2 Month Doctor's Appointment

Carter had his 2-month doctor's appointment today. He now weighs 12 lbs, 5 oz (75th percentile) and is 23 inches long (50th percentile)! For the past few weeks, he's been incredinly cranky in the evenings (5pm onward). We're constantly adapting to deal with this time period in particular. He L-O-V-E-S his nightly bath and we've also started feeding him more. We're hopeful this block of time will ease as he gets a little older. On the plus side, he ate at 9pm last night, was asleep by 11:30pm (he's a night owl, like his dad) and didn't wake until 4:30am to eat. He went back to sleep fairly quickly and I almost cried when I woke later at 8:15am -- I felt so much better rested!!! Last night may have been a fluke, but even so, that random 5 hour stretch of sleep was a godsend!

On another note, we did a lot of research before this first vaccination visit and had a great conversation with the nurse practitioner about his vaccine schedule. Currently, babies receive 5-6 vaccines every-other-month until they are 6 months old. With autism rates skyrocketing for boys in particular, much attention is being focused on vaccinations (the number of vaccines, the number administered at one time, ingredients in the vaccines, etc.). After much deliberation, we agreed to have our little boy receive 2-3 vaccines every month for the first 7 months. It will definitely mean more doctors visits for us, but we feel good about this alternative schedule -- it's a reasonable and deliberate approach, while still providing him with some incredibly important vaccines. Carter did not seem to agree: he played throughout our entire conversation with the nurse, and then, despite mommy's best attempts to distract him, screamed bloody murder and turned beet red (as though he was holding his breath) when his two shots were administered (one in each leg). He's a fighter, though, and he calmed down very quickly, enjoyed his lunch, and promptly fell asleep.

Dave and Carter at the end of a particularly cranky evening