6-Month Appointment

This week Little Man and Sweet Pea had their six month well check.  They are both doing well, thank God!  I am so blessed to have healthy babies.

I was curious to see how much Little Man weighed.  Since we've begun supplementing him with formula, he's been noticeably heavier than Sweet Pea, and he's starting to even outgrow his 6-month clothes.

Sure enough, he's 16 pounds 10 ounces!  That's a huge increase in the last few months.  He's in the 45th percentile for weight now, up from the 10th at his last appointment.  And compared to Sweet Pea and CC, who have almost always been very small for their ages, he seems enormous!

He is 26.5 inches long (45th percentile) and has a head circumference of 43.5 cm (45th percentile).  Can you see a trend here?  

Sweet Pea, on the other hand, is an entirely different case.  She weighs just 13 pounds 10 ounces -- three full pounds less than Little Man -- which means she's in the 15th percentile for weight.  And, naturally, her length of 24.75 inches is also 45th percentile.  But her head circumference -- 44 cm -- still has her in the 95th percentile!  Yes, our precious little angel has an enormous head, but she's still beautiful!

I also learned a few things at the appointment.  For example, Little Man is slightly behind verbally, since he's not really babbling much. Apparently this is fairly common, especially with boys. We are going to start reading to him more often, and that should do the trick.

Also, he's drinking too much formula. I wasn't really surprised to hear this -- he often chugs down 40 ounces in a day! At the pediatrician's recommendation, we will start limiting his formula intake and increasing his solids.  For his dinner, we will give him solids first, and let him eat as much as he wants.  Then we will give him a bottle, and he should drink less since he's already had a lot of solids.  We started this last night and it seems to be working -- he only drank 5 ounces after his dinner.

Sweet Pea has the opposite problem -- she's not eating enough.  It's a struggle to get her to drink even 20 ounces a day, and she doesn't usually eat more than a few spoonfuls of solids at a time.  But the doctor assured me that it's okay -- Sweet Pea is still healthy, so we don't need to go to any extreme measures to get her to eat more.  If she doesn't want much to eat, fine.  She'll eat when she's hungry.

We finished the appointment with vaccines (poor babies!) and then we were done!  Another successful appointment.