Today I started Alex on oatmeal.  We had tried rice cereal before and he didn’t like it and I wasn’t too excited about him eating in general because he was so young.  Alex made very unhappy faces and didn’t seem interested.  After AJ and I talked about it and he got closer and closer to his 5 month birthday I began to feel better about trying earth’s best oatmeal instead.  It is powdered and can be made thin like rice cereal. Well it was a hit!  Here are pictures of him eating it for the first time!  Also since it tastes better it can be mixed with water instead of breastmilk which means not having to pump two extra times a day, yea for everyone!

1/22/15 update- Alex has been ‘eating’ for almost a week now and loves it.  He is taking down 3 tbsp of oatmeal powder a day.  Also we started him on prunes as a necessity and  he ate 2 oz on top of his oatmeal.  Last night he got homemade apples, prunes, and oatmeal for dinner.  Next week I am going to start to make him other first foods- pears, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, and if he can get regulated out a bit- bananas.

Alex has been playing a game of Jekyll and Hyde for the last two and a half weeks where he is a very happy agreeable baby who naps well during the day and then cries inconsolably for 4-6 hours at night.  At this point we’ve tried it all: swing (borrowed from a friend), bouncer, holding, swinging, swaddling, 3 different noise machines, lavender baths, infant massage, nudity (his not ours), gas relieving poses, medication (for pain, gas, congestion -you name it we gave it), fresh air, driving him around in the car, and double feeding.  Today we took him again to see Dr. Mink as this started a bit before his 4 month birthday to see if there was anything else we could do.  We’ve got a couple more tricks up our sleeves now and hopefully those will work for us so we can all get some much needed sleep soon.

[All pictures of daytime happy Alex]