We were suppose to have Olivia's four month check up on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the nurse practitioner (who we were to see) got in a bad car accident and is out for a bit. Another provider is out for some reason, so our appointment got pushed all the way to the 15th. She'll be almost 5 months at that point! Oh well.
Unofficial Stats
There was a baby scale in Little Man's closet so I asked if we could use it. G said we could just have it. We weighed Olivia earlier this week and she is 17 pounds 4 ounces. I guess our scale was right. We measured her length at 26 inches. We laid her on a disposable changing pad and drew the lines just like at the doctor. I also measured her head. The girl has a BIG head! We only have two hats (both bought during pregnancy on clearance). One is 0 to 6 months and just went in the bin with clothes she's outgrown. I couldn't even attempt to get it on her head. The other is 6 to 12 months and barely fits. Normally I wouldn't have cared about the measurement, but I need to get her a hat before we head north for Thanksgiving. Lots of the etsy sellers give measurements, so I needed to know what size to order. Are you ready for this? 17 and a half inches! She's a half inch away from needing 12 month to 24 month old hats! We happened to have a Christmas santa type hat (also purchased on clearance during pregnancy). It said size 24 months and fit perfect. Oh boy! Anyway, I found some kind of calculator online to figure out the percentiles. According to that she is 96% for weight, 91% for height and 97% for head circumference. At least she's still proportionate. Plus, she's technically 4 1/3 months so the percentiles could be off just a little. :)
Car seats
Our original plan was to wait until Christmas and ask for/buy her convertible car seats. Even though she isn't at the 22 pound weight limit yet, she looks big for the carrier. Not only that, but it's a beast to carry around. Plus, the car seat check ladies said that when she was an inch from the top that it was time to move her. She's getting very close to that inch. We used our online consumer reports subscription and checked out what was best. For years it's been Britax so that is what I was going to get. It's what Little Man uses. Britax car seats are a fortune so I wasn't upset when there was a Graco one with higher rankings. :) I found a good deal online at Walmart and they will ship it to your local store for free. We got two--one for my car and one for my work car. It would be nice to have one for Michael's car, but it's not a necessity at this point. They will be in on November 10th. It's suppose to last until she is 65 pounds, so hopefully that is a looooong time from now! :)
Crib
We moved Olivia to her room/crib last week and she has done fine. For logistical reasons, when Amanda and Hieu came to stay we gave them our room. We stayed in the guest room/nursery. So technically we were still sleeping in the same room for her first five nights in the crib. She did fine when we went back to our room though. In fact, the first night she slept for ten hours! She's back to getting up twice a night, but she sleeps 12 hours so I can't complain too much.
Swaddle
We are in the process of trying to break the swaddle. I've tried off and on for the last few weeks, but I always end up giving in. Why is it so much work? :) She busts out of it every night though, and that makes me nervous. Most people said they stopped when the baby could roll from back to belly. I don't imagine that is going to happen any time soon, but she was so fed up with the swaddle. She definitely sleeps better with it, but she fights it so much that I figured it was just time. Right now we are doing a few days of one arm out. I tried cold turkey twice and it didn't go so well. I'll let you know how the gradual wean works.
Solids
Everyone keeps asking me if we've started solids yet. I had decided when I was pregnant that I was going to wait until 6 months to start solids. I was pretty set on it too. Then Olivia came and she is a big girl. I started second guessing myself...wondering if maybe she needed more to satisfy her. Of course, that was silly because she is not showing ANY of the signs that would indicate it was time to start solids with her. I called and asked my pediatrician what she thought (since my appointment got pushed back) and she agreed that it would be best to wait until 6 months. I knew that is what the AAP recommends, but I wanted to know what my pediatricians view point was. That's why you choose your pediatrician. She said that if I absolutely thought it was necessary, I could start rice cereal when she was 5 months. After some research, I had pretty much already decided that I wanted to skip cereals. Baby rice cereal and baby oatmeal cereal have little to NO nutritional value. (Of course grinding your own is a different story). I told the nurse that I would rather her just have more milk than eat cereal as a filler. She laughed and said that was what I should do anyway, so it's settled. When to start solids seems to be a hot topic. There is a debate whether starting early vs late helps with future allergies. That was another reason I was questioning my 6 month decision. Obviously Olivia already has allergy/tummy issues, so I wanted to make sure I was making the right choice for her. I feel that I am. I could list all the many reasons I feel the way I do, but if you are really interested you can just go here.
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