The internet does not lie very well. I would love to be able to make this post and have it dated sometime in January to hide the fact that I clearly and negligently fell off the blogging wagon. I would happily lie to myself about when this entry was posted, the way I would "forget" to make entries in my diary in elementary school (really, I put it off because I had resolved to write in it but found it boring. I don't subscribe to the theory that writing must have an audience in order to be complete, but an audience sure does help) and would then write three or four entries in a sitting, back-dating each one.
Alas, the internet will create no such alibi for me, so I enter my plea: teething. Alexander has been teething. Just when our lives had reached a bit of equilibrium--he even had a tentative schedule, of all things!--that lower incisor started pressing into his gum and just like that our tenuous world fell apart. Amazing how such a tiny and temporary tooth wields so much power over two fully-grown, professional adults. (That is, we are professionals. Not that we went pro in the sport of adult, which sounds both fun and very racy.) In the parenting circles of hell, teething is nowhere near as far down as dating and driving but is certainly below middle-of-the-night feedings. At least in the middle of the night, your baby is happy to see you. When he is teething, he is not happy to see you or his favorite toy or really anything at all except the inside of his bright pink eyelids as he screams. I am not so novice a parent as to declare this first-tooth nightmare to be finished (one good day today provides no portent for tomorrow), but we are at least enjoying a respite.

At three months, Xander is on the early side of teething. Pretty much every parenting book or magazine I have read puts the initial tooth eruption at four to seven months. (Although, like all parenting books, they contain the "every child has his own timeline blah blah blah" caveat, which makes me wonder why anyone even bothers.) However, I am astoundingly unsurprised at Xander's haste to teeth. He has done almost everything early. At birth, his neck was as strong as most two-month-olds; he was holding it up and looking from side to side the day after he was born. He has tracked objects, reached, grabbed, and smiled well ahead of the curve. Now, I'm not claiming genius on his part (though of course I am very proud) because I have heard anecdotally from the mothers of other big babies that their children were also early-achievers, especially in the area of physical (usually gross motor) milestones. Why is this? I have no reliable information, except for a quasi-medical hunch that the hasty physical development of big babies is a biological necessity; if you are big, you have to be able to move yourself around. Small babies need less strength to move their own bodies and can even reliably count on others to move them with ease; big babies recognize that some extra strength and effort, on their part and their parents', is necessary.

Perhaps a doctor could shed more light on the matter. I'm not particularly worried about the reasons, because no matter the cause, Alexander's prediction-defying habits are something that must be dealt with. Hence, we come upon Big Baby Truism #1: The rules don't apply.

At six weeks, I took Alexander back to the lactation consultant because I was worried he wasn't getting enough to eat. Now, the lactation consultant could easily have laughed me out of the hospital: when she weighed Alexander before his feeding, he weighed in at over 15 pounds. I would imagine it is pretty difficult to look at a fifteen-pound six-week-old and have a straight-faced conversation about whether he is going hungry or getting enough. I recognize this. But in the claustrophobic new-baby days, I couldn't see beyond my baby and what I saw was a baby who was never satisfied. Luckily for me, the lactation consultant was kind, knowledgeable, and best of all, took me seriously. She was also the first to show me how thoroughly big babies break the rules. Before weighing Xander after his feeding, she told me that a baby his age takes in an average of three ounces at a feeding. Xander took in six. I knew this was on the small side for him, since I had personally seen him take in and keep down nine. A few weeks later, I asked the pediatrician (going to the doctor is something of a hobby for us) how much formula to give Alexander at a feeding. (He spent one week on a "cleanse" of hypoallergenic formula when his milk protein allergy was diagnosed. Since he is usually breastfed, I had no idea exactly how much he should eat on a regular basis.) The doctor said 2-4 ounces. Now, I'd given Xander enough bottles of pumped breastmilk to know he would be insulted to be offered just two ounces. So for the first few days I offered him four ounces. Invariably, I had to fix him a second four-ounce bottle in order to satiate him. In the five days Xander was on formula, he consumed four eight-ounce powder formula containers, drinking a total of 50 ounces a day. Any baby book will assure you that babies "top out" at forty a day, usually near six months. Ha.

I am not relating this to amaze or impress you with my baby's might. All of these examples are meant to be illustrative of the first big baby truism. The rules do not apply. Now, I know the rules don't apply to many babies for many reasons, the foremost of which is that no actually ever birthed the Standard Baby that books and magazines base their information on. Babies often fall into other exceptional groups--preemies, developmentally delayed, multiple allergy--that defy the bell curve. A main difference for these babies (as opposed to big babies) is that much ink has been spilled on trying to define and quantify what is "normal" for them. Has anyone spent a serious, concerted effort detailing what is different about big babies? If they have, they have hidden their research very, very effectively.
As a parent, you can never know what to expect, but you always want at least a modicum of reassurance that at least some things can be expected. If this weren't true, there wouldn't be two aisles at Barnes and Noble dedicated to books about when baby will potty train, sleep through the night, do the Thriller dance, etc. When you have a baby who regularly does not follow the rules, you enter uncharted territory.

Our most anxiety-inducing uncharted territory revolved around solid food. At about eleven weeks, Alexander's appetite became insatiable. He has always been a big eater (clearly), but at eleven weeks he simply would not stop eating. We spent four days on the couch, eating, taking a ten minute break, screaming as though days had passed since the last meal, and then eating again. By day five I was about to lose my mind. I could not piece together thirty minutes to shower, eat a meal, or simply not be under a baby and his Boppy. Any piece of literature on babies and solids echoes the booming words of the AAP: no solids before four months. Of course, this recommendation is based on normal-size babies with normal-size appetites. At not-quite three months, Xander was the size of an average six-month-old. Six-month-olds, incidentally, eat solid food. I worried and studied and worried some more about his digestive maturity (the other piece of the solids puzzle) but my need for sanity and a well-fed baby won out and Xander ate rice cereal. I'm sure this decision would give some doctors heart attacks. (Mine may be included; I'll have to 'fess up at his next checkup.) But I will respond, "How do you meet the caloric demands of a twenty-pound three-month-old when breast milk is clearly not enough?" The problem is, no one has the answer because three-month-olds are not, as a rule, twenty pounds.

Now for the rub. When I taught high school English, I told my students that their thesis had to have a "so what?" Big babies break the rules. So what? So parents have to be persistent. The rules may not apply to your baby. People (including doctors) will try to make the rules apply. This insistence puts you in a place that resembles insanity: if what you are told is true is not manifested as truth in your life, what do you do? Ostensible reality and actual reality are out of synch: your baby is supposed to eat two ounces but instead eats six. Is something wrong with you? With your baby? Be persistent. Big baby parents will quickly learn that the standard advice is not helpful. Every parent knows their baby better than anyone else in the world does, and this is even truer for big baby parents. You will learn what is normal for your baby. Insist that those who matter--particularly doctors--use your baby's normal as his reference point. For example, Alexander has consistently gained three pounds each month of his life. The "standard" weight gain is one to one and a half pounds. If next month Xander only gains one pound, that is considered normal. Is it normal for him? Not at all. Will I be concerned about this change in his growth? Absolutely. Is medical literature concerned about this change? Not particularly. Be persistent. The best question I have learned to ask is, "What is normal for his size?" Obviously this question doesn't matter for milestones such as smiling which have nothing to do with weight or height. But this question has been a game-changer for other baby care issues; I've stopped several doctors mid-standard-lecture. "Oh," they'll say. "I guess that's different."


Peering into the dimly shrouded future, I foresee a number of size-related dilemmas. Will he outgrow his car seat long before he is legally allowed to be out of it? What do we do when he is ten months old and tall enough to crawl out of his crib? Parenting magazines and books will not address those issues because he isn't supposed to be having such problems. In the grand scheme of life, these problems are relatively minor, especially when viewed in perspective with all of the tragedies and illnesses that could (but God willing, won't) befall my baby. Yet in parenting many small obstacles can transform into a seeming mountain, so a little reassurance and camaraderie is never out of place. Big baby parents, unite! We will define a "big normal" for our babies.