5 Months Old

My sweet girl is five months old (!!!) today.

She celebrated by sleeping from 7:30 pm - 8:00 am and cooperating during church even though she didn't really get much of a morning nap.  I honestly cannot tell you where the past five months have gone.  They have absolutely flown!  When did my little girl get so big, and why is time moving so fast?!  It's late, so I'll get on to the stats.

Weight/Length: I'm sure you're not surprised to read that I have NO idea.  The problem is that I always write these blogs at night after Lilly goes to bed, and I can't very well go wake her up to weigh and measure her.  If I remember tomorrow (doubtful), I'll check her stats.  I will say that I think she's going to be pretty tall.  It may not look like it, but Dan and I have both noticed that she's thinning out some because she's gotten pretty long.  Also, people who we don't know that see her in public always think she's several months older than she is - my big, chunky girl!

Sleep:  I can't say enough how blessed we've been with this child and her sleeping habits.  On a typical night, Lilly sleeps somewhere between 11-12 hours - her longest night has been 13, but that's not an every night occurrence.  Even with the sleep training we did (read: cry it out) to transition her out of the swaddle, which I still need to blog about (sorry), she never cried when we put her to bed - just woke up during the middle of the night a few times.  It really only took two nights before she was sleeping through the night again.  For a few nights after that, she was waking up at 5:30, eating, and going right back to sleep until 8:00 or 8:30, and then it went back to normal.  This week, before she fully got the hang of rolling over, we had a few more of the 5:30-then-eat-and-right-back-to-sleep mornings, but we seem to be back to normal now.  I can't complain about 5:30, though - since she normally goes to bed around 7:30, that's a solid 10 hours, and I am very thankful that she sleeps through the night.  She is also taking two naps each day.  They vary in length depending on how long she slept the night before, but they are typically close to 2 hours each.  I try not to let her nap much longer than 2-2.5 hours at each nap during the day so that she'll still be tired at night, and I also try not to let naps go past 4:00 or 4:30 pm.  Homegirl is a WILD woman in her sleep - she moves and scoots all around and changes positions frequently.  Until recently, she was sleeping on her back and her side.  Now that she has good control over rolling both ways, for the past few days we've put her down on her back and she's immediately flipped over to her stomach to sleep.  Like mother, like daughter!  She also is still going strong sucking that thumb - again, like mother like daughter.  She mostly does this when she's getting tired or going to sleep, but sometimes she'll just suck her thumb for the fun of it as well.

Feeding: Lilly is still breast feeding like a champ, and eating about every 3 hours during the day (unless she's sleeping, in which case she'll go longer).  We also started her on solids this month, and she's really gotten the hang of eating from a spoon.  For now, she gets solids once each day after a feeding (Normally her last "full" feeding of the day, around 5:30 or so, in order to fill up that little tummy.  I nurse her again right before bed, around 7:00, but she never eats as much at that feeding - we're just topping her off to tide her over until morning!).  So far, she's had rice cereal, which she hated, and bananas and avocados, both of which she loved.  Up next she's going to try pears, sweet potatoes and butternut squash.  After I've introduced a few more solid foods and we have a variety, I might increase feedings to twice/day - a fruit in the morning and a veggie in the evening.  So far, I've made all of her food.

Firsts This Month:  Rolling over - she can go both ways now, should she choose to do so.  She's much better at rolling from her back to her stomach.  I know that she can roll from her stomach to her back - I've seen her do it when she thought no one was watching - but a lot of the times if she rolls onto her stomach and doesn't want to be there, she'll fuss until we help her turn back over.  First time eating solids.  First slumber party with grandparents (Mommy and Daddy were at a wedding).  I'm sure there are more that I'm not remembering, but those are the big ones.

Developments:  I feel like Lilly changes every day.  As mentioned above, she's rolling over both ways, eating solids, and sucking her thumb.  Her hand-eye coordination is improving, and she's starting to figure out what her hands do.  She used to bat at her toys, then graduated to grabbing them last month, but now it's like she realizes what she's doing - she will grab a toy and put it straight to her mouth to chew on it.  She's "standing up" a lot more, with our help of course.  She's learning to hold her weight up with her legs and is straightening them out and "standing" a lot more than she used to.  She can also sit up a lot better.  She's not quite to the point where she can do it on her own, but she's close - she doesn't require as much support as she used to.

Likes: Water of any kind.  She prefers it to be warm, but we learned from her first dip in the pool that she likes splashing enough that she'll tolerate cold water, too.  Baths, snuggles, sucking her thumb, the stroller/walks/baby k'tan, eating, avocados, bananas, music, dancing, laughing, rolling over, talking, tummy time, Layla, the fan, the bumbo seat, summer infant super seat (this one is MUCH better than the bumbo for babies with chubby legs like L, but the bumbo seat is a little higher in the back so there's slightly more support when they don't have good head control), Daddy, Layla, Sophie the giraffe, oball, her lovie, being outside and being naked.  Proof:

Dislikes: Being cold, having her clothes changed, being hungry, not getting your attention the minute she demands it, putting on sunscreen, being bored.

What I'm Thankful For: The blessing that is Lilly, and a husband who is not only very hands-on but who helps out with anything and everything, in regards to parenting and otherwise.

What I'm Looking Forward To: MY LITTLE SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED THIS WEEKEND!  We are SO excited to celebrate with her, to spend the weekend with all of our family and friends, for Josh to become an Eaker (wink!) and to FINALLY be related to Tracy!  ;-)

Next Pediatrician Appointment: July 25.  The pediatrician's office called last week to confirm her 6-month appointment for tomorrow, June 25.  Thanks to Jen keeping me on my toes about dates, I realized that she is only 5 months old, so we called to reschedule for next month.

How Mommy's Doing: Fabulously!  Having some trouble with body image.  I wasn't quite at my ideal weight pre-pregnancy, and now I've lost all of my pregnancy pounds but my weight is just distributed differently and I feel gross.  I don't want to do any crazy diets because I've done a lot of reading on how it affects milk supply, so really I just need to focus on eating better.  My problem is in my will power, and the fact that I'd rather eat chocolate than just about anything else any day of the week.  :-)


This post is long as usual, and it's time for this Mama to go to bed!  I'll leave you with WAY too many pictures of Lilly from the past few days - I can't ever narrow them down!


Having a very serious early morning conversation with Daddy:

The facial expressions!!!:

Yesterday, we set her kiddie pool up in the back yard and she and Daddy had a pool date.  They had the best time - she absolutely loved it!  Probably because she got to be naked AND outside, but whatever.

Yet again, the expressions!!!:  

Hope you all had a  great weekend!


Sarah