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2008-10-12 - 12:35 a.m. previous entry next entry
Nathan at 8 months...
Thanks for the comments on my entry last night (what a weird sentence - I never post "last night" any more, hehe!)! The Great Photo Project has begun! ;) I just uploaded 475 photos and video clips from the camera, all taken over the last month!! Almost 100 of them were taken by Arthur though, in one session. He loves taking pictures with the camera and some of them have come out really nice! I will post those in another entry when I have resized them and put them up at Photobucket.
I just looked at the boys' tickers and since it's after midnight (again!), Nathan's ticker says he's 9 months old!!!! How is my baby boy 3/4 of the way through his first year already?!?! Where has the time gone?! I can NOT believe he is 9 months old. It seems like a milestone age, for some reason.
In the photos from the camera, I found photos that I took of Nathan when he just turned 8 months old, so I figured I had better hurry up and post those NOW before he turns 9 months properly tomorrow! ;)
Beany boy had his "under 1 year check" with the health visitor on Monday - a new name again! It used to be the 8-month check, and then with Matthew it was the 8-9 month check, and now it's the under 1 year check! That's IT now, they have long since discontinued the checks through the toddler years! I think that's naff, but oh well, what can you do.
So he is doing great! Mobilising way ahead of his age (his developmental age is adjusted for his early arrival, so he is doing even better than we think!). He is babbling, but has only started doing that BIG time in the last couple of weeks. Now he is babbling "mamama, dadada, bababa, rararara" alllll the time. It's SO CUTE! I love this stage! :)
He had one undescended testicle at the appt, which was a concern at this age, and I was confused because he had both of them at his earlier checks! But she said maybe he's just cold, and that sometimes they do still "pop back up"! She said to check him after a warm bath, so I did that later on and only found one still. After the bath when I was getting him changed for bed, I decided to check again and there were two little tiddlywinks in there, so that was a relief! ;) Poor boy - the indignity, hehe!
He measures 71cm (haven't converted that to inches yet) and weighs 8.13kg. She usually converts that for me to lbs and oz because kg mean SQUAT to me, even though this is a metric country (I guess I wasn't brought up that way, lol!), but she didn't this time so I'm still clueless, having had no time to look it up yet. I think it's 18lbs-something. She says his weight is "tailing off" and showed me the chart which has his weight around the 25th percentile. It was between the 25th and 50th last time (MONTHS ago) and when he was tiny it was up at the 75th, I think. So she's somewhat concerned, but I'm so conditioned to be annoyed by that after my experience with Matthew. Matthew started at the 50th percentile (average weight for age) at birth and steadily dropped down below the 9th percentile over the months. It was in stark contrast to Arthur who also started at the 50th percentile at birth, but climbed steadily to above the 90th and stayed there for basically his entire first year of life!! So I was anxious when Matthew's weight did that. And the health visitors were not helpful about it. They kept saying I should wean/start solids early/supplement with formula, etc, etc. And NONE of those things needed doing, and my gut said that, and it made it awkward for me to go against what the "experts" were telling me. So now I am a bit bristly, shall we say, about my babies' weights! That's why I really haven't had him weighed much at all since he was tiny. I DO love to know what he weighs though! :) I know he's totally healthy, his development is great and he's physically ahead of schedule, so he must be fine. He's happy and doesn't go hungry at all. He nurses all day and all night about 2-hourly or so. He stops when he's full.
We recently increased the exposure to solid food for Nathan, because I was being kind of slack about it and starting to feel guilty - which I should NOT have because there's nothing to feel guilty about! That's outside influence as well, which just bugs me so much! Tsk! A baby should be 95% breastfed till 12 months - solids should be amounting to a MAXIMUM of 5% of their intake! Which is not what most babies get between 6 and 12 months of age, they get much more solids than that. And they shouldn't. It's a peeve of mine, sorry for the rant. *sigh* Anyway, so the HV said I should be giving him more solids, blah blah blah, and that he should be joining in THREE meals a day, not 2-3 like I told her, and that "maybe we'll start to see some improvement in his weight once that's happening" - I don't know, maybe I'm being completely unreasonable but THAT BUGS ME SO MUCH! I just feel defensive and like I don't want to go back to her again! Tsk.
She asked me a bunch of questions with pen poised over some notes when I got in and sat down with all the boys. She asked, "Is he still breastfeeding?" (I said yes), "Does he sleep through the night?" - I told her no, he still wakes several times to breastfeed at night. She said, "Right, we need to redress the balance there then." Um, NO, I think *I* will make that call, since *I* am the Mama and this is my third healthy baby, so yeah, *I* know best, thank you! Tsk. I know I'm sounding horrible but I found the appt really difficult and it left me feeling all bristly and defensive like I said. While I was still kind of stammering over that comment, she fired another question, "Is he taking vitamins?" I said, "Um, no?" And then she gave me the "government" spiel about breastfed babies over 6 months old needing supplemental vitamins. I felt SO irritable at this point, and she was just waiting, looking at me in such an uncomfortably assertive way, for my response. I said, feeling annoyed, "That doesn't make sense! Surely breast is all they need till they're one?!" She just said no no, the government says they need vitamins too beyond 6 months because breast is NOT enough, and what's more the WHO says so too, so ner-ner-ne-ner-ner (okay, she didn't say that last bit). I do actually already know about the vitamins thing. Iron levels in breastmilk start to decrease from 6 months onwards.
Personally I still think adding vitamins is... what's a nice word for the rude one in my head?! ;) - for a breastfed baby. It's not like I'm being all stubbornly determined to exclusively breastfeed my baby - NO SOLIDS - till he's 12 months and refusing to consider vitamins for him! He's taking solids, gradually increasing at his own pace, taking what he wants/needs. He eats what we eat, so he gets plenty of iron sources. It is just not natural that he should be drinking formula milk in order to be healthy, or else having manufactured vitamin drops with added iron!!! It just isn't, so I don't trust the recommendation. Also, I have read the research about the iron in breastmilk being FAR more readily absorbable by a baby's body than any other source of iron. So although there is less actual iron, the amount he can absorb is way higher than a big amount of iron in some other source. Also, I know that if I am concerned I can get him tested for anaemia. That's what Kellymom suggests if you're concerned, but I don't think I would want to get him stuck with a needle to find out if he was anaemic! I think I would probably be reaching for the aforementioned vitamin drops or making sure he ate mounds of meat/greens/pulses before getting concerned enough to have a blood test done, if he seemed to be having problems.
I just told the health visitor that we had skipped purees, and that he was eating what we're eating. She looked doubtful and told me to get him on vitamin drops. I said, "Well, we did the same with the other two (meaning the delay of solids compared to the "traditional" speedy introduction of overly large quantities of pureed and mashed up foods at such a young age), and they turned out just fine. They had no problems without added vitamins." She did keep up what she was saying about the vitamins so I gave up and just smiled and nodded after that. I am NOT giving him vitamins. He doesn't need the extra iron, they taste and smell VILE, and his breastmilk and solids combo is perfectly adequate for his needs, I feel sure of it. Tsk.
I also told her that I am not planning to do anything about his night feeds until he turns one. She gave me the doubtful talk but I just smiled as sweetly as I could and said that all my babies nurse through the night till a year old and I'm happy enough with it till then. AFTER they turn one I will take it in hand, but not before. So she left it at that.
It was good to have his check done, but at the time it did leave me thinking that maybe I would not bother seeing the health visitor with my next baby. I do SO miss my lovely health visitor that saw us with my first two babies! She has retired and her young assistant has turned into the new health visitor at the surgery, so that's who we see now. She's actually nice and I like her in general, but she's nowhere near so supportive or encouraging. Terri (the original HV) had such a gift for making you feel like you were doing a MARVELLOUS job, but this lady does NOT possess that gift, and it's a bit of a stress to see her. Oh well. I am praying about the health care professionals where we will be moving to, as I NEED them to be nice, and supportive! We'll probably be there for the rest of my pregnancies/babies, however many that might be, and I hate having "difficult" health care providers who don't agree with or support my decisions and desires for bringing up my little ones.
Oh this is getting drawn out! Sorry! I meant to just come and post a few photos of Nathan and then go to bed! Neil brought a weird cold thingy home from the office last week, which is mainly an achy throaty thing with a cold on top. He had that for a while, and is still not quite right, and then he gave it to Arthur, who is just miserably coldy right now. Matthew is so far okay, but FULLY exposed as they keep sharing their drinks, etc! I have been achy and scratchy-throaty since earlier today, so I'm down, I guess. Nathan has woken EIGHT times just in the 5 hours since he went to bed for the night, so I'm guessing he is coming down with it too :( Poor baby! We have another round of immunisations booked next Wednesday - first MMR for Matthew (urgh) and 3rd round of the Hib vaccines for Nathan. I am not taking either of them if they are at any stage of a cold. Even if the doctor says it's TOTALLY fine to take them. I will not be doing so. I really want their little immune systems to be as completely at rest as possible for immunisations. Especially Matthew since his will be a live vaccine.
Anyway! Photos, and then bed. I feel a bit yeurghy and it's late.
Here's Nathan all excited about standing and playing at the sofa with his brothers! He is still so thrilled about this, and I have a million billion photos of the three of them playing alongside each other with the cars, etc, because there are now soooo many opportunities to snap those photos! :) He is already standing and cruising WAY more steadily than those few weeks ago, he is changing so fast!
Here is my little Monkey-Noodle, standing at the sofa and making sweet little faces with his tongue and laughing at me. I love him soooo! He's becoming quite cheeky and developing such a fun sense of humour! Did I mention I love this age?! :)
Sweet precious baby boy! He's getting so big, but he's still soooooo tiny when I look at him or hold him. *sigh* My baby! I love having babies! I don't know what I'll do when I haven't got a baby in my arms any more! I know that by then I'll have a bunch of older children to keep me busy (and joy-filled) but I feel sure I will MISS the babies all the same...
Recent entries.....
Moving time... - 2009-01-04
Christmas Eve! - 2008-12-24
Long-overdue update, a few Nathey pics and a video clip :) - 2008-12-01
Lots of news! - 2008-11-03
Nathan at 8 months... - 2008-10-12