Weeee! Charts! And Sleep!

Given that I was too busy posting pictures of my daughter in exploratory Star Trek mode on Monday, I didn't get the chance to engage in my favorite kind of post: data analysis.

On Monday, Little G went to the doctor for her 5-week check up. For the record, she was 36 days old at that check up. She received her second Hep-B vaccination, and got another weight and length measurement. At that time, she clocked in at 9 lbs, 3 oz and 22 inches. That's a gain of a whopping 2 lbs 2 oz since we brought her home, and 1 lb 6 oz since her last weigh-in, which explains why picking up her car seat has gotten progressively more difficult.

Here's a helpful chart to show where she is compared to the average:

I used www.infantchart.com to generate this, and though it's hard distinguish between the lines that early on the chart, she sits comfortably around the 42nd percentile. Solidly average. It also means she's been gaining weight at an average of 1.15 oz per day since her last weigh in. If that holds true, she's probably at 9 lbs 5.3 oz today.

As for length, the same site lets me check that, too.
Provided that 22 inches is an accurate measurement (which means she's either grown 1.5 inches since we brought her home, or somebody has been careless with the tape measure at some point along the way), that puts her around the 68th percentile. Not too shabby either.

In other milestone news, Little G has "slept through the night" two nights in a row. I use quotation marks because "night," in this case, is relative. Monday night we were able to put her down at midnight and she slept until 5:30 am. Last night she went down a little after 11 pm and slept until 5 am. It's not a full night's rest in my book, but it's a good stretch, and it's happening at night rather than mid-morning, so I'll take it.

Unfortunately, Hollie has a really bad chest cold, and it kept her up until 2 in the morning, so she wasn't able to take full advantage last night. We're hoping that gets better soon. The small amount of sleep she's been getting hasn't made getting better any easier.

I should mention that Little G is still not sleeping in her crib, as sleeping flat just seems to upset her. We read great reviews of this rocker/sleeper, and it seemed to be what she needed. We swaddle her tightly so she can't smack herself in the face, and this keeps her legs bunched up in a comfortable way while keeping her torso tilted. We got it on Sunday, and it's worked great 2 out of 3 nights so far. Of course, I'm probably jinxing Little G's sleep routine by bringing any of this up, but I hope this behavior continues.

General housekeeping notes: I've started a Twitter feed for the blog, which you can see in the right column. Follow me, if you're so inclined, and you'll see things like what we're listening to during daddy/daughter dance time, what shows I'm using to stay awake while trying to put her to sleep, and general miscellany about being a geeky dad. Even if you don't have a twitter account, you can bookmark and visit http://twitter.com/SolvingForG to see what I'm posting, or just visit the blog and read the last few tweets.

Lastly, if you're a regular reader, what sort of things are you interested in hearing about? I won't promise to post fewer charts, but if there's something I'm not mentioning that you'd like to see, let me know and I'll do my best to oblige, within reason. Respond in the comments below, or on Facebook. Thanks!