Mini me

Eily turned 6 months old on December 30 (where the heck has the time gone?!), so I couldn't wait to go to her well-baby visit at the pediatrician to get her updated stats. I know she's tiny - still very comfortably fitting into 3-6 month clothing with room to grow - and I wasn't expecting a huge increase in her weight, but even I was surprised at how little she actually gained in the two months since her last appointment. Here is a comparison of her stats from the two checkups:

4 month checkup - Oct 27, 2009
Height - 24.5 inches
Weight - 12lbs 8.5oz
Head circumference - 15.75 inches

6 month checkup - Jan 5, 2010
Height - 25.25 inches (.75 inch growth)
Weight - 13lbs 3.5 oz (11oz growth)
Head circumference - 16.5 inches (.75 inch growth)

In short, she is a teeny little peanut, in the 50th percentile for height and only the 5th percentile for weight. Head circumference is right on target. Despite the doc's concern about her low weight, I'm pretty certain she's healthy and has very fortunately inherited my fast metabolism. I was once told my metabolism is "like a hummingbird on speed." That should give you a pretty good idea of what I mean by fast.

Just for a visual example of her size, here's a pic of Eily sitting next to our cat, Smokey. At 6 months old, she's still the smaller of the two!




I told the pedi how much this pint-size powerhouse can pack away in one sitting, but he has encouraged me to feed her even more to see if she will gain more weight. So now we're letting her eat until she visibly shows me she is full. I kid you not when I say this child can eat the same amount of food as me in one sitting...and she does it three times a day (in addition to nursing 5-6 times)! Where on earth does she fit it all? It's obvious she eats more food than the size of her stomach at this point. I'm convinced one of her legs is hollow, and she packs all the extra food away in there.

I say I'm not overly concerned about her large appetite/slow growth for a few reasons. First, I have compared her weight gain at each visit with my own as recorded by my mom in my baby book. Eily and I have almost identical weights so far. At a year old, I was perfectly healthy but weighed only 16lbs. This leads me to believe that her size is simply part of her genetic makeup. Second, as I said, she is hitting all of her milestones right on cue. This would be a great time for me to update you on those! So, in no particular order, here are some of Eily's newest parlor tricks:

- Sitting up unsupported for long periods of time (1+ hours)
- Feeding herself cheerios, puffies, and small chunks of banana
- Rolling over very easily now...though she still prefers to be on her back if she's laying down
- A lot more screechy yelling, especially if one of the cats happens to be in sight...not quite babbling with consonants just yet
- Easily transitioning items from one hand to the other, reaching, grabbing, visibly cluing me in to whatever it is she wants (i.e. toys, food, etc)
- Laughing at things that are actually funny (i.e. the Baby Einstein puppets when she watches them on TV)
- Hugs and kisses - these are the best! She is such a little snuggler, and nothing is better than the feeling of her wrapping her arms around my neck as soon as I pick her up or sucking on my cheek to imitate me after I give her kisses.

See? No need to worry. She's a strong, developmentally on target little thing, even if she is small.

While looking at my own baby stats recently, I made an interesting discovery. I stumbled across some pictures of myself at around 3-6 months old, and guess what? I can finally say that Eily resembles me when I was a baby! She still has a lot of Jesse's qualities, but I think you're starting to see a lot more of me in there as well. Here's a side-by-side comparison. Judge for yourselves.





Thoughts? Opinions?

On another (possibly TMI) note, I've made the difficult decision that it may be time to wean Eily and switch to formula. While I'm sure she's healthy, I do have some doubts about my milk supply. Couple that with the fact that I start school again in two weeks and will have no time to pump between classes, and I think my supply is going to get even lower. In the best interest of helping her gain some weight, I think it's time to make the switch. It's sooner than I would have liked - I was hoping to make it to a year - but I feel like we made a pretty good run of it. I'm a little sad about the idea, but I'm trying not to let myself feel like a failure - six(+) months is still a good length of time to nurse, and I was surprised I even made it this long!

Well, that's the update for now. The posts may start to come less frequently when school starts. I'm enrolled full-time to keep my scholarship, and I'll still be working part-time from home. That leaves just enough time to interact with Eily, pushing this blog to the back burner, at least for the spring. I'll try to update as much as I can, but please be forgiving if the wait is a bit longer than normal!

And what shall I leave you with today? How about a video we took of Eily laughing up a storm a couple of nights ago. Her laugh is the best! Enjoy!