Ava and Noah.

Ava.

Ava's new favorite saying is "I go outside now". All she wants to do is play outside, specifically in her sandbox. She loves her sandbox. We don't love all the sand everywhere.

She is so vocal about telling us what she wants. She tells stories even though sometimes the words are out of sequence or the pronouns are wrong or she says what we would say to her. For example, when a picture is taken, she will say "I show you now," because that is what we would say to her.

She is in a climbing, jumping stage. She wants to get on her stool and jump off of it and when she is does it, she says, "I did it." My thoughts are "yes you did, now let's hope this doesn't land us in the ER"
Here is Ava jumping off her stool...

Ava walking to her stool

Ava standing on her stool.

Ava jumping off her stool.

She loves to watch TV and I have to admit, with Noah not sleeping, she watches WAY more than I would like to admit. As soon as we get Noah's sleep thing down, she will be limited on TV watching or brain rot as Mike calls it. Calliou is still her favorite show, but she also likes Curious George, Chuggington, Barney, Peep and Sesame Street.

She has a stellar memory. She will remember things from weeks ago and talk about them.  We have taught her that Gramme lives in the mountains and Grandma Nini flies away in a plane.

She is becoming more adventurous in her food, but she will let you know if she doesn't want it.  If we don't put it on her plate and ask her to try mommy's and daddy's food, she is more open to it.

She still battles washing her hair. I hate to admit it, but we are only washing it once a week because she ALWAYS cries. I have at least gotten her to let me, not Mike, brush her teeth with the bribe that she will get some floss. She loves floss. One day, I was flossing my teeth and Ava wanted to do it, so I gave her a piece and she put it in her mouth as if she were flossing. She soaks up everything. 

She loves to go for car rides, but I don't think she would like it if it were a "real" car ride. When I drive, she says "go fast". She likes to say it when I am at a stop light.

We are still amidst the "me do" or "Ava do it" stage. She wants to try to do everything. I usually let her try and then once she can't do it, she will ask for help.

Noah.

Well, Noah is having a hard time with his sleep. I made the mistake of letting him sleep in his swing too many times and now he doesn't know how to settle himself when he wakes up. I have vowed to not put him in it again for sleeping and work on getting him to sleep in his crib. It is not an easy task. It takes a lot of time and energy. I started this weekend because I have some help. I have to spend a lot of time in there, holding his hands down and keeping the paci in so he doesn't wake up. It usually takes about 30 minutes to get him through the first light sleep cycle. Then I have to go back in. If I can't get him to fall asleep on his own then we will continue to have nights like the other night where he woke up every hour from midnight on. I am exhausted. We only get 25 minute naps now and then he wakes up. Some days, I just have to get him up for an hour and then put him back down.

When he is awake, he is all smiles. Here are some pictures I took the other day.

He is very calm too. He will just hang out with everyone. He doesn't really get fussy unless he is really tired.

He has discovered his hands. He will lock them together and look at them. It is amazing to watch him discover things.

He will be 3 months old on Saturday, which is supposed to be about the time babies "figure it out" in terms of sleep or that is what everyone keeps telling me. I will believe it when I see it!

I love both these kids regardless of the sleep problems and the "two's". I feel very blessed to be able to be home with them daily.

It's Been a While....

It's been a while since I have posted. It is getting more difficult to find time to Blog.  Why you ask? Mostly because Noah is not a great sleeper. I spend most of my day going into his room trying to get him to go back to sleep. He will nap 30-40 mins and then he is awake. Then I usually spend 30-40 mins trying to get him back down and then he may sleep another hour or it is just a lost cause. If I put him in the swing, he will usually sleep. I was trying to not do that very often as I would like him to learn how to sleep on his own, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We have had many visitors helping me out. I am so appreciative to have the help because I have been a bit overwhelmed with Noah's lack of sleep and Ava's terrible two's. 

My dad came this past weekend to meet Noah for the first time.

We hung out at my sisters house. Ava is finally warming up to her cousin Sophie. I hope these two will be best friends. Here is a picture of them playing in the backyard.

They were looking for bugs and rocks...

My mom came down during her spring break. She brought Ava some new books.

Noah had his Modified Barium Swallow test this week. It is a test where they swallow the Barium and while they do it, they take x-rays to see what is going on. They were looking to see if he was aspirating into his lungs while he drank and he is not. That is the good news. We upped his reflux medicine about 2 weeks ago and that seemed to really help him out. He is on Soy formula and we are going to keep him on that for a month to see if that will also help him out. The only downfall is that it constipates him. That only adds to his sleeping problems. Poor little guy can't catch a break.

Some Pictures

Love this picture!! Tummy time!

All Smiles

Have to ask Ava to laugh and not smile to get a good picture!

In gramme's shoes

This is my brother.

Our Visit with Grandma Nini

As you know we had been struggling with Noah not sleeping and it was tiring and wearing on us. Mike's mom offered to come out and help last week. It was such a nice gesture and such a great help.  I really, really appreciated it.

Here are some pictures from her visit.

Auntie Susan, Uncle Troy and Ava playing Flying Bobo

Grandma Nini (or Nini as Ava calls her) playing outside.

Susan and Troy came over on Tuesday and it was awesome to have some help. There was one point where Susan and Grandma Nini were in the kitchen cooking. Troy was playing with Ava. Mike was in the office catching up on some work. I was in the family room with Noah sleeping in his Moby Wrap catching up on Tivo. It was awesome. What a nice treat it was.

Noah is 2 Months Old

This is where Noah usually sleeps for his 5 o'clock catnap!

Noah is 2 months old. It has gone fast and slow at the same time. He is such a happy baby now that we have figured out what has been bothering him. He has been on prevacid for his reflux for a week now and he is doing SOOO much better. He is napping well, most days and sleeping much better at night. I started making notes on my phone at night as to when he wakes up because I suspected it was the same time every night and it really was. He wakes at 11, 1 and 3:30. Occasionally he wakes up in between, but those are the main times. We usually feed him sometime between 12 and 1 depending on how long he seems to fuss. You see, he woke up so many times before the reflux medicine that I used to just pick a time to feed him because I couldn't tell if he was hungry or just uncomfortable. He seems to be hungry when we feed him between 12 and 1 because he sucks the bottle down.  He only feeds one time a night.

He has been soaking through his diaper every night and that is usually why he is waking up. We have had to change him every night and not just his diaper, his outfit too! Noah is one of those babies that does not like to sit in a wet or poopy diaper. Ava never minded it.

He weighs 13 lbs 4.5 oz! He is 23 1/2" long.

He is in size 2 diapers.

He wears 6 months clothes!! I pulled out some of his short sleeve onesies and if he goes through a growth spurt, he won't be able to wear them very long. They fit great now. Wow! I guess that will teach me not to buy ahead. He is just so tall.

He takes 3 naps and a catnap a day. He averages 45 minutes to 2 or 3 hours per nap.

He started on formula full time on March 4th. I feel a lot of guilt about not breastfeeding, but it had been a struggle for both of us. I am pumping and we are going to feed him all the pumped breast milk not that we feel that he was suffering from acid reflux and not a milk allergy.

He is smiling and cooing a ton. He will hold onto my hand and follow my voice.

He is a calm and happy baby. We just love him to pieces. 

Ava's 2 Year Doctor Appointment

I just realized I didn't post the information from Ava's doctors appointment. We went last Thursday.

Weight: 29 lbs
Height: 36 1/4" (It has been said that if you double their height when they are 2, that will be their adult height. Looks like she will be 6 feet tall). Can you say Volleyball player?!?

Overall, the doctor said she was doing well even though I felt like every time she asked us something, we said "nooo".

Ava has a little anexity around strangers. She demonstrated by crying the entire doctor's appointment. She needs to start taking a multivitamin and we need to cut out the juice. We have started letting her only have juice at breakfast time and offering milk and water for her other meals. Eventually she will drink it, right? So far it has been a battle.

Noah's Reflux Story...Part 1

Well, it has been a long couple of weeks at the Leptuch household. This is what has been going on with Noah and it is part 1 because we are not sure what the "real" answer is..

When Noah was about 4 weeks old, he started this thing where he would only sleep for 20 minute naps. There were the occasional longer ones, but he always woke up, like clockwork, 20 mins into it. Everyone kept saying that it will get better that he is just a baby, but it didn't. In fact, his sleep got worse. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that something must be wrong.

Noah has always been "gassy" (sorry TMI), so we started him on Mylicon gas drops. That seemed to help him out. Fast forward to 6 weeks old and the sleep was getting worse. Not only was he not napping more than 20 mins at a time during the day, he was NOT sleeping at night. We were lucky to get a 2 hour block of sleep. He would go to bed at 7pm and sleep until 9 or 9:30 and then wake up every hour after that. I would eventually feed him around 12 or 1 and then after that, he would wake up every 20-30 mins. He couldn't resettle. After a week of this and many sleepless nights, I made an appt to see our pediatrician.  I was doing a lot of research online to see if I could figure anything out. There had to be a medical reason for this. This is just not normal.

Ava had reflux as a baby, but she had many of the common symptoms, such as frequent spitting up and a lot of crying. Noah did not have those symptoms, so I didn't think of it right away. His symptom's were:
He never burped.
When he did burp, they were "wet burps"
Not sleeping
Belly distended
Just not comfortable at times
Weird eating habits.(He never seemed hungry, he would just eat when I fed him. He never seemed to want more or less. He didn't feed well towards the end, he would be squirmy and fussy)

I did read that sometimes babies with reflux will wake after 20 mins (the first light sleep cycle) because they are uncomfortable.

He is gaining weight like a champ, but I think that can be the reflux, because some babies will eat because it makes them feel better until it starts to come up. He never really cried for food. I just fed him every 3 hours. I started pumping and bottle feeding him last weekend so that I would know how much he was getting. He was eating about 4-5 oz a feeding. He is now 12 lbs 9 oz (as of 4/4/11). He is a big baby. I thought that maybe he wasn't sleeping because he was hungry. But after having his bottles, he still woke up.

At our pediatricians visit,based on our description, the doctor gave us Zantac as she said that it sounds like reflux.

A day later, Mike and I still didn't feel right, so we called a pediatric gastroentrology doctor.We got in the following day. She said that it could be reflux or a milk allergy. She put us on a 24 hour reflux relief medicine, Previcid. I guess Zantac wears off. She told us to try this for a couple of days and see if we see any improvement. If not, she gave us samples of formula that doesn't contain any milk protein. She noticed that the area around his bum was red and it has always been that way. She said that was common in babies that were allergic to milk. (But then again, it could just be Noah).  I am to just do formula for the next week. I am weening off the breastfeeding as it has been a challenge anyway. (It is painful, I might add). She also ordered a swallow test to make sure that the fluid isn't going back into his lungs. The area around his mouth turns blue after he eats and he is really phlegmy after eating and wheezing for a while after.

This has been frustrating and tiring all in one. I am not sure what we are expecting to see. I am just wanting to see him sleep, but I worry that after weeks of the same sleep pattern, it is going to take time to fix that and we won't know if anything is working.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that he will start sleeping better. Last night he did ok, but that is because we ended up holding him a lot of the night. I don't want to be doing that every night.