Kid's corner

Nathan reached the magical border of 5kg! This has one big advantage: we need not wake him up anymore in the night to let him eat. He has been sleeping pretty well over the past days, napping from around 1:00 till 6:30, or even 7:30. But last night he has been sleeping from 23:00 to 7:30. And there was much rejoicing :-)

Yesterday, Nathan smiled for the first time in a conscious manner. He responded to Veerle talking to him and laughing, and he found out what all those muscles in his face really are for. He's also making noises, that do not resemble crying in any way. He sounds awesome!

Nathan is almost four weeks old, so it was time to have him checked again. He weighs 4.380kg (after eating, so you can subtract 100g; yesterday he weighted 4.270kg, though two meals later), measures 55.5 cm, and has a head circumference of 37.5 cm. I think they missed last time, because he was 55.5cm then as well, and I cannot imagine him not having grown over the course of two weeks. For the rest, he checked out fine.

Today we paid Kind & Gezin a visit to have them check if Nathan's hearing is fully functional. For this test, it is paramount that the child is asleep, so we had to take a enthusiastic Elias out of the room, because he was making a bit too much noise. Five minutes later, Nathan was proclaimed to be ok. At least, their equipment found no problem whatsoever. So anytime he's not paying attention to what we're saying, it will be by his choice.

At what age can a baby roll from his back to his side? I'm quite certain that two weeks is far too soon, but we witnessed Nathan rolling to his side twice in a row. Granted the couch is not perfectly horizontal, but we thought it was rather remarkable.

On April 25th, 2007, Nathan paid Dr. Azou - our pediatrician - a first visit. We were a bit worried because he is not eating very well, taking over an hour (at least) to suckle in about 70g to 80g of milk. He was measured, weighted, and the conclusion was: nothing to worry about (yet). He weighs 3.68kg, is 55.5cm tall (I think that an increase of 3cm in two weeks is quite a lot), and his head circumference measures 35.5cm.

It was April 12th, 2007. The night was young and I was up working a bit on my PhD. dissertation. At 01:00 AM I decided to call it a day. Somehow, I felt that if I stayed up till then, the delivery would announce itself soon, as it did when Elias was born (I'm nowhere near supersticious, but I think this comes close). Little did I know how right I was. At about 01:50 AM, I felt a nudge from Veerle. After wrestling open my eyes, I saw a grimace on her face telling me not all was well. Or rather, everything was going great.

It is perfectly normal for a baby to lose weight during the first few days, but after the third or fourth day they are expected to gain weight, with a minimum of 10g per day. Nathan has been doing just that, going from 3.820kg, 3.580kg, 3.520kg, 3.560kg, 3.570kg. So for now, we're fine. However, he needs to pick up pace soon, and drink more during each feeding session. Still, his bowels and kidneys are doing a good job, proof for that are the loads of diapers we're changing.

Nathan is a bit fleshier but they resemble each other quite well.