the desires of my heart: January 2013

Whoa, we're at 5 months - almost a half a year old! January was by FAR the fastest month...it seriously flew by. Here's what we've been up to in her fourth month of life:

Feeding - Little Hippo (Hippies, Punkin, Chunkin, Punkies, Punky Doodle, Pumpkin Butternut Squash Face, Aven Hopies, Hopie the Hippo, Hippy Doodle Nug, Nugget - she has several nicknames) is still a great eater! We're doing 5 liquid feedings a day and haven't introduced solids on a consistent basis yet. I did buy a box of Earth's Best rice cereal and on a whim one evening tried giving some to her mixed with breastmilk. She didn't seem to love or hate it, was just so-so about the whole experience. We plan to wait until 6 months to do regular solid feedings and I'm toying with the idea of doing Baby Led Weaning, or a combo of purees and BLW - we'll see. She does sit at her high chair while we eat dinner and plays with her toys and smiles at us. I love family meal time!

This is new...

Not so bad...

But I think I like my milk better!

Nursing is still going well, though it has to be done in her nursery with no other distractions (ie Dad, Keely) around or she won't eat well. She is so interested in the world around her! Still going between the bottle and nursing juts fine - I'm lucky!

She's still in size 2 diapers and mainly 6 month clothing now - some of the 3-6 month still fits.

Look at that belly! Love her rolls! And her sparse hair...being my daughter, I'm shocked she doesn't have more!

Awake time - She's doing around 1.5 hours of awake time, then starts to hit her wall. This month she started sitting up less supported - she can tripod sit using her hands as support if we let go. She's only faceplanted a FEW times. ;) She also still LOVES standing and will enthusiasticly jump up and down (while supported) on her chubby little legs. We put her in both her doorway jumper and her exersaucer thing and she really enjoys both. She doesn't hate tummy time anymore and can do mini pushups while on her tummy - her head and neck are so strong! The big news this month is that she finally rolled over! She went back to tummy for the first time close to 5 months - I missed it and was at work, but sweet Stephanie took pictures. I did get to see her do it a few days later, and she rolls every so often but prefers to be on her back. She also found her toes the end of January and can't keep them out of her hands and mouth! She started grabbing for things she wants now and has a great grip - including on hair, earrings, anything. And everything she grabs goes instantly into her mouth! We are bathing her 1-2 times a week, usually one weeknight or a weekend morning - it's not really part of our bedtime routine yet. We used the kitchen sink a few times this month and she liked that! She's also getting more aware of Keely and loves to watch her wherever she goes - they are already best buddies.

Oh, hi Keely!

Getting better with tummy time!

Found my toes and haven't let go of them since...

This is a tame version of her aggressive eating face - she does this anytime she puts something in her mouth and we find it hilarious!

Tummy time with Keely

Wide eyed in the exersaucer

Hanging out in the jumperoo

Sleeping - This month started out fantastic, then got horrible. After me being home for 2 weeks over Christmas she settled into her new routine of going to bed a bit earlier and dropping a feeding and a nap. She was sleeping through the night pretty consistently and taking 3 solid naps plus one catnap a day from weeks 17-21, then it all changed when we went up North to visit Tyge's parents in late January.

We brought her pack 'n play (she's too big for the rock 'n play) and knew it'd be hard for her to fall asleep somewhere new for the first night or so. She was up every few hours every night there, then we discovered she was sick upon returning home. For two weeks after we got home she was up. every. single. hour. at night - it was brutal. We had just gotten used to her sleeping through again since my return to work, so this was a major downturn for everyone! She'd wake up and couldn't breathe so would cry, and we'd go get and rock and comfort her and she'd go back down after a few minutes. It was so frustrating because by the time I was falling back asleep, she was up again! Tyge and I took turns getting her as she was obviously sick so there was nothing we could do but comfort her when she cried. I did feed her a few times when she'd cry out middle of the night, but mostly she just wanted to be sat upright to breathe and rocked back to sleep...

She's still a good napper (before our trip) but needs to be at home in her crib to get a good solid nap in - gone are the days where I can bring her anywhere and she'll nap!

And even though she starting rolling over this month, we are swaddling for both night and naptime. I tried a one arm out swaddle and it did NOT go well! She is normally a great self soother but it took her almost 45 minutes to settle herself (not crying, just fussing and waving her little arm around!) unswaddled, which ruined her whole nap. She hasn't attempted rolling over swaddled yet and we had a video monitor so can see if she did. Her head strength is much better these days so she would be able to lift it up and breathe in the few seconds it would take us to go flip her over, should that happen. Our ped said we'd need to look at dropping the swaddle around 6 months, so I'm not too concerned just yet.

Love that little smirk!

Temperament - She is getting more and more generous with her gorgeous smiles! Still such a happy little girl the first half of the month, then she got another bad cold that lasted 2 weeks and totally threw her off. It was so sad to see her so sick and stuffy and miserable, and there was really little we could do. Humidifier, snot sucking, and lots of cuddles seemed to be the only things that helped! Thankfully she's starting to feel much better and back to her sweet little self. Sick or not though, it is so fun to see her little personality begin to develop. She makes the funniest faces and loves to giggle. She is ticklish, that's for sure! She is so content to just sit in your lap and make faces, read a book, or just sit. All of these toys we/others bought her aren't getting much use yet haha!

Very beginning of the month - Tyge calls her it waltermelon smile :)

This is one of her many faces - she sucks her little bottom lip in and makes this "mmmm" sound while looking up, then breaks into a HUGE grin. So cute!

Tyge made up captions for this series - clockwise starting from top left: 1.) Hey Mom, guess what I just did?! 2.) Oh no - that wasn't a toot! 3.) Emergency! Change me! 4.) All better!

Outings/Firsts/Other - We're still keeping a low key schedule, especially after the holidays. We did take a trip up North the end of January and while she was a great traveller, she didn't sleep well (at night) while there. I'm hoping this was due to the sickness and that we can take her overnight places without ruining sleep habits each time! Other than that, we didn't do much this month!

As for me: The beginning of the month was good but the end was not....lack of sleep just makes everything worse, I tell ya! Tyge and I started to get cranky at each other, I was sleep deprived and not doing as well at work, it's a spiral. Thankfully she's feeling better now and we're into a new month - it can only go up from here! Body wise, since being back at work and over the holidays I put on some of the baby weight I had pretty easily and initially lost, so that was frustrating. At this point though, I'm too tired to do anything about it. :) I admit, when I learned that she had rolled over for the first time and I missed it, I was upset and teared up a bit. Thankfully I got to see her do it soon thereafter and I realize that being a working mom does mean possibly missing out on a few firsts, but in the grand scheme of her life not seeing the FIRST time she rolled over isn't that big of a deal. I just feel so blessed that our nanny is so loving and caring enough to document it for me! Speaking of, things are going amazing with her and we love having her in our home - Keely and Aven do too! It makes my workday go so much smoother knowing she is so well cared for in the comfort of our own home. Plus, I love being able to head straight home from work and not stop to pick her up anywhere!

Schedule - Like I said, we do the eat/play/sleep thing and have been settled into the routine below since 4 months. She was doing great with it until we went up North and it's took 2+ weeks to get her back on track once we were home, as she was sick.