Update from the pediatrician

Although this is not a picture of Graham with his pediatrician - it's his great-grandpa! Graham was entirely enthralled.

So, the pedi visit. It was mostly just a weight check, since his doctor took him off the extra formula last time she saw him. So the weight is now.....12 pounds, 3 ounces! Which puts him almost at the 50th percentile for 3 months, and he's only supposed to be at the one-month mark! And he's also 23 inches long, which is almost the 25th percentile for 3 months. What a big boy!!! So given the fact that he has almost caught up growth-wise, we have been wondering how to treat him in terms of feeding and sleeping. Would it be the right thing to try to get him to sleep through the night? Should we move him to his crib in his room? Etc. And the pedi said that developmentally, he seems more like 6-8 weeks old (which is awesome - he's catching up there too), which is too early to consider asking him to try sleeping through the night. And that's fine with us - we are beyond thrilled that he is as far along as he is. It's interesting, though - we've read a lot about preemie parent fatigue, both physically and emotionally. Because you've had your baby so much longer than most parents, it's like a very very extended newborn period, where they are really fragile, not very responsive, and eat all the time. So we've been in the newborn to month-old phase for three months, and still have probably another month or so to go before the traditional payoff that happens when the baby is 3 months old (can start really sleeping long periods, is smiling and laughing and really responsive). It can be really exhausting.

But that's not to say he's not responding to us at all - he changes more and more every day. He's smiling a lot more (and today he was even smiling at the baby in the mirror above his chair) and looks like he is so ready to laugh - lots of really open-mouthed smiles! So it's all hard (he's also going through a growth spurt right now and is CRANKY), but all worth it.