One Month Appointment

Yesterday N had his one month doctor's appointment.  He hadn't been sleeping well for the past few days so I was kind of dreading the appointment.  His sudden sleeping issues were on my list of questions for the doctor.  N had a great morning and was on the perfect nursing schedule for our 1:30 appointment.  However, he somehow got himself overtired right before it was time for us to leave and screamed for 10 full minutes in the car.  It's seriously one of the worst feelings because they are facing backwards so you can't see them and they can't see you so they just scream and scream.  He fell asleep 5 minutes before we got to the office.  Of course he woke up crying again when I took off all of his clothes for the exam since he hates being cold - thankfully this time I remembered to bring a receiving blanket with me to wrap him up in while we waited. 

I talked with his doctor about the dry, flaky skin on his face which she said was actually cradle cap and recommended a cream to use on it.  I'm hoping to make it out to the store to pick that up today.  He also has some little red bumps on his face that seem to come and go.  As I thought, they are just baby acne and there's really nothing to do about them.  Poor little guy, between the super dry skin and red bumps, his little face is a mess :( 

We also talked about his sleeping and how by two months I need to be laying him down awake so he learns to self-soothe.  I completely understand this and have been reading several books and websites about this, but none of them really tell you what to do to help a baby fall asleep.  Once N is all worked up and crying we have a lot of trouble getting him calmed down and back to sleep.  One day this week I decided to try working on that for some of his daytime naps.  We went through 2 entire naps cycles without him sleeping at all - he got so worked up that I wasn't even able to nurse him to sleep when I tried.  I'm hoping we get the hang of something soon - it seriously makes me feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. 

I also asked her about the shape of N's head.  I've noticed for the past week or so that N tips his head to the right a lot.  He likes to sleep with his head to the right and favors looking to the right.  He's able to turn it to the left, but doesn't do it often.  I also noticed that the right side of his head appears to be kind of flat.  I figured I would ask about it and she would tell me that it's normal and would even out as he becomes more mobile.  Well, I was wrong - she said she was referring us to a neurosurgeon.  She told me to start forcing N to turn his head to the left and to do at least 30 minutes of tummy time a day.  Instantly I figured that I had done something wrong to cause his head to look like this - the doctor didn't say this, it's just how I felt.  The doctor's office called today and we have an appointment for next Tuesday with the neurosurgeon.  They said the appointment is so soon just because they had an opening, not because it was an emergency or anything.  I'm so nervous about this appointment.  I'm hoping that since N is so young we'll be able to correct this quickly and easily. 

In other good news, N is 23 and 3/4 inches long (97%) and weighs 9 lbs. 2 oz. (50%).  His doctor said that he is right on track!  At least I can feel good the fact that he's growing well!