Miles is back to birth weight plus 6 oz, which is great. His head circumference has increased an inch and he has grown an inch and a half in length. This puts him at 50% for head size, 75% for length, and 25% for weight - a long, lean baby with an average sized head.
Miles had a couple of minor areas of concern at birth that all seem to be resolved already. I'll mention these because I had never heard of them before but apparently they are not that uncommon for babies (boys in particular for two of them); also because they made me a little nervous at first, but now I'm reassured that he's fine.
One physical quirk he has is that his foreskin is a bit short - it did not completely cover the glans. The only potential issue there is that that sometimes is a sign that the opening of the penis is not at the tip - it can be further down the shaft or even down at the scrotum. While that sounds totally freaky and it made my heart skip a beat to hear the pedi say "possible fertility issues," it turns out that it's more common than you might think and totally fixable with a fairly simple outpatient surgery. They just ask you not to circumcise right away because they will use some of the foreskin for the surgery - but we did not circumcise anyway. As it turns out, we found he definitely pees out of the end of his penis (and onto his dad's shirt, twice!) so it's a non issue for the little guy.
Second, he had a little fluid around one testicle, which happens with about 50% of baby boys at birth - I did not know this! It's only a problem if it gets worse, but it usually goes away on its own, and he's doing just fine with that.
And lastly was another physical quirk, which is that he has a little dimple on his backside just at the top of his butt crack. The pedi at the hospital said that his is very minor, hardly anything at all, but if it were deeper and/or had some hair in it (!!) they would want to do an ultrasound to make sure it wasn't a sign of internal abnormalities. However, she thought it was nothing and our regular pedi today didn't make anything of it either, so no ultrasound needed.
Other than that everything looks great, he's growing well, heart sounds good, hips are good, all is well.
So the pediatrician today told me that I should start trying to get Miles on a nighttime schedule of going 3-4 hours between feedings, so that I can get more sleep. I don't really believe in doing this, and I'm not going to, since I feel that feeding on demand is better. He recommended that if Miles wants to eat again after an hour and a half I should try rocking him, giving him a paci, and soothing him in other ways to get him back to sleep. But I think it just makes more sense to feed a hungry baby. Miles has no concept of time - he just eats when he's hungry. Plus, I fail to see how rocking the baby for an hour and half instead of feeding him helps me get more sleep!
On his own, Miles is already trending toward going 3-4 hours or even slightly more between nighttime feedings. But it's just inconsistent because he's still so young. Last night was a little rough, and I actually was crying with fatigue and post partum hormones this morning when Mr. Ibis left for work (he offered to go in late, but I knew I just needed to nurse again and we could get some more rest).
I do take the doctor's point about not letting him comfort suck on the boob, but I can tell the difference between comfort sucking and hunger by now. If Miles is hungry an hour or two after I fed him, it's usually because he fell asleep before he was full at the last feeding. This can be really frustrating for me, but I'm not going to make him go hungry... he won't learn anything from that except that mom doesn't always listen to his pleas for food. Right now my "job" is to feed this boy, and it's tough sometimes having a 24/7 job, but this is my baby. I want to take care of him the best way I can.
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