Updates: March 1st

Mario had his 2 month check-up at the pediatrician today. She is very pleased with how well he is progressing. In fact, because he is doing so well we can stop adding the fortifiers to the pumped breastmilk and use plain breastmilk from now on. She will continue to monitor his weight to ensure he adjusts well to that, but we don't expect any problems. He also started is 2 month shots today. He got 2 shots (Polio and DTaP - Diphtheria, Tetanus & Pertussis) and the oral dose of the Rotavirus vaccine. He will get the remaining 2 vaccines next week. I decided to split them up over two visits to not overwhelm his system too much. So far he's a little more fussy, but not much and is sleeping pretty well once he falls asleep after feeds. We're giving him Tylenol for 24 hours to help with things. Hopefully he doesn't show too much discomfort due to his shots!

At the doctor's office he weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz. I know that seems like a huge gain since the nurse visit on Tuesday, but we have to consider scale tolerances and the fact that the doctor's office weighs him with a diaper on, while the nurse had me take his diaper off. Still, he is gaining weight nicely and that's what we like to see.

In terms of growth charting, he is on the very low end when compared to other 2 month old babies, but is right at or a little above the 50th percentile for his adjusted age, which is newborn right now. Remember, adjusted age is time from his due date, which was March 4th. So, he is doing well in terms of length, weight and head circumference. From what I have read and been told, most preemies catch up to term babies before or around age 2.

Tomorrow, Mario and I have an appointment with Dr. Jeanne Ballard at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Center for Breastfeeding Medicine to try and get some help with our breastfeeding challenges. I had emailed Dr. Ballard last night and she called me today. So, hopefully she'll have some good tips for us. I'll post tomorrow with more info on this.