carrying baby in sling facing in also counts as tummy time–they’re off the back of their head, chance to use neck muscles, etc.
Re: sitting up, yes, my husband spent many an hour propping her up and seeing what happened. We have a video of her sitting proudly, then listing to one side, then slooowly crashing down and bonking her head on the side of the crib. And it makes us giggle, because we are sick.
Oh, and she had already been rolling over for a month or two before she ever came close to sitting unassisted.
I’m sorry, I’ve had your blog open on a tab for days meaning to comment, but never did. *shamefaced*
Anyway, I asked my ped lots of stuff and was notorious for forgetting to ask something until the last second as they walked out the door.
The only thing you can do about the questions, is to try it on your kid. I haven’t used the slings or crib stuff, but I plan on using the reflux meds until high school. LOL
Seriously, use them until she gets through solid foods for a bit. And mushy solidish food. Just because that might be a problem, or might not, so why buy trouble.
Although my full term kids were unable to sit up totally alone until maybe 8-9 months? So if you age adjust Simone, you’ve got a while.
P.S. I have really bad dreams too. Seriously. We are like kin on this.
good camera tips!
and serioulsy I am the same type of dreamer! The weirdest dreams ever and I remeber every detail and take the whole 25 minute car ride to work to tell my husband all about them each day.
thank you for the photo information!
i don’t remember when sam finally sat up, but i stuck him in his nursing pillow donut hole all the time and eventually he just got his head/neck control together and needed the donut hole pillow less… i’m a trial and error mother (ie, i gave my son solids at nearly 2.5 months and while he didn’t go insane over it, he did eat it… and he did sleep better, SO WHATEVER PEDIATRICIANS!)
If you design a baby obstacle course that will help my son meet the milestones without me going….hmmmm…why hasn’t he done THAT yet? I will buy one. Or two. And I’ll nominate you for best baby invention of the year.
There were three of us together in birthing class – all had boys, all in March and all via C section (so much for the breathing!). I tell myself not to compare but it is impossible not to! Both of the other boys are already sitting up and rolling over. Perhaps they have the baby obstacle course the rest of us don’t know about?
On the flip side, this is my first and will be my only. I keep reminding myself to enjoy the baby stage and not rush things. So what if he’s not using a sippy cup? So what if he’s not sitting up unassisted! That’s more time to enjoy him being curled up in my lap with a bottle – those times will be gone way too quickly for me!
Melissa
Hi Alexa,
my 9 cents:
sitting up – boppy, etc., I have nothing to add to that except to say that the skull is a tough bone for a reason.
pediatrician questions – google it!
solids – cereal is overrated. I guess they need it for the iron for a certain time but I say ditch it asap. give her something you don’t have to spoon into her mouth. give her a spoon the first time and every time and she’ll be feeding herself well by two.
tv and nursing – she’s looking at your boob, not the boob tube (ha ha). like she even gets law and order anyway. she doesn’t know it’s got adult content.
keeping kid clean – if you plan on going out and want her clean later, put a couple of sweatshirts on her in the am. as they get dirty, take each layer off and throw in laundry.
q tips – we’re not supposed to put them in our ears, either. but we all do it, how the heck else are you supposed to clean your ears? my boys all have gross earwax and are frequently subject to forced cleanings with a q tip. sometimes if I show them the grossness on the first one they are fascinated enough to hold still for the next one.
that baby of yours is lookign soooo fat and gorgeous! so happy for you. my boys are at grillokids.blogspot.com if you’d like to see the endearing (just my opinion of course) results of my parenting tips!
sara
The chub in her cheeks in this week’s baby of the week picture is just SO cute. :)
The sitting up thing – I held in her sitting up for awhile – also used the boppy and bumbo (mostly Bumbo). Eventually I could prop her into a tripod position and then she just started doing it. For rolling, I just put her on her tummy a LOT.
Regarding the q-tips…use a fingernail instead and just get the big gobs. Here’s the thing with q-tips. It is kinda like shampooing too much. Your ear will over-produce to try to make up the lost wax/moisture. My husband had the worst ears and used 2 q-tips per day until I told him to stop. A month later he had clean ears and has not needed a q-tip since.
Yeah, so I never asked the Dr. why my daughter didn’t ever seem to want to roll over. She did it three times, twice involved crashing the play gym thing around her, so I think she was spooked. Otherwise, she developed normally except late crawling/walking, but that could have been because she’s an amazon, and they take longer to deal with all of that length.
Great camera tips. I have a normal refluxy baby, and never did those things, but at 18 months old, she’s still taking her prevacid or she gets hiccupy/burpy.
Also this, with solids/reflux. It make take longer for them to get it and you may need to adjust meds. Despite people saying that solids would “fix” her reflux, they did make it worse. Take it slow and don’t let anyone boss you around about it.
Not to insult you, because it’s so obvious, but tummy time really is the best way for them to learn to roll over and sit up, both. It strengthens the right muscles. Many babies do hate it (mine did), but that’s kind of what gets them to roll over, right? And it’s not like you need to get her to lay there for 1/2 hour or something. Just 5 minutes here and there through the day is supposed to be enough.
I was usually able to keep my little one content enough for 5 minutes by putting a variety of toys on the floor in front of her–far enough that she couldn’t reach them but kept trying. We did the sitting-in-the-boppy thing too, but I felt like she learned it faster after I started really sticking with the tummy time.
I think P was about 9 months old before levelled her crib. Poor dear didn’t even sleep in her cot until she was 3 1/2 months old, as prior to that she was propped up in her bouncy chair.
As for the sitting up/rolling over thing, yeah, tummy time is helpful, but not great for a refluxing baby. I gave up after awhile, I admit. I felt bad that she would just lay there, prone, and in a puddle of her own sick. It all looked so tragic. My Mom, much less sympathetic, would run a baby boot camp when she visited and subject the wee mite to many minutes of continuous tummy time.
Anyway, when I would get P to practice sitting up, I had a sea of pillows stacked high around her. I was terrified that she would fall backwards and crack her delicate little baby skull on the floor. It took me months to get over that.
Talking about the things you do to accommodate reflux babies makes me glad P grew out of it at a year. I don’t miss those times at all.
My kid didn’t sit up unassisted and on his own until he learned to crawl. The books all say sitting up is supposed to come first. My baby said fuck all that, I’m Doin’ It My Way.
On the reflux thing: though my baby wasn’t a preemie, he had bad “ordinary” reflux and propping the mattress was a great help. We still do it 10 months out.
Regarding the sitting up thing, we just propped her up (the boppy was good for this) and she started holding her hands in front of her to support herself then one day she just sat up on her own. With my daughter nearly every developmental milestone was like an overnight thing – never gradual. One day she could roll over and did it a million times, then she just started sitting, then just started crawling (no rocking, getting up on hands and knees stuff), and eventually just one day walked – not a few steps, just started walking everywhere.
The SB 400 Speedlight is worth its weight in everything.
EVERYTHING.
When my girls came home with Danny Slings, the ends of their beds were lowered two notches. When I noticed they stopped spitting up a bit I brought the bottom up one notch. At least that got rid of the Danny Sling! Plus, they were too big for it anyway. Delaney’s bed is flat, but her reflux has never been as bad as Caden’s. I tried putting Caden’s bed to flat, but within a day her voice was hoarse. I immediately flashed back to Ashlee Simpson’s SNL debacle and knew her reflux was causing it. She’s back down a notch again and happy as a clam. They’re seven months now, five months adjusted. I figure I’ll try going flat again in another month.
i thought simone has an early intervention person working with her. am i mistaken? if this person isn’t a physical or occupational therapist, you can ask him/her to get a PT consult. your friendly local EI PT can help you out with facilitating rolling and sitting! btw, i AM an EI PT, but it’s hard to explain facilitating rolling and sitting in text, without even my terrible stick figures to assist. and you’d probably get more out of a real live home visit than a virtual consult by yours truly anyway, even with stick figures.
My daughter was born at 34 weeks and a physical therapist taught me developmental exercises to do with her.
For sitting I was told to lay her on her back then take her hands and pull her up to a sitting position then lower her back down and repeat. I guess this stregthens the stomach muscles so she would be less likely to topple over when put in the sitting position.
For rolling over I was told to lay her on her back then take her leg and cross it over to the opposite side and gently push on her side to help her roll over. Then roll her back, then roll her to the other side crossing the other leg over and repeat. Picking her leg up and crossing it over helped to shift her weight to start the rolling process naturally.
I’m not sure if I described these clearly, but you basically just have to help her do the activity she needs to learn and over time she will build up the muscles needed to do it on her own.
My son who wasn’t a preemie started rolling over like an unstoppable fiend at 5 months (and Simone is 4.5 months adjusted?) and commando-style pulling himself along with one arm crawling a couple of weeks after that. s I recall he was well into his seventh month before he showed a particular interest in sitting (his muscles were strong enough, he just found sitting a waste of time he could have spent rolling underneath the couch).
You can prop her up with some pillows if you fancy or put her in the Bumbo, but ultimately they get around to it when it interest them and sometimes they are just too busy doing other things.
Oh, I remembered that we used to play Row Row Row Your Boat – where i would kind of do a mini-sit up with him with the rowing motion. Then on the roll roll roll and rock rock rock your boat verses he would be on his back and I would take hold of his hands and gently roll him from side to side. He got a huge kick out of this.
Another that was good exercise for the hips was the bicycle song – the baby is on the back, you take hold of the legs and do a bycicle motion with them in the air to the tune of
I ride and ride my bycicle
I ride it to the shops
And when I see the red light on
I know it’s time to stop. (you stop the feet)
I ride and ride my bicycle
I ride it to and fro
And when I see the green light on
I know it’s time to go. (you do a mad wriggle with the feet).
My baby hated tummy time and was quite slow to roll over, but in retrospect I don’t know why I worried about it – he zooms about like anything now. For sitting, I used to sit on the floor with him between my legs so I could catch him when he toppled; then, when he could sit for some minutes, we used to put him in the middle of one of those crescent-shaped nursing pillows. He rolled front to back at five months, could sit unsupported but only very briefly at 6 and a half months, sat well about a month later, and only bothered learning to roll back to front (because why would he want to be on his front?) when he could already get from his front into a sitting position and thence pull up to standing.
Hi. Thanks for the tips about photography. You do have some mighty cute pics of your baby. I agree about the flash, the nice camera, and the picture overload for one or two good shots. I haven’t had a baby, but I do take a lot of pictures of friends’ babies. Something I’ve found to help with the wiggly-baby-blurry-picture is to use the sports setting on my camera. Didn’t you know wiggling is a sport? The setting is designed to take pictures of things in motion. My camera doesn’t show previews of pictures taken that way, so I REALLY take a lot in that setting.
Simply put: Simone will sit up, roll over, do the Army combat crawl (a prelude to really crawling)……..when she is ready. If you have a boppy, you can prop her on the floor in that, they look so cute sitting there and are SO proud of themselves!
Simone is totally adorable and you guys are wonderful parents!!! Hope the IUD thingy is going OK. :)
For sitting up, you can put her in her Boppy & do the tripod thing a pp suggested. You sit in front of her. You can also hold her hands while she is sitting. My daughter is the same adjusted age as Simone and cannot sit on the floor by herself, but can sit on her potty by herself (we practice elimination communication). If you are interested in building trunk muscles that way, a Baby Bjorn Little Potty costs only $10 (WAY cheaper than a Bumbo). Im sure Simone could sit on it w/ her clothes on, but since it’s a potty, pants are not necessary :) DD can sit on hers for as long as she likes w/ out falling.
If your baby hates tummy time, carry them upright & facing you so they are looking over your shoulder. When they are floppy lil nuggets, they will rest against you & get practice holding their head up and out from your body. As they grow, they will lean back away from you to look around better. This has been dds favourite way to be held since day one. Now she sits on my hip, tho, b/c she is no longer floppy!
awesome advice from all these smart parents! the boppy is a great option–she can start learning to push herself back up with one arm if she tips, too, which is a precursor to getting from sittinghands and knees. um, but yes, basically, to teach her to sit you just prop her up over and over! the pull to sit over and over option is okay, but for preemies, they also tend to need to work on rotating their trunks, and it might not be the best idea to encourage that going-straight-forward pattern too much.
tummy time on your chest is a great option too. maybe you can trick her by lying flat on your back and having her on your tummy instead of the floor. :) if you roll up a hand towel or small baby blanket and put the roll (perpendicular to her body) under her chest/armpits, that can help her support her trunk weight on her forearms when she is on her tummy. a lot of babies REALLY like this.
the facilitation of rolling by crossing one leg over the other is right, but would be most easily understood with a real live PT/OT consult….rolling will help her learn to activate her trunk muscles to sit up better, and integrate both sides of her body to sit up better. all the skills feed into each other.
i’m starting to feel preachy. gonna stop now. hope this is helpful!
Oh, I’ve had dozens of forgotten questions, but when responding to your last post, I couldn’t remember them then, either! Something about being put on the spot.
Just thought you would like to know, I just had M’s 18 month checkup, and managed to entirely forget to talk to her about her reflux meds, which we are about to be out of, and we need to decide if we want to continue.
So, umm… yeah. I remembered to ask about her much larger toe however, so I got that right (it’s still totally normal)
irrelevant to the actual blog post (shame!): alexa, i am still waiting for you to join the crew of readers over at haven kimmel’s blog. her latest, iodine, is up for discussion and she is answering questions. next up we are discussing A Prayer for Owen Meany and she has mentioned asking John Irving to come by!
Way to old now to remember all the details very clearly, but I vaguely remember repeatedly putting kid #1 (not a preemie, and now about to turn 33) down in a sitting position when he was getting close to 6 months old — because “they” said that was the age of sitting up by oneself — and watching him slump slowly over. I was really jealous of those mothers of slightly older babies who just strode into a room and plopped the kid down on the floor and let it SIT there. Finally one day I noticed he was sort of sitting forward in his high chair and thought “huh! I wonder…” and sure enough, he could suddenly sit up for a while before tipping over. And then a longer while. And then suddenly he was in high school. And then… Dang that went fast.
Just catching up on your blog. Our little preemie still has reflux and she’s 10 months actual, 6-1/2 months adjusted age. I quite elevating her bed when she started to even think about rolling over. She would only get on her side, but I still panicked about suffication and such. She was still on the apnea monitor, so she was probably home 3 months when I stopped. We had to switch her to a Prilosec compound for her reflux because nothing else was working and it seems to help, along with thickened liquids. She still doesn’t sit up on her own. She will stand up when holding her hands. We use the bumbo seat and also have an OT come out once a week with early intervention to help her develop her skills. The baby sit ups help strengthen her abdominal muscles so she can sit up unassisted….someday.
Re tummy time for kids who hate it. Try placing your baby face down across your lap. Chest on one leg, belly on the other. Gently shift your knees from side to side to mimic their gas exercises and stroke their back with one hand, while making sure their head is ok with the other hand.
Their tummies get strong quickly if you modify your football hold into a more upright stance and tuck them in along your hip. Once their neck is strong, start postioning on your hip as soon as possible, they will use their tummy muscles to help cling to you.
If you are personally flexible, sit the baby up right between your legs and fold laundry over their head. It’s a great way to practise your own core strength.
Remember nothing lasts forever, not even colic, or the projectile vomit on the dress of the lady in the church pew behind you.
Ask someone you trust to take one of those wretched progression charts and calenderize it at the outside tolerance/timeline for your child’s birthday and growth. Never, ever look at one of those milestone development charts yourself. Everytime your kid beats the personal milestone chart, celebrate and write in a diary how excited you are about your baby’s growth.
Write stuff down, by the time the fifth baby comes within eight years you start to forget.
I am newly introduced (to you/your site) and this is totally irrelevant to your baby situation, but I had to ask my pediatrician about my son’s uncircumcized little friend. I do believe my words were “I don’t have one of those so I have no idea what to do with it.”
:-)
We had to switch her to a Prilosec compound for her reflux because nothing else was working and it seems to help, along with thickened liquids. She still doesn’t sit up on her own.