6 Month Check Up

Ziggy had his 6 month checkup on Monday, May 10. Here are the highlights:

He now measures 28.25 inches long (95%) and weighs 18 lbs 5.5 oz (66%), so he's thinned out considerably. His head circumference was 44 3/4 cm (the 70th something percentile).

The doctor thought the flattening of his head looked much better now that he's spending more time upright.

She said I should go ahead and discontinue the Prevacid, but if his reflux symptoms return, I can always restart it.

I told her that he'd been sick recently (caught it from me) and had conjunctivitis in both eyes, but no fever. She checked his ears and said he had a little bit of fluid in his left ear that indicated he'd probably had a mild ear infection, but it was clearing up on its own and wouldn't require antibiotics. He'd gone through a period of more frequent night waking, and she said it was most likely caused by the ear infection. I mentioned that he's been swiping at both ears a lot, and she said that's probably just from teething and because he's discovered they're there.

Yes, he's started to teethe! I can feel two sharp little edges poking through on the bottom. She said to give him Tylenol at night if he seems really bothered by it and to give him things to chew on, like frozen berries in a mesh bag, a bagel, teething biscuits, etc. I asked if I should start doing anything for his dental hygiene, and she recommended just wiping his gums with a washcloth for now.

She said I can start using sunscreen on him, but to patch test it first.

She asked about starting solids, and I let her assume that we'd started them a while back, even though he really only had his first solids the day before he turned six months, on May 8th--it was banana, which he seemed to really like. I said we'd avoided rice cereal because of the fear of constipation, so she said I could go ahead and start oatmeal cereal instead. She said she wasn't concerned about his drop in weight gain, but did add that babies tend to thin out even more once they begin crawling and moving around more, so it's important to start including more solids, working up to three meals a day.

She asked about his social interactions, whether he smiles, babbles, laughs, etc. She said that he seemed really mellow and asked if he was always like that, and I said that most of the time he is.

Other than that, he had the Rotavirus oral vaccine, which he hated the taste of (it even made him cry, although for once he didn't spit it up) and two shots, which also made him cry, although he recovered faster than when he was younger.