Carter - Two Months

Carter at Month 2

• Diapers:  Still wore newborn’s most of month 2, but we transitioned to size 1 towards the end of the month when poop started coming out of his diapers and onto his back.
• Clothes:  Most of his newborn outfits are getting quite snug, therefore we’ve already broken out some of the smaller 3 month outfits. Strangely enough, he has some 0-3 month clothes that are still too big, yet some of his 3 month clothes already fit.  Different brands fit differently.  So far I’ve noticed that Gerber clothes run kind of small.  He’s already wearing 3-6 month clothes made by Gerber.  However Lamaze runs REALLY big.  He still can’t fit into his 0-3 month outfits by them.  Carter’s seems to be right on the  money.  I’ve already gone through his clothes and picked out the clothes that he can’t wear anymore and put them up in his closet.  Didn’t think I’d have to do that this soon!! 
• Sleep:  During month 1, Carter was having sleep issues at the beginning of the month, only getting between 10-12 hours of sleep each day.  Towards the end of month 1, he gradually increased this number to averaging 13-14 hours a day.  During month 2, Carter rarely got less than 14 hours of sleep a day, but frequently got over 15 hours a day.  The day before Carter turned 6 weeks old, he slept through the night for the first time.  I put him down at 10:15pm and he didn’t wake up until 6am.  At the end of the second month, he’s done excellent on his naps, usually sleeping for an hour and a half to two hours at each nap.  At night we usually feed him sometime between 10pm-11pm and then again around 4am before he finally wakes up for the day between 7am-8am.  He’s slept through the night (more than 6 hours without a feeding) three times so far.
• Stats:  At his 7 week appointment, Carter was 10lbs, 15 oz (75th percentile) and was 22 1/2 inches long (70th percentile).  His head circumference was 15 inches (50th percentile).  Justin and I weighed him again right before the two month mark and he was 11lbs, 6oz. 
• Waketime Activities:  We have made Carter’s daily schedule using Babywise.  This means that he has a 2 1/2 - 3 hour daily schedule that repeats.  He nurses, then has some waketime and then has a nap.  It takes 3 hours for this one cycle to occur and then we repeat it 5 times before putting him down for the night.  We do the same activities in the same order each day.  First he watches either a Baby Einstein DVD or a Praise Baby DVD (I absolutely LOVE the Praise Baby DVD’s.  I highly suggest them if you want your child to grow up listening to Christian music).  For the second waketime, he has a music mat where he plays on his back.  The third waketime is tummy time, which he is getting used to.  The fourth waketime is time in the mamaroo for him to explore his surroundings and the final waketime is bathtime.
• Other Milestones: 
• Carter met his great grandparents on my dad’s side of the family
• He started smiling on purpose, frequently copying my facial expressions
• He is ALWAYS laughing.  He must think mommy and daddy are hilarious because he really does laugh at us all the time.
• He rolled over for the first time!!!  It was totally not on purpose though.  Right around 7 weeks, we were having tummy time in his nursery and he rolled from his tummy onto his side.  This was nothing huge because he’s been doing this FOREVER it seems like.  He usually just rolls onto one of his sides and then falls back on his tummy.  Well, this time he fell on his back!!!  I was the only person that saw him rollover, Justin was at work when he did it.  He did it for me again when he was 8 weeks, and again Justin was at work.  He finally did it for Justin a few days after he did it for me the second time and since then he’s done it for me several times.  According to websites, he’s not really supposed to be rolling over just yet, at least not until he’s three months old. 
• We began the feed/wake/sleep schedule and strictly stayed on it (we technically started it during month 1, but we became very strict and actually stuck to the schedule in month 2).  He loves routine, that’s for sure.  He sometimes gets fussy when he gets off his schedule (i.e. missing his nap because he was at a doctor appointment).
• At the beginning of month 2, we started forcing him to take one nap a day in the nursery instead of downstairs in his pack n’ play.  He wasn’t loving it for a while.  I actually started worrying that he would never be okay with sleeping upstairs.  Finally, around the end of month 2, I just decided to go “all or nothing” and make him sleep all of his naps upstairs.  I figured repetition was key.  It apparently worked.  The first day of all 4 naps was rough, but he got the hang of it.  The bassinet in his pack n’ play that he sleeps in has a 15 pound weight limit and since he’s over11 pounds now, we need to rapidly get him used to the crib!
• While at his pediatrician checkup, Dr. Dudgeon heard a slight murmur in his heart.  He wanted us to set up an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist to get it checked out, which we did later that week.  Carter is had an EKG and it showed that the murmur was an innocent murmur, meaning that it would probably heal as he grows up or even if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t affect his daily life.  This made us very happy obviously.  I was so worried and expected the worst case scenario of there being a hole in his heart.  Thank God it was just a valve issue!
• I took Carter to my work to meet all my employees.  Everyone loved him and thought he was adorable. 
• Carter made his first appearance at Saint Mark United Methodist Hillside service (contemporary service).  I was waiting for him to get his shots to take him around so many people.  He was LOVING the music and the lights.
• A couple of days before he turned two months old, Carter gave mommy a slight heart attack.  When he started crying one morning because he was ready to get up for the day I went to go get him only to realize that he had managed to rollover in his bassinet and was facing downwards.  All I saw was the back of his head and his back.  I immediately freaked out.  I know lots of kids sleep on their stomachs but he wasn’t on a flat surface where he could just turn his head to breathe.  He was at an incline and there was a comfy fluffy pillow that outlined his head that would have prevented him from breathing if he turned to one side or another.  He was totally fine of course, but this momma about died of shock.  Needless to say, I removed the bassinet from his pack n’ play that day and he’s slept on his back the last several nights.  He didn’t do great the first night of sleeping like normal in the pack n’ play, but he did great the second night.  I’m hoping he keeps doing well and will eventually forget the comfort of the bassinet.  Here’s what the bassinet looked like:

This picture is actually when Carter was only a few weeks old, but it’s the best one I have of what he was sleeping in.  See that pillow?   His head was face down in that thing.  I hate to think of what could have happened had I not gotten there when I did.

• Because of the above situation, I decided it’s time to transition from the original woombie to the convertible woombie.  Carter loves his woombie and it helps him fall asleep, but since his arms are zipped up in the woombie, if he rolls over, he won’t be able to roll back over because he won’t have his hands to use to lift him up and roll him over.  The original woombie zips up his entire body.  The convertible woombie is just like the original woombie, but there are buttons where the arms go so that his entire body is still all zipped up and tight, but his arms can be out so that he can rollover if he needs to.
• Finally, the hair on little man’s head is finally growing back.  It’s hard to see in his two month picture because his hair is blonde.  Some people think this is shocking because Justin’s hair is so dark.  Well, my hair from birth to probably 10 or 11 years old was bright bright blonde.  My hair didn’t turn to a dirty blonde/light brown until I was in my pre-teens which was when I started highlighting my hair to get the blonde back.  Been doing it ever since (minus a few experiments during my college years).  So really, I’m not that surprised his hair is blonde.  He lost a lot of hair during the first month, but it has really started growing back in month 2.