2-4 Months

First let me start off by saying there will be missing info in this post. I am so upset with myself for not writing everything down, but I only have his stats from his 2 month appointment! I even just got back from his 4 month appointment and because it was so crazy, I don't even remember. Gah. Moving on.

2 Month Stats:

13 lbs 20 oz

23 1/32 in long

This little guy is so sweet. He had a really rough first couple of months while we were still trying to learn his quirks and such.

I LOVE his red hair and hope he keeps it forever and ever! He was born with SO much of it, and I couldn't help but style it. :)
(3 months)

Just like most babies, Jared spent the majority of his time sleeping. And when he wasn't sleeping, he was crying. Why? Well from the time he was born I suspected he had acid reflux. He had all the same symptoms that Abby used to have when she was an infant. He would swallow over and over and over, scream out like he was in terrible pain, arch his back, not eat, etc. His doctor ordered and ultrasound of his stomach to see what was going on.

The ultrasound tech confirmed that he was very gassy, something that I was also suspecting was causing pain, and that he had acid reflux. So we started Previcid, morning and night. It helps a TON.

Something else was still bothering Jared though. He would cry soooo much. Morning and night. It was so.hard. The doctor decided to do a dairy allergy test, but all came back normal. She suggested I go ahead and cut out dairy completely because he could just have an dairy intolerance. So I did.

About a week and a half into no dairy, there was still no change. It was SO FRUSTRATING! I talked to some friends and they said it could take about 2 weeks for a change. So I stuck with it. I swear exactly two weeks on the dot I started to notice a little bit of a difference. It didn't seem like a huge difference so I gave up and had a bowl of cereal with a little bit of milk. 4 hours after I ate that (it takes 4 hours for my body to process food into milk), I was feeding Jared and he started to scream like crazy. I then realized that there had been a gradual "feeling better" even though there was still lots of crying, it had gradually diminished. So from that day on I've tried so hard not to eat dairy. It has gotten way easier as time has passed.

(Still working out the milk problem in this picture)
(4 Months)

Jared has been such a joy in our lives so far. He has the cutest, biggest belly laugh and his dimples are to.die.for!
My little thumb sucker!
With the combination of A.R. and a dairy intolerance, there are still hard days. On the eve of the hard days when he has warn me out the most I love to sit a cuddle him. He really is such a sweet little guy, he just has had a rough start in life.

Paul and I went to Vegas (there will be a blog post about this) on February 9th, 10th and 11th. My awesome SIL kept Jared for those 3 days and he was bottle fed. When we got back, Jared went on strike for almost a month and would ONLY eat while he was asleep. We didn't go many places for those 3+ weeks. It was one of the most frustrating times of my life. Seriously. Picture a baby screaming because he's so hungry he can't stand it but the only way he will eat is to rock him to sleep first. Yeah. It was absolutely terrible. I talked to a friend of a friend and she told me her baby did the same thing at 4 months and then again at 6. It turns out he was teething! (AHH!) So she told me to try teething tablets and lavender essential oils. I tried the teething tablets with Jared and guess what! It worked! Then I started noticing little marks where teeth are coming in. chances are he'll be a terrible teether like Abby was, but at least we know the cause!

Jared is surely giving us a run for our money, but we wouldn't trade him for anything. He's got the sweetest little spirit and something about this little boy has me swooning every single day. His smiles? His dimples? His giggles? The way he sleeps? I don't know what it is, but I love this little guy so much!