12 Month Doctor Appointment

Yesterday was Carter’s 12 month appointment with his pediatrician.  This was a big appointment because I was going to talk to the doc about all of the things that are supposed to change at one year:  bottle to sippy cup, formula to whole milk, pureed foods to table food, etc.  There was a lot I needed to know!  First thing they did was weigh and measure him.  Carter was 30.5 inches, which is the 75th percentile.  Some people get confused by this (like my mom when I told her), but it means that only 25% of babies in the US are taller than Carter is at his age.  When the doctor came in he even asked what height Justin and I were and said that we may look up to Carter when he’s older.  Of course there’s no real way to say this is true or not.  He said that it’s not really going to be more accurate until Carter is closer to 2 years old, but that the way his growth in height is going, he will be taller than me and Justin. 

Carter weighed 21lbs 6oz.  I think he is truly more like 21lbs. because he drank a 6oz. bottle of milk/formula while we were in the waiting room.  Regardless, he’s in the 25th percentile for weight.  Skinny.  And his head measured 18 inches which is also the 25th percentile.  He got three shots which he didn’t love, but the older Carter gets, the less bounce back time he needs from shots.  When he got those 2 month shots, he was upset most of the day.  Now he’s a year old and by the time we picked him up off the table and gave him some puffs, he was fine.

I told the doctor we had already started whole milk.  We have been mixing it with formula for almost a week now.  His 6oz bottles were originally 5oz formula, 1oz milk and then we kept changing that ration to include more milk as the days passed.  Carter has already had a bottle of just milk and he drinks it just fine.  As of now, we’re still mixing with formula, not because he needs it, but because we need to get rid of the formula we have left. 

I told the doc that my only concern was the sippy cup.  Carter drinks water and apple juice from it, but he won’t drink formula or milk from it.  He said that was nothing to worry about right now and that plenty of babies don’t successfully drop the bottle until they are 16 months old, but that we definitely need to keep offering the milk in the sippy because otherwise, Carter will think that the good stuff comes from a bottle and he’ll never drink it from a sippy.  Doc told us about one patient he had that when the mom dropped the sippy cup all together, the baby went on a hunger strike and didn’t drink liquids for 24 hours.  By the time she called the pediatrician and they told her to come in, baby was finally guzzling from the sippy and never went back to the bottle.  He said it will always be a “battle of the will’s”.  Mom’s will has to beat baby’s will!

Carter also got the ok to eat anything we’re eating except for peanut butter and shellfish (as well as any other kind of fish that has high levels of mercury).  Doc asked about his developmental abilities and Carter even showed him his abilities.  He pointed to the doctor and started babbling random words such as mama, dada, nana and others.  He also walked for him and waved to him.  Since doc saw this all for himself he didn’t even need to trust our word.  He said Carter was doing great developmentally and physically.  YAY :)

Here’s a couple of pictures that Justin took with my phone of Carter (actually I took a couple of them too with the camera flipped backwards).  Justin was playing with him and he was laughing HYSTERICALLY.  Seriously, Justin is the funniest guy in the world to him.  Carter LOVES his daddy.

Also, this bad boy came in the mail yesterday:

This is the next carseat for Carter.  It’s the convertible Britax Boulevard carseat.  Carter will still be facing backwards in the car because it’s safer, but he was a half inch away from being at the limit for his infant carseat and his feet were already hanging off the end of it, so it was just time to take the next step up.  As if passing the one year mark wasn’t enough of a sign that my baby isn’t a baby anymore, the step up in car seats further proves that!

So a quick recap of Carter’s statistics for all his appointments in the first year (this is really for me):

2 Months (7 Weeks)

• Height:  22.5 inches (70th percentile)
• Weight:  10lbs 15oz (75th percentile)

4 Months

• Height:  26 inches (85th percentile)
• Weight:  14lbs 14oz (55th percentile)

6 Months

• Height: 26.75 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight: 16lbs 2oz (30th percentile)

9 Months

• Height: 28 inches (50th percentile)
• Weight: 19lbs (30th percentile)

12 Months

• Height: 30.5 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight: 21lbs 6oz (25th percentile)