It's been so long since I blogged that I don't know where to begin! Let's see...Bridget turned four months old on Monday. She also had her check-up and immunizations (we've decided to follow the recommended schedule for immunizations; there's enough unbiased research out there that could not come up with connections between immunizations and autism even though they tried that I'm comfortable with the CDC recommendations). But what I was most excited about was discovering her height and weight: 27 inches, 16.5 pounds! "The size of a typical eight-month old," the doctor's office tells me. No wonder she's suddenly wearing her nine-month clothing. The bummer: the recommended don't-go-over-this-height for her car seat--the kind you can leave the base in and take the seat out--is 27 inches. Since she sits with her legs bent to the side anyway (knees aiming toward the sides of the seat), I'm going to try to keep her in it until she's a bit steadier sitting up. Otherwise, it'll be a nightmare trying to go shopping with her. She'd either be stuffed in the shopping carts with blankets or I'd have to try to carry her, which gets tiresome for both of us (my arms start aching pretty quickly these days!).
With such a big, hungry girl on our hands (she typically eats anywhere from 6-10 ounces of milk at a feeding, depending on the time of day), the doctor said we could start foods right away. Although I plan on making most of the baby food she eats, our doctor recommended using the packaged 1st Foods before I start making my own; they have a very strict sterilization process that they follow when cleaning and preparing the foods, and so these are the "purest" forms of food you can get. That's important for the first time a baby eats something; it's easier to determine whether they have food allergies or not. If I gave her my own prepared foods first, she might ingest a leftover chemical/something else (I honestly have no idea, because I forgot what the doc said) and have a reaction to that while seeming to react to the food. Makes sense to me, and I want to be careful about checking for allergies because I know that I'm allergic to strawberries and soy. Bridget may not have my allergies (or any), but I was reading online that if parents have food allergies, children are more likely to have them--although they may be to different items.So, all of that "teachery" stuff was just to say that Al and I (well, I while Al watched and filmed and remained silent, even though I encouraged him to talk) fed Bridget her first "food" yesterday: watered-down (with breast milk) organic brown rice cereal. And as far as foods go, it's a rather non-dramatic choice if you're hoping for a facial reaction from the kid. It's not much different from what she's been eating, but that's the idea: start them out slowly, let their stomach get used to digesting something other than milk. Personally, I can't wait til we start the veggies next week: yellows/oranges and then greens, then fruits after that (doc: "Of course you'll want to wait for fruit. Who would want to eat their vegetables after tasting yummy, sweet fruit?" Immediately my brother Erik came to mind. He liked spinach and brussels sprouts when he was a kid. Eww. [I do like spinach now, though.]). Bridget didn't have much reaction to the taste, although I think she was paying more attention to the getting-food-on-a-spoon thing than anything else. And she couldn't quite figure out how to get that food down her throat. I had one of those huge plastic pouch bibs on her and thought for sure everything I had fed her was in that pouch, since it all kept dribbling down her chin and onto her neck and bib. She would push her tongue out instead of using it to help her swallow. But I'm sure she'll get the hang of it. I'm going to make it a bit thicker today (it was very, very soupy yesterday, since--again--that's what "they" recommend) and feed it to her when she wakes up. (Just about now, actually.)
Before I go, I'll mention the other reason I've been MIA. I'm getting over a case of mastitis. It's basically a bacterial infection that you can get when you're breastfeeding; I got mine because of a blocked milk duct. I spent a couple of very, very painful days (burning, sensitivity, etc.) dealing with it before I was able to get antibiotics, and 90% of Bridget's feedings have been either freshly expressed (pumped) or frozen breast milk for the last two weeks. That's another reason I'm glad we're starting food: I'm not sure I'd be able to supply all of her milk anymore once I ran out of my frozen supply. Try as I might, the feeding/pumping schedule got thrown off because it took me a couple of days to figure out how to bottle-feed Bridget and pump at the same time. So we'll see how that goes in the future.
Okay, baby's waking up now, so gotta go. Oh, wait--I completely forgot! Bridget can now roll from her stomach to her back. When she woke me up at 4:30 a.m. (actually, that's become rare again--she's been sleeping nine hours lately), I walked in to find her on her back and new I didn't lay her down like that. I knew it was coming--she came close a few times but always got stopped by the side of her crib--but was disappointed that I didn't see it all the same. That's okay, because she did it for me before I got her out of her crib later this morning (I'm writing this a few hours after the "gotta go" part). My little girl's growing up fast!
And here are some recent photos...
