Nine Month Stats

I'm a bit late posting the twins' 9 month stats, but their "well baby" visit was also 2 weeks late, as usual!

The babies are thriving and doing quite well. They both can sit unassisted, they can "stand" unassisted for a couple milliseconds at a time (although Colin has trouble with this since he'd rather be bouncing!) They don't crawl at all and if we skipped crawling and went straight to standing/walking that would be fine with us (which we hear does happen).

Colin babbles all the time and has become quite good with consonant sounds and mimicks us a bit. He goes "da da da ta taaaaa". Oh, and he likes to scream for no reason! Great! Ava is a bit behind him, but we are hopeful that she'll soon follow her big brother's lead with consonants. For now, she mostly grunts and groans and goes "HMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm!"

They're asleep by 7pm and wake up around 7am. Ava isn't much of a napper -- she usually does two 45 minute ones. Colin usually does a short 45 minute one and a longer 1.5 hour one. They are pretty good at their pincer grasp and although they can pick up Puffs, they only make it to their mouths 5% of the time (they seem to get jammed in their palms and can't make it into their mouths)!

We're still doing 4 bottles/day with 6oz in each for Ava; and Colin gets 6oz in his first bottle followed by 8 ouncers. Ava is a nut for solid food which we only offer after bottles, but I know she'd rather have that. I'm still making all their solid baby food with only an occasional Gerber Organic thrown in in a pinch. For finger foods, they eat Puffs, wagon wheels, barley teething biscuits, bagels, small pieces of peaches and banana, and watermelon in mesh feeders.

And now for their stats:

• Ava weighs in at 15lbs 6.5oz, still in the 5th %-ile.
  
• She is 26.5" long, still in the 25th %-ile.
  
• And her head is 42.5cm around up to the 10th from the 5th %-ile at her 6 month.

She's gaining weight just fine, but she started out pretty small so she'll have to stay on the higher calorie Neosure formula for now.

• Colin weighs in at 18lbs 9oz, still in the 10th %-ile.
  
• He is 28.5" long which now puts him in the 25th %-ile, up from 8% at his 6 month.
  
• His noggin is 47cm around putting him in the 90-95th range up from the 50th at his 6 month.

Now this increase gave me pause. This is a HUGE jump. Boy, this kid has head problems! First his strawberry hemangioma, then his plagiocephaly (hence the helmet), and now his head is growing pretty fast.

Now unless you have the same person taking measurements each time, it could be off. And maybe the helmet is working so his flat spot is filling in causing the big jump. What I don't like is that our Pedi left the practice, and the new docs have yet to arrive, so we are in limbo only getting to see an NP (who I didn't care for). I made her set up an appt for an ultrasound of his head to make sure it's not hydrocephaly or a growth - despite her telling me there is nothing to worry about. Hey, I worry, but I'm a Mom so this gives me license to do so. I'm not super worried, but I don't want to fail my son, so there you go.

The NP did say Colin doesn't need the high calorie formula anymore, so we are slowly transitioning him to Similac Advance. It's a pain to make up two batches of formula, but b/c the Advance is sold in bigger containers and b/c it's not high cal, it costs us only 14 cents/oz down from nearly 20 cents/oz for the Neosure.

Ok, Ava says: seriousness over for now! Let's have fun!