Much Better Day

Yesterday was a much better day. Carter only fussed for a few hours, like a normal baby. He didn't sleep well last night, but we made it through.

Carter hasn't been throwing up as much lately during the day. Holding him upright for half an hour after feeding seems to make a big difference. The times that I don't do this, Carter tends to throw up more. We're working on figuring out the best way for him to sleep at night because he doesn't seem to like it when his bassinet is tilted up on one side. And he's still throwing up a lot during the night.

It used to take a little while to get Carter settled after feeding him during the night, but then he'd sleep until I woke him up for the next feeding. Recently he's wanting to be fed every two hours (or sooner). Carter still takes a long time to settle after feeding and then is half awake making lots of noise and moving around most of the time that he is "sleeping". I'm getting better at sleeping through some of this though so I can get some rest.

I can't wait until we get on more of a schedule. From everything we've read and been told by our pediatrician, schedules don't really work until around 2 months. But I think we're going to try to go ahead and start Carter on one as much as we can. I'll still feed him "on demand" and not force things too much, but we'll see what we can do.

The weather was really nice here today - in the 60s! It's generally been really cold since Carter was born and the days that aren't so bad have been rainy. So I took Carter and Charlotte for a mile walk today. It was super windy and Charlotte was drafting behind me part of the way!

Here are a couple of pictures I took of the little man that did not make our Christmas card ...

This Weekend

This past weekend was really rough, especially Sunday. Carter would not nap. Aren't newborns supposed to sleep 18 hours a day? He may have slept 10 hours with his few short naps. He just screamed most of the day. I'm not sure if this was because of the GER or something else. Carter did stop having a dirty diaper with every feeding this weekend so maybe this change had something to do with the fussiness.

I've cut out all caffeine, carbonated drinks, and dairy from my diet to see if it makes any difference with the GER. This isn't easy since cheese is my favorite food. And a little caffeine goes a long way when I'm so tired. So far, no change, but I'm going to give it a couple of weeks.

The one thing we managed to get done this weekend is putting up our Christmas tree.

GER Sucks

This is what most of this weekend has consisted of ...

Gastroesophageal Reflux

It looks like Carter has gastroesophageal reflux (GER), which is essentially infant acid reflux. He has been spitting up / throwing up a lot the last few days both during and after his feedings. Sometimes it seems to be the majority of the feeding. He'll soak my shirt, his outfit, and the pillow I'm using to hold him up. And he'll do this three times in one feeding. It's not this bad every time, but he's spitting up more than is normal at every feeding. This has been making him a lot fussier. And hungry more often since he's not keeping as much down. A few times Carter has thrown up so forcefully that it's come out his nose. Poor guy!

Because of all of this, I took him to the pediatrician's office yesterday to try to figure out what was up. The doctor was a little concerned that he might have pyloric stenosis so we went down to Children's Hospital this morning to do an ultrasound on his tummy to rule this out. Pyloric stenosis affects the pylorus, which is the opening at the lower end of the stomach that connects the stomach and small intestine. The muscles of the pylorus become abnormally large and this prevents food from entering the small intestine. It is corrected by surgery. Luckily we were able to rule this out and determine Carter "only" has GER. There's nothing we can do to fix it, but we can try to make it more manageable by keeping him upright more often.

Carter had his weight and length measured at the pediatrician's office. His weight was up to 8 lb, 6 oz (he gained 1 lb exactly in 9 days) and he measured 20 1/8 inches (that's 5/8 inches longer in 9 days). So it seems like he's still getting enough food!

Belly Button

Carter lost his umbilical cord stump this morning. There's still a little bit of scabbing, but his belly is much cuter now! Right now he sort of has a flattie but it looks like it'll be an innie eventually.

Before:


After:

First Trip Out

Carter made his first trip out of the house today to some place other than the doctor's office. We went to Target and Walmart for a few minutes this morning. He slept the entire time. I really like the stroller and car seat combo that we got. It's super easy to use and very functional so far. It's the Chicco Cortina Travel System.


Another thing that we have that I really like are the Halo SleepSacks. We put Carter in a sleeper and then one of these at night and he seems to be pretty comfortable.



Carter is doing well. He slept a lot today so hopefully he'll still sleep well tonight!

Little Grunter

Carter has turned into quite the little grunter. When he first wakes up, he doesn't cry, but he'll grunt a whole lot. Often, he'll go back to sleep for a few minutes and then wake up grunting again. He also grunts for awhile when he's put down to sleep at night. Then there is all the random grunting he does when he's awake during the day. And the major grunting he does when I'm trying to feed him. I guess he's just finding his "voice"!

Carter seems to like his mobile. I put him in his crib for a little bit last night when he was fussy to try something different to settle him down. He contently watched the characters move around. There are little pieces that slide and make noise as the mobile rotates and that noise seemed to entice him as well.


It's been snowing here today a little bit. We've had huge flakes come down for about five minutes several times today. Nothing is sticking, but it's pretty to watch. Carter's first snow was actually the day he came home from the hospital (Monday, November 17th). We had light flurries for about ten minutes. We had some flurries a few days after that and then sleet last night. Maybe we'll finally get some accumulating snow this year. We've never had anything that lasted more than a couple of hours since we've lived in Knoxville.

Am I a Poodle?

There are a couple of companies that will test a dog's DNA to determine what breed it is. Since Charlotte is so unique, we thought it might be fun to have hers tested. We got the results the other day and we think we wasted our money. Or that the lab mixed up Charlotte's sample with that of another dog. Here are the results:

• 37-74% Poodle
• 10-19% Pug
• 10-19% Siberian Husky
• Less than 10% Bichon Frise
  

The database for the testing company we used has 63 dog breeds including Australian Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Border Collie, English Setter, and many others that we thought we might see in Charlotte. I'm thinking of sending the company a picture of Charlotte and either asking for a retest or for our money back.

Beating up the snail

Carter doesn't like snails. Or he has figured out his hands and just likes punching the one that hangs on his bouncer. At first, Carter would just accidentally hit the snail when he was moving his arms around. But today he seemed to be hitting it on purpose to make it move.


Carter is also randomly smiling more and more over the last few days. I think it's just a new facial expression he's learned, but it's still really cool to see.

Grandparents

Here are Carter's grandparents each holding him for the first time the day he was born ...

Brian's Mom:


Brian's Dad:


My Mom:


My Dad: