4 Months

Jacob turned 4 months old yesterday. It's been an amazing and terrifying 4 months. He's so much bigger now then when he was first born. I really can't even remember how small and light he was. I look at his first outfit or his first little diaper and just stare in amazement. He's already outgrown all of his newborn clothes and diapers and have moved on to 0-3 month clothes. I know most people think well he's 4 months old shouldn't he be in 3-6 months clothes, not if you adjust his age due to his prematurity which is what I am going to have to do for the next year or so. His adjusted age is 3 weeks, you start counting from his original due date. I have so many dates in my head now!! Too many numbers.

Jacob has now been home for two weeks and settling into his daily routine pretty nicely, if you can say babies have routines. For the most part it's been a nice quiet two weeks. His apnea monitor has gone off several times and scare the hell out of me each and every time. We downloaded the information for Children's Apnea Program staff to read and they told us of all the times the monitor went off only two were true "spells". One was right after his eye exam which does not surprise me one bit. The second one did surprise me though he was sleeping on his dad's chest and Mike said that he could feel and hear Jacob breathing, I told the nurse this but she did say it was a true spell because his heart rate slowed and he didn't breath for 26 seconds. Very strange. This morning I woke up to another alarm. Jacob has to sleep with is bed at a 45 degree incline due to his severe reflux so we keep him up by using a danny sling which straps him into place, I must not have securely velcroed him in after his 4am feeding because he had slid down and his face was pressed up against the danny sling strap!! My poor baby could have suffocated!!! Yet another thing to worry about, I am going to have to buy a "snake" to keep him up, we used this at the hospital in addition to the danny sling.

We are also making great strides in his development. Jacob has always had a pretty strong neck he can hold his head up with little assistance. he also enjoys tummy time, Jacob can turn his head from one side to the other and can lift his head up for a few seconds, I do have to watch him though or he'll do a head plant onto the floor. Jacob can track things with his eyes now, not always but a lot of the times. Since Jacob lost some of his peripheral vision due to ROP he'll turn his head more to see people and objects. We did have an occupational therapist come by as part of Early Intervention, they will be following Jacob's development the next few years, to work with Jacob. He does have high muscle tone in his legs and they are a little stiff so they will be working with him on that and teach me some exercises to do with him. Seems like with his feedings, diaper changes, exercises, and play time Jacob and I will keep ourselves nice and busy.