Solids already...

At my son's four month check up, he had fallen on his weight and height curves. He had been in the 25th percentile for both at his two month check up. I had a hard time feeding him and he was not taking any more than 4oz per bottle. Sometimes less. He was only eating about 20-22oz per day. He had also lost a bit of weight when he was sick and couldn't really eat.

He was also not sleeping through the night. All of my friends' babies slept through the night by now. My friend had a baby 3 months before I did and her son had been sleeping through the night, as in 12 hours a night, since he was 2 months old. I was extremely jealous of that. But the night feedings were fairly simple. He would wake up and eat and immediately go back to sleep. So I my sleep was interrupted but it wasn't like I was up forever with him. The doctor said this was normal and that because he was sleeping 5 hours straight, it was considered sleeping through the night.

He got his 4 month shots. With all of the information about autism and the links to vaccinations, I was very nervous about the shots. But he had to have them. So they were done. It went pretty much how it did at his 2 month appointment. He took the liquid vaccination well. He took a while to acknowledge the first shot. When he realized that it hurt, he let out a blood curdling scream. While he was crying, the nurse did the other shot. He cried for just a few minutes and then he was done.

The exciting part of this visit was that the doctor told me to start solids. I couldn't wait. She said he had good head control. They look for this before recommending solids because the baby has to be able to turn his head away when he didn't want anymore food. He could also sit well with support. He was ready. She told me the standard advice. Start with cereal. Use that for several days until I was sure there was no reaction. Then start on fruits and veggies, always waiting a few days in between a new food to check for allergies.

On our way home I stopped at the store and bought a box of baby cereal. I was going to try it in the morning. I could barely sleep. It was almost like Christmas Eve and I couldn't wait to wake up to open presents. Babies are fun.