Xavier at Two Months!

Our Chunk is even chunkier! I took advantage of the kids at a friend's house to clear out some of the top small clothes and bring up the six month sizes to augment Xavier's wardrobe. He can still fit into small onesies fairly well but things with feet like footed pajamas are tight in the 3-6 month size. The 6 month bear suits have a bit of room to spare and are long in the arms but by no means look ridiculous on this two month old baby.

Xavier is still a champion eater and sleeper. He nurses right at two hours total in a twenty four hour period. That's typically in about 20 sessions, though during the day a feeding is two sessions which is just a fancy way of saying both sides. At night the supply is good enough and he's sleeping long enough I can get away with only one side per night. I still have to pump once a night with an average take of seven ounces. Since I have yet to introduce a bottle - which is both sheer laziness and lack of need or a looming deadline like returning to work - that means we have more than 500 ounces frozen. I anticipate the supply dropping in another four weeks or so like it did both the previous times and assume we will need the stockpile then.

As for nights, Xavier is going at least one four hour span without any nursing once per night. He's gone as long as seven hours (that's happened once) and five hour stretches are happening more frequently. After the first big stretch of three to five hours, he's generally feeding every two to three hours then every hour to two hours the remainder of the day. In the evenings right around 7 pm when the bigger kids are finally settling down he starts cluster feeding and rarely goes more than an hour between feedings.

He's sleeping about 15 hours or so every twenty four hour period and that's in 9-12 doses including the long period overnight. He's generally asleep by 11 pm, sometimes a bit earlier, and loves to sleep in. This weekend he slept in until 11:15! It's typically closer to 9 am and I have to wake him up four days a week to get Theo to preschool anywhere near on time, which is 9:30. He's had a couple two to three hour stretches of sleep during the day over the past week but nothing routine yet. The warmer he is, the longer he's likely to sleep. I've taken to double swaddling him especially at night. In one swaddle he almost always gets loose and the extra layer keeps him warmer and nets me more sleep at night or time for other things during the day.

Xavier has slept several of his longer periods at night in his bassinet but it's by no means a guaranteed thing. He often eats constantly to get to sleep and I've learned that after burping him I can sometimes put him in the bassinet for the night. During the day he will sleep just about anywhere: in the swing, the baby Bjorn, the sling, on me, in his car seat, swaddled, unswaddled, doesn't seem to matter much.

Speaking of the car seat, Xavier is still very mellow except for three things: car rides which make him cry until he falls asleep which is generally only at speeds of thirty miles an hour or faster, having his hat over his eyes, or uncurling his fingers for a fingernail trim. As a consequence his nails are often too long as there's nothing quite like the guilt of making a baby who rarely cries cry.


Hats are a particular problem because all the ones that will fit around the circumference of his head are much too long for his face and end up covering his eyes.

Xavier is definitely smiling and cooing at people. It's super cute and sweet and he will totally engage in a conversation with me now going back and forth. He can track people quite well from side to side including moving his entire head to follow them.  I haven't had any success with him tracking up or down and he only tracks objects that intrigue him. Generally he seems more interested in people than things unless it's his fish tank. That's a fake fish tank that lights up and revolves and he will watch it indefinitely except that after three years of abuse by two other toddlers, the light bulb finally burned out. We just got the replacement tank.

In just the past three days or so I've noticed Xavier grasping objects and holding onto them. Up until then he left his hands pretty much curled into fists the majority of the time. Now I've seen him grab and move his flat bunny lovey at least twice and today he got a good grip on his bib as it was lying on his belly before I fasten it around his neck.

Yesterday he noticed his feet for the first time and was quite taken with them.

His two month appointment is coming up next week and I'll post updated measurements then. 

No Title: A Story By Theo

At co-op, the students have the opportunity to dictate a story to one of the teachers. Today Theo came home with the following story.

No Title
Once upon a time there was a raccoon that ate our chicken, and then it came back for more. Then the chicken got the bad guy with the feathers. The end.

Chunk Weighs In

Because he has more than six weeks between pediatrician appointments (and that's due to his excellent weight gain between one and two weeks), I took Xavier to weigh in today. He rocked the scales at 13 lbs 5 oz! At just shy of six weeks old, he was 12 lbs 8 oz. So that's a 13 oz gain in fifteen days.

Let's compare just for fun:
Xavier 13 lbs 5 oz at almost 8 weeks
Theo 13 lbs 9 oz at 17 weeks (4 months old)
Vivian 13 lbs 13 oz at both 19 and 26 weeks (4 and six months respectively)

I guess it makes sense that Xavier is outgrowing his 3-6 month clothes and moving into the 6 month size. I also ran out of size two diapers in the diaper bag today. (He pooped a lot!) I stuck him in a size three instead and it was not ridiculously large. For comparison, his sister who is almost 2.5 years old, wears a size four still.

Xavier at One Month and Six Weeks

Xavier, the baby who put on half a pound in 24 hours for his two week check up, doesn't have another appointment with the pediatrician until two months. In the meantime I've been tracking him less officially at other places just to have the data. 

Here's his one month giraffe photos. 

http://furchin.smugmug.com/Children/Xavier/Xavier-One-Month/

At one month Xavier was eating and sleeping like a champ. He weighed in at 11 lbs 9 oz, which was another one pound and one ounce increase in a little over two weeks. At night he's sleeping in two to three hour chunks from about eleven p.m. or midnight to nine or nine thirty in the morning. Most nights he has one four hour chunk until either three or four in the morning but it's not so reliable you can count on it occurring.

He's nursing only on one side at night which leaves me pumping once a night as well. I generally average six ounces in that pumping session even if he's emptied one side so we have a decent stash of frozen milk. 

During the day he rarely goes more than two hours between feedings. A feeding session generally consists of both sides but he's okay with only one though he will eat again in an hour in that case. In the evenings around six or seven he starts cluster feeding, and pretty much nurses unless he's burping or getting changes until he falls asleep for his long sleep period. 

By three weeks he was wearing three month sized clothes. I retired all the remaining items from the zero to three box of baby clothes and broke out the three to six month box. The six month stuff is too big for him at one month old but anything labeled 3-6 months on the tag seems to fit just right. 

With Michal's return to work and my parents' departure I also switched him over to cloth diapers. I may need to get new covers to fit his chunky thighs better because he often soaks through them at the leg holes. 

He had his first bath at three weeks old. It took me a while to get around to that. Both Theo and Vivian were anxious for him to join them at bath time. Xavier got to use the baby bucket for his bath and spent most of the time trying to drink the water once he figured out what was going on. He gets a bath roughly once a week most weeks. 

At six weeks Xavier looks totally different to me. His baby acne has cleared up on his face and his skin is much less red all over on general. He's still got most of his chub as far as I can tell. We checked his measurements a couple of days before he turned six weeks. He weighs 12 lbs 8 oz, an increase of almost exactly a pound in ten days. Even with that jump his percentage dropped from above 97 to 90th percentiles. He's 24 inches long, an increase of 1.25 inches since his two week appointment. That keeps him in the 96th percentile for height. And his head just shy of 16 inches, putting that in the 83rd percentile. (All those percentiles are on the CDC growth charts. I have the WHO percentiles too of course.)

The biggest development is that Xavier starting giving us social smiles at exactly six weeks. He's not very generous with them yet so it's still totally a thrill every single time he shares one. Previously he's only smiled a couple of times at the fake fish tank which he loves to sit and watch.  As of today he's started cooing as well, which was irresistibly adorable. 

Xavier had his first five hour chunk of sleep at five weeks and three days. It was awesome! He's still going two to three hours between feedings at night after his first big chunk of three to five hours. He's done five hours once since then. With the time change, he's tired around ten p.m. most nights and out by eleven. He's up pretty consistently sometime between two and three to feed. I'm still pumping once between two and seven in the morning as well. 

During the day he's rarely awake more than two hours and one and a half seems to be the norm. He's a sleeper for sure. I finally started tracking his sleep about a week ago and it's generally 16 hours a day or more. If he stays awake more than two hours he gets very cranky and it takes much more effort - ie some -  to get him to sleep. He definitely prefers being held upright. And swaddling and shushing him with some sort of rhythmic movement usually does the trick. 

He's still eating for about two hours total nursing each day, in 19-23 sessions most days where a session is one side. During the day he does both sides unless we are trying to be somewhere on time and I cut him off early. 

Xavier is an optimist who will suck on a pacifier in hopes of milk coming out for twenty minutes or more before he gives the up the gig. We have not tried him on a bottle yet though it's on the to-do list. Mostly that's because I'm not anticipating any issues. I am looking forward to getting rid of the variety of different brands of bottles we have once we know he takes one type. 

Xavier remains pretty mellow overall with the exception of car rides. He hates being in the car especially if we are going less than twenty miles an hour, which is frequently the case. I added a very warm blanket this last week and that seems to help a bit. He's currently riding in an infant seat in the back row next to Theo. We've already had to move the straps up one notch and I suspect we will move to the third and highest notch shortly. Sometime he will suck on a pacifier on the car but no guarantees. And he cries if his hat falls down and covers his eyes. That's often a problem because most the hats we own that fit the circumference of his head are much too long and especially in the car when he moves his head, the hats slide down. 

Speaking of moving, Xavier is extremely strong. He can hold his head up for minutes at a time even on his belly. Belly time last week didn't last long as he rolled himself over from front to back because he held his head up and then to one side and the rest of him followed suit. 

I can still squish Xavier into 3 month clothes in a pinch but he really only fits into the 3-6 month stuff. I need to get the six month smaller stuff into his drawers soon at the rate I'm retiring clothes that no longer fit. We've also moved him into size two diapers, though he never fit into newborn size anything so that's only the first size upgrade for disposable diapers. 

Overall he's still super cuddly and only getting sweeter and more fun by the day. We look forward to the next developments!