I [heart] Davids It helps me to say these things aloud, I think.

Linus is now 6 months old. Here’s an update:

• Weight: 18# 12oz
• Height: 26″
• Head: 17 1/8″

Linus is doing great. He’s rolling over both ways and he’s starting to rock backwards up on his knees. He’s meeting all his milestones and, as you can see by his growth, he’s clearly thriving. He sees a developmental therapist once a week, and she thinks he’s sharp as a tack and very strong. Everyone agrees that he’s the happiest little fella. One girl said “He smiles with his whole face.” He is just as cute and sweet as they come. He loves, loves, loves his big brother, and will always watch him if he’s in the room. And he loves his mommy and daddy, too.

He shows no sign of getting teeth any time soon. We’ve started solids and I think he’s slowly warming up to the idea. He eats about 6 times a day (bottles or nursing) and we’ve managed so far not to supplement my milk supply. He is sleeping from around 8 PM to 6 AM, though it’s still not that consistent. He makes good dinosaur noises and coos.

Four Month Stats (7/20/2010)

• Weight: 16# 14oz
• Height: 25 3/4″
• Head: 16 1/2″

Ten more pictures after the break!
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You may already know about Linus’s medical condition. If not, read this.

In August, we went to the Colorectal Center of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to visit the world’s leading experts in the field of anorectal malformations. Dr. Marc Levitt operated on Linus and repaired the defect. We are so happy that we went to Cincinnati and had the best surgeons in the world taking care of Linus.

To learn more about the actual surgery and repair, click the More link below. But first, here are some pictures.
Linus’s “home away from home”

Hanging out with Daddy

Playing in his crib

With his Granma and Granpa

Hanging out with (a picture of) Henry

Looking sharp in his teddy bear gown

Snoozing after surgery

The very yummy Edible Arrangements bouquet Cristin sent!

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Somehow, against all thoughts and plans to the contrary, we’ve ended up with a baby that won’t sleep through the night.

This is due to at least a few reasons that I can think of, including the fact that Henry’s schedule is more fixed, so we’ve worked Linus in around Henry, and also that Linus’s colostomy bag prevents us from giving him a bath every night so we don’t have a good nighttime routine going.

Our current schedule has Linus nursing from 8-10, dozing and nursing on and off, and finally going to bed between 10 and 12. He gets up at least once or twice during the night to nurse, but has to be woken in the morning to get to school on time. Not a very good schedule for any of us.

Last night I re-read the Ferber book and realized there are three problems we need to work on. First, he’s getting up too often at night to nurse. (He recently had a cold and was up 3 times a night!). Second, he needs to be put on a more regular, predictable schedule so that he can know what to expect when. Lastly, he needs to lose his improper sleep associations, which generally is me nursing him to sleep.

Luckily, we have the journal from when Henry was little, and we have this record of his schedule. Using those two historical logs, we’re building a new schedule for Linus and working on these problems.

Here’s my plan of attack. First, we’re leaving the evenings alone and just focusing on eliminating the nighttime feedings. Last night he went 5 hours between bedtime and his first nurse. Every day we’ll add 30 minutes on to that until he can go approximately 7-8 hours without a feeding at night. At the same time, we’re setting a fixed wake-up time for him, 6 AM. This will set him on a predictable schedule for the day, and should align to be his first feeding of the day once we wean him from nighttime nursing.

After we’ve achieved that goal, then we’ll start trying to fix the evening. We need to institute a predictable evening ritual, a standard routine. At some point, we’ll also want to move his bedtime earlier. That would be the last step, however, in our plan.

So, we started last night and we’ll see how it goes. Wish us luck!!