lexi is two months - 6/3/11

Weight: 9 lbs 5 oz (13%)
Height: 22" (34%)

Eating:
She's mostly getting breast milk. After Lexi's 1 month appointment & the concern for the lack of gaining weight, the pediatrician started having me pump my BM and fortify it with formula to make it 24 calories/oz. I was feeding her 2 oz of fortified BM in a bottle, then topping her off by nursing. Then I'd pump and store for the next feeding. This was a difficult task since I was home with both girl and trying to keep Kaitlin occupied.

Sleeping:
Lexi is still being swaddled and still wakes a few times a night. She's also still eating when she wakes up. I'm mostly nursing her through the night sessions and the fortified BM in bottles the rest of her feedings. She's not really on any type of a nap schedule but does follow the 2 hour rule (usually going back down closer to the 1.5 hour mark).

Clothes/Diapers:
She's still wearing newborn diapers & newborn and some 0-3 months clothes. Most of the 0-3 months clothes is still big on her.

Development:
- Still isn't a fan of tummy time
- Gives out lots of smiles (seriously she's really laid back and only really cries when she's tired or hungry)
- Great at tracking people across the room
- Talking/cooing
- Really good neck support
- Blows bubbles    

more photos/videos from may

Kaitlin LOVES her black beans.

Kaitlin holding Lexi. This was one of the first times she didn't try to push Lexi off her lap.

Lexi napping in the Moby wrap at the park.

Kaitlin with Ruth (our old nann) at Gymboree class. I toted Lexi along that day.

Kaitlin playing on our front deck while Lexi was inside napping. I tell Kaitlin to "show me your teeth" to get her to smile. It works every time.

Kaitlin swaddled her baby in her pajama bottoms. She wants to do everything to her baby that we do with Lexi.

lexi's first trip to Iowa - 5/13/11

The Albertson's packed up the SUV and headed to Iowa so Lexi could meet my most of my side of the family for the first time. As you can see from the photos below there were lots of people she met. We even tried to have a bon fire but it was too early in the season so that didn't happen.

Great Grandma & Grandpa

Three generations (we skipped a generation)

Kaitlin outside admiring her grandpa's yard work.

Lexi hanging with Aunt Kelly, while Mason sits on grandma's lap.

 Gavin wanted to hold Lexi. He did a pretty good job and he loved talking to her.

Kaitlin kept asking for "more" water to be poured on her while taking her bath.

Trying to get all four kids to look at the camera was not easy.

 

Meeting Breanne for the first time.

Great Aunt Jenny getting some snuggles.

"Mommie's Ladies"

Mommy's cousin James and his family stopped by to meet Lexi. 

lexi is one month - 5/3/11

This time I bought stickers for her onsies rather than making them myself.

As you can see from the photos, Lexi lost a bit of hair on top ;-)

Weight: 7 lbs 14 oz (15%)
Height: 21" (49%)

It was at this pediatrician appointment that the ped was started to get concerned about Lexi's struggle to gain weight. We started to go in weekly for weight checks ($20 co-pay at each visit) and sometimes went 2x per week.

Eating:
She's exclusively breast fed and eating every 3 hours or so and eating off both sides.

Sleeping:
She's still being swaddled. It seems to be a cue for her to go to sleep. She takes a paci pretty well and again this also helps her fall asleep. She wakes up 2-3x per night (eating almost every time). She follows the 2 hour rule during the day, although she seems to go down for naps closer to the 1-1.5 hour mark. She does love white noise. I'm not sure if this helps drown out Kaitlin. But I've been using an app on my iphone with the sound of water/ocean.

Clothing/Diapers:
She's mostly wearing newborn clothes but does fit into some 0-3 month stuff. She's also still wearing newborn diapers.

Development:
She hates tummy time and gets frustrated withing a few minutes. She does have pretty good head/neck control though. She can track people and looks for someone when she hears a voice. She's very smiley and overall a VERY laid back baby. She seems to only cry when she's tired or hungry.

2011 easter

On April 17th, grandma & grandpa Albertson had an Easter egg hunt for Kaitlin & Jake. Kaitlin wasn't quite sure what was going on but went with it.

Here's Jake helping guide Kaitlin outside to look for eggs.



Kaitlin & Jake had to look around the yard to find their Easter baskets first.

Lexi was inside sleeping during most of the egg hunt.

Next the kids got to color real Easter eggs.

On April 24th we hid eggs for Kaitlin to find at our house.

Later in the day we went to g & g Albertson's. Kaitlin had fun mowing the sidewalk.

lexi's first bath - 4.11.11

Lexi has always seemed to love the bath (or at least not mind it as much as Kaitilin did).

*I'm going to be playing catch up with the photos/updates on the girls from the last few months.

7/18 lexi update

For the last few days I have switched Lexi to a premie nipple for the Dr. Brown bottles but I don't think I've really seen any difference other than there might be a little less milk spilling out from her mouth when she's eating.

Spoke with the dietitian from Children's this morning and here's what she suggested:

• Fortify my BM with 27 calories/oz (3 oz of BM with 2 teaspoons of formula)
• Spread out Lexi's feedings so she's hungrier and will likely take the bottle. I've been feeding her every 3 hours or so
• Switch to Neocate formula (super expensive) she's going to leave me a sample at the front desk that I can pick up after our appt with the speech therapist tomorrow
• Based on Lexi's last weight checks, Lexi is gaining and appropriate amount (but it's a struggle to get her to gain that weight).

We also had our appt with the pediatrician today.

• Lexi was 11 lbs even (up 5 oz in 7 days which isn't too bad). She's in the 5-10th percentile
• Pediatrician agrees with the dietitian that Lexi is gaining an okay amount but also agrees that it's a struggle to do so
• Lexi might gain more weight once we start solids in a few weeks (after she's 4 months). We'll start with Earth's Best (less likely to be cross contaminated with milk products) rice cereal
• I have been given the okay to increase her Zantac (SP?) from .7ml/3 times a day to .9ml/3 times a day.
• Suggested I talk with the speech therapist about the pacifier (she wasn't sure if this might be hindering Lexi eating from a bottle)
• Lexi did a #2 while we were there so the pediatrician tested it and it came back positive for blood in it. So the doc is on board with us trying the Neocate. She gave me a full size sample (score!). I'm not going to change anything until AFTER her appt with the speech therapist tomorrow. 
• She was on board with me weighing Lexi at home and calling in each week to talk to a doc. Our ped is going on maternity leave any day (I think she's due 8/3 but she thinks she will go late). We have Lexi's 4-month appointment scheduled on 8/9 with a different doc. But if our doc is still around on 8/3 we will see her for Lexi's 4 month appointment then.

We have our second appointment with the speech therapist tomorrow at 1. I'm hoping that Lexi doesn't take the bottle so she can see what I'm dealing with.


We don't want to change too many things at once since we want to figure what change worked. So after our speech therapist appointment tomorrow we will start with changing the formula. 

more doc appts

One of the nurses from the GI doctor's office called me two days ago to check in on how Lexi was doing. I filled her in. She's having Lisa, the dietitian I met with during our GI visit, call me back. She also suggested I call back the speech therapist to make another visit. I'm also supposed to call the GI office after our next weight check to give them her weight.


Lexi now has a weight check appointment next Monday and we are seeing the speech therapist next Tuesday. I'm hoping that Lexi doesn't take the bottle during our visit so the therapist can see what a struggle it is for her to take 1-2 oz. The last few days Lexi has eaten 3-6 oz TOTAL within a 24 hour period. I did take some video of her eating the bottle so if anything I can show that to her.


I'm also debating on purchasing a digital baby scale so we can start weighing her at home. A friend did give me a manual (?) scale but it's hard to tell how many ounces she gained. I spoke to the lactation consultant and she gave me some suggestions/recommendations on what to look for in a digital scale. I'm going to talk to the pediatrician about this at our appointment on Monday to get her thoughts. I'm assuming she won't have any issues with it. I mean we are spending $20 for each visit (and we've been almost 20 times or so).

lexi's struggle to gain weight

Okay so I'm a bit behind on our blog. I promise at some point I will go back and post updates/photos from the past few months. But I have been meaning to sit down and write our journey to get Lexi to gain weight, but I'm never in front of a "real" computer these days. I'm sure I'll forget some stuff but here goes.

Lexi weighed 6 lbs 15 oz (31%) at birth. (note all percentiles are based off my iphone app). She was born tongue tied and we had that corrected at 1.5 weeks. We had been working with a LC before and after to make sure she was nursing okay. She didn't really have any issues.

4 day appt: 6 lbs 8 oz (14%)

2 week appt: 7 lbs 2.5 oz (16%)

1 mo appt (5/3/11): 7 lbs 14 oz (15%)

Around her 1 month appointment the ped was slightly concerned that she wasn't gaining like she should be. It was then we started going in for some weight checks. At first I was able to go in and weigh her myself (no copay), leave the doc a note with her weight and the doc would call me to discuss. And since she wasn't gaining like the ped wanted to we started to have to make weight check appts with the doc so we could discuss in greater detail a plan of action. 

At this time the ped was having me pump my breast milk (BM) and fortify it with formula to make it 24 calories/oz. I was feeding her 2 oz in a bottle, then topping her off by nursing. Then I'd pump and store for the next feeding. This was a difficult task since I'm now at home with both Lexi and Kaitlin (20 mos) and trying to keep Kaitlin occupied during this process.

On June 8/9 (can't remember exact day) I noticed specs of blood in Lexi's stool. The ped told me to go off all soy/dairy since she was allergic to one/both of them. Of course I literally was walking off the elevator into my condo from the grocery store and bought stuff to make lasagna (probably couldn't have gotten anything cheesier to make) for my parents who were in town. We also had to switch Lexi's formula to Alimentum or Enfimil Nutramigen (talk about $$$).

6/15: the ped wrote a script for Ranitidine (.7 ml 3x/day) to treat her for reflux, even though she doesn't show any classic signs (arching the back, spit up, etc).

The ped referred us to a GI doc at Children's. Originally our appointment was booked 1.5 months out but our ped made a call and got it moved up by a week. And then she went out of her way and made another call and got it moved up to the following week!

6/18: I started to keep a detailed journal of Lexi's feedings. It's been so helpful especially since she will go a few days with only drinking 3-8 oz of fortified BM (the rest of the sessions are nursing). And then she will switch and take 15-18 oz of fortified BM and not want to nurse at all. And then she'll switch back to not wanting the bottle. This has been such a struggle.

6/20/11: Was our appt with the GI doc. Overall I wasn't impressed with the doc we saw. He said he wasn't concerned with her weight gain. At the last few weight check appts she had gained enough (roughly 1 oz per day). He was more concerned about blood in her stool (he took a sample and it came back positive). At this point I had only been off soy/dairy for about 1.5 weeks. He pretty much said I should stop nursing. OR I could try the diet for another week and if her stools came back positive I needed to switch her to 100% formula (by the way that stuff smells like cat food - YUCK). He recommended I go to the ped's office every week to have to her stools checked. He left but sent in a dietitian. 

She was SO helpful. She pretty much said she'd prefer Lexi get fortified BM over formula. We sat down and talked about all the things I couldn't eat and she helped point out common foods that were soy/dairy free (like OREOS). She also told me to check my prenatal since it could have soy (it did). 

7/7/11: Speech therapy eval at Children's for feeding/swallowing. Our appt was at 8:30 am in the burbs and I needed to bring Lexi hungry. I had our old nanny come watch Kaitlin since I was told the appt would take 90 mins

7/12: The nurse at the GI's office called me yesterday to check up on me. And now since Lexi is going through a period where she's not taking a bottle or taking 20-30 mins to eat 2-3 oz, she wants me to call back the speech therapist. I told the nurse that Lexi's stools have come back negative for blood. The nurse is also going to have the dietitian call me (not sure what she wants to talk about exactly). And I'm supposed to call back to give them an update on Lexi's next weight check.

In general the doctors are looking for Lexi to gain approximately 1 oz/day. And sometimes she does do that. The ped wants her to also play catch up a bit with her weight. When I just nurse, she doesn't gain weight (there was a 10 day stretch where she lost 1 oz instead of gaining anything was mostly me just nursing b/c she was refusing the bottle). So it's been a constant struggle with getting the extra calories in her. I've tried fortifying my BM with both the Enfimil & Similac formulas that don't contain soy/dairy. I've tried giving her bottles of formula that are 24 calories/oz (with no BM in them). I've tried fortifying my BM with Duocal (which doesn't have any taste to it). And it's totally hit/miss on if she will drink it.

For instance tonight her 7:30 PM bottle (it had been 3 hrs since she last ate) and I offered her 3 oz of fortified BM. She downed the first ounce in less than 5 minutes (no fussing/crying). Then she'd take a few sips, start crying, I'd pull the bottle out, sit her upright, burp her/patted her back until she calmed down and repeated that process until she drank the 2nd oz. The third oz sadly got dumped b/c she wouldn't drink it. But she did nurse for a few minutes and didn't fuss at all.

And if you got this far, God bless you. This was longer than I anticipated. Hopefully we will be getting a new laptop soon, which will hopefully mean more regular updates from me.

Weight Checks/Appts:

5/10/11: 8 lbs 3 oz (15%)

5/18/11: 8 lbs 7.5 oz ( 12%)

5/23/11: 8 lbs 8.5 oz (9%)

5/24/11: 8 lbs 8.5 oz (9%)

5/26/11: 8 lbs 10 oz (9%)

5/28/11: 8 lbs 13 oz (10%)

6/1/11: 9 lbs .5 oz (11%)

6/6/11: 9 lbs 5 oz (13%)

6/15/11: 9 lbs 4 oz (7%) - according to ped she was 2-5%

6/17/11: 9 lbs 8.5 oz (9%)

6/20/11: 9 lbs 11 oz (9%) - GI appt

6/27/11: 9 lbs 14 oz (8%)

7/5/11: 10 lbs 7 oz (10%)

7/7/11: Speech Therapy

7/11/11: 10 lbs 11 oz (10%)

Some examples of how much fortified BM Lexi eats each day (and how it varies):

6/30 - 6 oz

7/1 - 14.5 oz

7/2 - 8.5 oz

7/3 - 18 oz

7/4 - 12 oz

7/5 - 18 oz

7/6 - 18.5 oz

7/7 - 19 oz

7/8 - 9.5 oz

7/9 - 7.5 oz

7/10 - 6.25 oz

7/11 - 3 oz

7/12 - 3 oz

styling

think they are a little big?

fun with the new camera - 4.13.11

I was testing out a few settings on the "new" camera. Now I need to learn how to to the manual settings. ;-)