In my opinion, Matthew's new glasses make him even more handsome than before.
Last week, Nicholas and I had an appointment with a new pediatrician. The goal of this appointment was to ascertain why he is so far below the average in weight gain. He currently weighs around 7.5 kg, which puts him at only the 10th percentile, while he is 72 cm long, which is in the 95th percentile. (It is worth nothing that both Matthew and Lucas are very tall and very skinny...)Does he look that skinny to you?
This doctor was, at least in my opinion, not very friendly. I don't know if my perception of the situation was caused by the language barrier. Whatever the case, our conversation went something like this:
Doctor: What does he eat?
Me: Let's see. Baby cereal and formula in the morning. Veggies and some kind of starch for lunch. An afternoon snack of fruit. Meat, veggies and starch for dinner, along with some formula. And I breastfeed him twice during the day and several times during the night.
Doctor: You feed him during the night?!?!?!
Me: Yes. When he wakes up.
Doctor: You let him eat during the night?!?!?!
Me: Yes. Why? Is that wrong?
Doctor: Well, you're basically feeding him 24 hours a day. That's not good for him.
Me: Really? The nurses keep telling me to feed him whenever he's hungry.
Doctor: You have trained him to eat during the night. Now you have to teach him that he doesn't need to eat during the night.
Me: OK. I'll try.
Doctor: Also, I think you're starving him -- he doesn't get enough nutrition during the day [note from the author: in my mind, this contradicts with the feeding him all the time argument, but since I am not medically educated, I could be wrong]. Obviously, you have no breastmilk for him and he's just using you for comfort. You should stop breastfeeding him and feed him five full meals a day.
Me (now close to tears and still reeling from the starving my child accusation): Really? I don't want him to be hungry! I'll try.
She then shipped Nick off for an allergy test. He is, indeed, allergic to milk. In addition, we learned that he is allergic to eggs, but (thankfully) not to fish. So the (friendly) doctor and I agreed on a milk and egg-free diet, which he was on already anyway.
After leaving the office, I called Steen, and then I called mom and dad. I needed a reality check. Was it true that I am such a terrible mother? Had I starved my child? Had I done something wrong? With their reassurances that I had not, I re-examined the course of the visit and have decided that while I will implement the five full meals a day plan (which is basically just one snack more a day than he was getting before), I will not stop breastfeeding my child. (The World Health Organization , I believe, recommends at least some breastfeeding for the entire first year of a baby's life, As does the Swedish government!)
Therefore, Nick now gets a morning feed, breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and a bedtime feed. We return to Ms. Happy Doctor in a month, although I think I'm going to ask to see a different pediatrician this time. We just didn't hit it off right.
On Friday, Steen and I decided that it was indeed time for him to start learning to sleep through the night. Actually, that part of things has gone quite well. He's still waking a few times a night, but I just get up, give him his pacifier, cover him up and we all go back to sleep.
And he remains a happy, friendly baby, which I hope he will always be.
On a very exciting note, Matthew's class placed 30th in the national chess finals. And even more happy news -- Matthew was ranked first in his class and is therefore going to play in a special tournament of the 95 best fourth-grade chess players on Friday, May 23. He is proud -- rightly so -- as are we!!!
Nick and I had our first playtime out on the front lawn on Friday, which is the subject of today's photo of the day!
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