Showing posts with label pediatrician. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pediatrician. Show all posts

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Sleep, and other craziness

Let me start by saying that I desperately hope Andrew does not inherit my terrible sleeping habits. I try like heck to get him to bed at the same time every night possible, so it seems to be going well so far.... *knock on wood*
Hubby and I are both totally night owls and not morning people whatsoever. We were reminiscing about the first summer we lived together- we both were off of classes until fall and we both mainly worked evenings so we would sleep until noon, laze around for a few hours and head out. Those days are SO over, lol! 
I regret to say, though, that we are still terrible about getting enough sleep. We sometimes will get to bed at a normal time but it's quite often we are watching TV or movies or playing games until 1 or 2 am. And when Jesse works overnights I'm lucky if I get to sleep before 3am. Part of it is just stupid. We lose track of time or just don't think about it. But when hubby is working I just toss and turn for hours. Some nights I do actually go to sleep early but I think that's just when I'm overly sleep deprived, haha!

Anyways, we have so lucked out with our great sleeper. At 5 weeks he began sleeping 12 hours a night, so we have ample time to catch some Zs but we are definitely not taking advantage of it. We really need to work on this. I think I will try some Sleepy-Time Tea tonight. Maybe that'll help, haha....

This week has been kind of crazy for us, I had a doctor appointment Tuesday, on Wednesday we decided to apartment hunt so we viewed 8 apartment at 7 different communities (and munchkin somehow stayed calm for 6 hours of touring and driving). 

Thursday we did the grocery shopping and Friday we toured another apartment at one of our favorite communities and then toured the country club we'd go to if we lived there.
So we had done the whole apartment hunting thing once before and found our dream apartment, but we had a bit of a misunderstanding which led to looking at more places.

So, we used to have this absolutely fantastic pediatrician, Dr. Manish Shah. He was fantastic, the nurse practitioner was wonderful, the staff was absolutely great.... I have no complaints whatsoever. But then Andrew's insurance ran out and we had to switch. For a bit, Andrew was uninsured while we waited to hear about our petition to Jesse's work insurance. Munchkin had gotten a pretty bad cold so we called to see if we could get in by paying out of pocket. Not only did they fit us in that day, but they only charged us $28. 
So, now that we are under different insurance, we tried out a pediatrician near us. It's been AWFUL. We were there for over 3 hours the first appointment (for a well check). The nurse was not very good, the doctor talked over us, pushed us, very obviously did not pay attention to what we were saying, and his policy is to have as many people as possible hold him down for everything. Andrew has begun crying the moment we're in the room because the three times we've gone he has three people tightly holding him down while he gets looked at. For silly things like poking his tummy or looking in his mouth or nose, etc. I understand needing them to be still but this is going overboard. On top of all that, not only did we have to pay them over $120 for the visits but the doctor ran over Andrew's toes and grabbed him when he was running around. Needless to say, we won't be back. 
We did find a sheet that Dr. Shah gave us recommending another pediatrician though, so fingers crossed they accept our insurance!!

The misunderstanding came from the in-network/ out of network coverage for our insurance. Hubby had said something that I took as if we were in Pasco county, we would be able to go back to Dr. Shah's. SO I looked up 7 communities in Pasco county. While we are driving to the first one Wednesday he tells me we'd have to live outside of the three main counties in Tampa to be able to go to Shah's. Sigh. 
But here's the thing. We found a beautiful 3 bedroom at one of these communities. It's almost 1400 square feet, lots of storage space, small porch and lots of natural light (which our current apartment is seriously lacking). The community is gorgeous, they have a great pool area, 24 hour gates, a tot lot, kids area off the gym, mini theater, etc. But the best part is as a resident you get membership to the country club close by for under $20 a month. The Club includes 2 huge pools, tennis courts, big playground, splash park, movie theater, community room, cafe, gym, and aerobics room/ dance studio. It's perfect. It's also off of the road to Jesse's work if you go out the back way, and if you go out the front way it leads to the road to take hubby to school. Best part? It's walking distance from Dr. Shah's. So IF we end up there, fingers crossed that we can work something out with the insurance or doctors office.....

So anyhoo. That's been life lately. Planning and stressing and running and all that jazz. We have had some pretty fun times too though!! Andrew has learned to hug!! It's the sweetest thing ever to ask for a hug and he dives his head into your neck lol, soooooooooo cute :)
He also has been following instruction SO well. If we say "Go grab 'Little Blue Truck'!" He will go search, find that book, bring it over and we will read it. Then once he gets off our laps, we will hand him the book and say "Put the book away, please." and he will take it to the coffee table and carefully put it on the shelf where we keep his books. Such a good little kiddo. 
Time-outs are working great so far, too *knock on wood*. He is starting to understand when we ask if he wants a time-out so he will generally give up his pursuit of knocking over the lamp or smacking you for not letting him do something, lol. He will cry pretty hard for a few moments once we sit him on the chair but then he gets calm and stays pretty still for the 60 seconds we make him sit. Definite improvement over the constant crying and wriggling from the first 5 or 6 times.

Well so far today we have been a bit of a shite show. Rough morning for mama, soooooo many dishes waiting to be washed and a room scattered with toys that I didn't feel like putting away last night. And now here we are lazing around watching E and Andrew is running around with poker chips. If you need us, we will be bumming around the living room playing in PJs.


TTFN! <3

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Andrew at 9 months

**I wrote this last week but due to things I will discuss in the next blog post (writing it now) it's posting got delayed until now...

"Listen up, Mom, and you'll start to hear emerging baby speech patterns -- and get ready to be very impressed as your genius-in-training is soon able to follow a simple command (e.g., Give Mommy the cup).  He's also become quite the mimic, mirroring your facial expressions and echoing your sounds. Your little smarty-pants may now be able to roll a ball back to you and drink independently from a cup. Now's a good time to reassess your feeding routines to ensure you're establishing healthy eating habits, such as minimizing sweets and salt and maximizing veggies, fruits, and whole grains. Don't be surprised if your formerly easy eater becomes a choosy customer; remember, there are plenty of tactics to tempt picky eaters, so stay patient and keep trying. Another potential pitfall at the nine-month mark is a change in baby sleeping patterns, as some babies are ready to ditch at least one of their daily naps while others decide they're ready for playtime instead of bedtime at night. Stranger anxiety may emerge, as well as a firm attachment to a (desperately-needs-to-be laundered) transitional object. As for you, this could be a perfect time to join (or start) a playgroup. Your little one is quite the social animal now and you could probably use an empathetic ear (attached to a mom who knows exactly what you're going through)."
-whattoexpect.com

"I'm NINE months old?!?"
"AWESOME!"





















...Well, he is doing a lot of the mimicking and understanding things! He hasn't had sugar yet so no sweets to monitor. We are really trying to wait at least until 2 years to introduce sugary things. So far his only real food aversion is chicken but I think it may be a bit dry so he can't swallow it as well. If you mix it into his potatoes he is fine.
No change in sleeping patterns, he is already over his stranger anxiety (it ended days before our trip home in August). No object attachment, still loves his naps...........



He is doing quite well learning to share - if you ask for something he will give it to you pretty quickly and though he does looks concerned for a few moments he soon gets bored waiting and finds something else to do. He definitely does get a big smile when he gets it back though haha!
He is getting to be a fussy man when you aren't feeding him anymore but I think that's the biggest thing we need to work on right now.




Andrew had his follow-up from his circumcision this week... he is healing great and our pediatrician says it looks perfect so nothing to worry about there! Also the pediatrician says our little man is doing great ALTHOUGH he has now dropped below the 25th percentile for weight and MAY have lost 4 ounces in the last 3 months (records showing he was 19.6 at 6 months.... in September he was 19, and at this appointment he was around 19.2) so we have been instructed to "fatten him up" haha! We now have to put butter into his chicken and formula into his morning oatmeal to give him some more calories. We have another check-up next month to see how that is working.
Unbeknownst to us, he already cut his two bottom teeth!!!! We thought MAYBE he was teething because he was slightly more fussy than usual (but his sleep schedule was a bit off as well) but nope I guess he was gettin' some chompers in! What a trooper. Looks like his top two teeth are about to pop out as well.




Jesse's mother came to stay for a few days before a conference down south here and we had lots of fun! Saturday evening she arrived, Sunday we had some additional relatives over for a visit and lunch, Monday we had an appointment and went out for wine tasting and trying out a new restaurant, Tuesday was an appointment and signing up for some music classes and Arabian Nights- kind of like Medieval Times but maybe a little cheesier. It was a lot of fun though, Andrew seemed to enjoy it too!



  • Andrew is eating more just steamed vegetables than always pureed foods. 
  • He is getting good at chewing/ biting off pieces of food
  • He is drinking with a straw
  • He has drunk out of a water bottle and glass
  • He is ALMOST crawling, still doing the army crawl full force though
  • Has officially outgrown the walker. He now puts his feet against the side and leans way over so he almost falls out :(
  • Has tried yogurt, bread, pork, mango, kiwi, puffs and cheese now.
  • Staying awake closer to 2 1/2 hours at a time and napping is getting the same way.
  • Is not feeding himself yet unless it is a teething biscuit or his milk but will grab your hand and pull it to his mouth to be fed.




P.S. did you know the age for forward-facing infants has raised to 2 years!?!? We just learned this!

In other news, We are doing some shopping this weekend - household items and food tomorrow and then clothing on Saturday (big huge sale days at Macy's and Old Navy!!) and then we are going to go check out a pumpkin patch/ family fall fest! Sunday we will finally be returning to Church and may be having friends over. 

"helping" with the laundry ;)

Always on his tippy toes



Have a great weekend!!

TTFN! <3