Nate's First Six Months

I thought I would reflect a little on the first six month's of Nate's life.

I didn't write for the first month of Nate's life. Most of the first month we were struggling with getting Nate home, dealing with the constant feedings, and the wonderful change to our lives. Nate started small, but he was a very good eater (after some initial difficulties). That first month is still quite a blur.

Breastfeeding - I'm still glad that we choose to breastfeed Nate. I never realized that mom and baby had to work so hard to get breastfeeding to go smoothly. It was a struggle at first. I can see where people may give up or move to formula at least part-time. Nate has been a very healthy and happy baby. I believe that breastfeeding helped on the health and growth side. It also meant that Nate and mom got to spend a lot of quality time close together. While we have started Nate on some solid foods, at six months Nate is still getting the majority of his nutrition through breast milk. Another great benefit to breastfeeding, his poop has very low odor which makes changing diapers much more pleasant.

Diapers - Wow, a baby goes through a lot of diapers. I went from basically never changed a diaper to where I can almost change a diaper in my sleep. We decided to use cloth diapers and while they can be a hassle I still believe it is a good decision. Also never realized how much poop can come out of such a small kid. As Nate has started to eat solid foods his poop has started to change. I'm afraid the days of very low odor poop are almost over. Poop has started to change as solid foods have been introduced. It is interesting to see how different foods go through Nate. For example, I never realized out fibrous bananas are.

Hiccups - Interesting how much Nate hiccups. His hiccups have decreased over time, but he still has them quite often. For the first couple months the hiccups didn't seem to bother Nate at all, but now the hiccups seem to be a little annoying.

Sleep - This is still one of the areas that we struggle. Nate sleeps reasonably well, but he still wakes up at night more than we would like. This means that we are still not getting the sleep we would like. The regular sleep deprivation is something we are looking forward to getting over at some point. While Nate has proven he can sleep over 8 hours at a time, that is more the exception not the rule. And even when he does sleep long periods it is on his schedule (not necessarily ours).

Teething - At six months, Nate has one tooth and another will come through any day now. Nate has cried a lot when as these teeth have come in over the last month. He also produced amazing amounts of drool. We believe that teething may be behind some of the recent sleep issues and certainly makes Nate fussy at times.

Gas - We were lucky that Nate did not have colic, but he did have a lot of gas. He now handles the gas with no problem, but there was time where he didn't sleep well and was rather uncomfortable because of gas. We spent a lot of time in first couple months trying to figure out how to prevent and relieve gas pains. In the end, time seemed to be the best cure.

Food - We started Nate on some solid foods at about five months. We've fed him rice, oatmeal, banana, avocado, squash, and apples so far. Nate eats pretty well and hasn't turned down any type of food, but the plain rice and oatmeal are certainly not his favorites. Of late, Nate seems to be spitting up less, but we still have cloths/rags scattered everywhere around the house to always be prepared for when Nate spits up next. I will say that the wood floors in the house have been great as it makes cleaning up really easy.

After six months Nate has gone from rather small (6lb 2oz, 19") to a healthy, growing (17lb 15oz, 26"), and smiling baby.

Nate at Birth	Nate at Six Months

Nate has been a blessing. We never expected Nate to be easy and his first six months have certainly had its ups and downs. The positives certainly outweigh the negatives. His smile and laugh make the difficult times melt away. Seeing those firsts (smile, laugh, turn over, sit up, etc) have all been exciting. Then there are the firsts to come (crawling, words, walking, etc) that we are looking forward to experiencing. The next six months should be exciting.

Our little ball of gas

So just as we thought Nate was starting to get over his gas issues, he had significant issues last night and this morning. We know that babies have gas, there is just no way around it. However, it was seeming like the gas was subsiding as he was not waking up with gas problems multiple times during the night or making the loud grunt/crying noises associated with his gas.

We have been doing lots of pedaling and pushing his knees to his chest to help with the gas that he does have. That does seem to really help him. We'll certainly try and figure out if there is anything we've done that could have brought on more intense gas and try and correct.

One possible thought is with all the crying he did earlier this week, maybe all that extra swallowed air is finally working itself out of his system. If this was the case seems like a terrible spiraling effect. First more crying, this leads to more gas, which leads to more crying, and repeat. We must find a way to break the cycle.

On another note. We are starting to see some good smiles out of Nate.

 

Pee and Poop Conversations

I can remember a couple years back someone telling me your conversations will change when you have a child. Things like pee and poop will suddenly become a common conversation.

Before Nate was born I can probably count on my hand the number of conversations with my wife around even slightly related to peeing or pooping. In just a couple weeks those conversations have gone to the point where I don't think I can count them all on my fingers and toes combined.

Today there was actually a conversation around poop. I had come home and one of the things my wife mentioned was Nate's poop was back to a more yellow color. This is actually very good news. The last couple days his poop had some green shading too it. This was coupled with some pretty rough gas. The yellow coloring more likely means that we've probably got pass the worst of the gas issues (at least for now). So between time and the things we did to try and remedy the situation something is working.

So Nate also seems to be less fussy and more his normal happy self. So hopefully this means a happy and somewhat more rested family for the next couple days.

Baby Got Gas

Nate has gas. Of late, especially at night, it has been pretty bad. We don't know how much it really hurts him, but the grunts and cries certainly keep everyone up. We've been trying to figure out what is behind Nate's gas.

Here are some of the common potential causes for a breastfed baby: immature digestive tract, gas bubbles entering through crying, eating, and sucking on pacifier (what comes in must go out), foods mom may have eaten, and foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. The list could be longer, but this seems pretty long for us. The good thing is Nate doesn't really seem to have colic, just bad case of gas. They may be rather similar, but from the descriptions I'm glad colic hasn't struck.

We've tried to burp and massage Nate a lot. That alone doesn't seem to have solved anything. From our reaching simethicone (mylicon) usually isn't very effective. We've tried some gripe water and it may have helped, but it is really hard to tell. We've looked at probiotics to help out his digestive system. No idea if that will do any good. I'm convinced that the foods mom eat make almost no impact on gas. Then Sherri is going to make some adjustments to try and reduce what Nate sees of the heavy letdown.

One thing that at least seems to help Nate feel better is to move his legs like he is bicycling. That usually seems to make him feel better and the cycling is often followed by letting out gas.

Hopefully all this will be behind us soon. Unfortunately a lot of the gas issues may just take time to work out on their own. One of the better sources (kellymom.com) that I've found on many baby topics lends weight to the argument that time may be the most effective. More at http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/gassybaby.html.

So we'll have a few more nights to deal with gas and lots more bicycle movements to come for sure.