Newborns, Max's ears

Sam and Max's full forty-week due date was this June 4th, so they are no longer preemies, we officially have two newborn babies. After these first few weeks of long, sleepless nights we've finally reached the starting line. Sam and Max had their weights measured on Friday, and, as usual, they've been growing nicely. Max is up to 7.4 pounds, more than double his original birth weight of 3.3 pounds. Sam now weighs 7.9 pounds, up from 4.1 pounds at birth. Their current weights are healthy, and would put them around the 50th percentile for size if they had actually been born on their original due date.

Max resting after a good feed

Sam enjoying some freedom and getting an outfit change

In an earlier post I mentioned that Max's ears were a bit "elfish", or folded some of the time. It became the norm that whenever he was laying on his side, the ear on that side would get folded forward, especially his left ear. Here's a particularly clear picture of this.

Max's squished ear

It looks painful, but Max never seemed to mind. Whenever I set him down I would try to place him such that his ear would lay flat underneath his head, but invariably he'd wiggle and squirm and his ear would end up folded again. There is a chance his ears would grow normally without intervention, but there is also a chance that they would not. In light of this, we opted to get Max something called an EarWell. It's basically a plastic mold that helps shape his ear, and allows it to grow normally without being folded over all the time.

Max's left ear in an "EarWell"

Shaping ears is cosmetic, so we had to pay for this ourselves, since insurance doesn't cover optional cosmetic procedures. The pricing was such that having both ears done cost only slightly more than just one, so we chose this for both ears. Max's right ear was less troubled than his left, but I can't imagine any downside to having them both shaped identically.

The entire process will take six weeks, so this will be Max's new look for the next while. I hope it works, and his ears are more comfortable after this.