Today was Henry's first vaccinations. It was awful. I hated every minute of it. His reactions to the needle were so painful and he screamed and screamed. He turned bright red and made cries I haven't heard before. He started to calm down after the second shot, but there was one more to go. By this point, I was crying and telling him I was sorry. It sucked. Bad.
The doctor said that he could react by being fussy, having a fever, sleeping through a feeding, or have absolutely no reaction. So far Henry has been pretty sleepy. He hasn't missed a feeding really, but he has stretched out the time in between and then he doesn't nurse for long. We are also giving him Tylenol every four hours (although he is sleeping now and I am not going to wake him in 45 minutes when another four hours is up. I'll just give it to him when he wakes up on his own). He is slightly fussy, but not too much more than normal. I'm not sure yet what other reactions he will have... (to be continued)
He did weigh in at 14 lbs and 7 oz today and is now 25 inches long!! He is in the 97th percentile in both height and weight. Dr. Lubin was very pleased.
I asked her when he would likely learn how to hold the pacifier and she said he may not ever take to it. This troubles me a little because he likes to use the pacifier in order to calm himself to sleep so if he doesn't learn to hold it in himself, I'm going to be doing a lot of paci holding. I do think that he will take to sucking his thumb or fingers when he figures out how to hold them to his mouth, so then I can retire.
I wanted to include some things in here that I don't want to forget. Early on when I was trying to breastfeed him, he would open his mouth wide when we said "open" but he often kept his tongue up and in the way. Late at night this was very frustrating. During the day it was funny. I just realized today that we don't have this problem anymore. I'm not sure when it went away.
A joke that at least Phillip and I thought was funny: we were talking about how we call Henry by his name and expecting that he knows that it is his name, but if you went by the word we say most often to him, he might think his name is "Open" (or "I love you").
Last night he slept really well. I left him in his crib at 8:30 pm and he didn't wake up until 3 am. Then after he was changed and nursed until 3:45 am, he slept until 7! This was pretty great! I'm not sure how the shots will affect his sleep pattern, but good or bad, I won't get too excited or upset.
Tomorrow Grandma Janet and Grandpa Ted come to visit!
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