William 5 Months

Dear William,

Five months old little buds! You are becoming such a fun and interactive little guy. Time is funny thing. In my mind, you’re still just a little baby. It blows my mind that you’re going to be six months next month and will start sitting up and eating food soon.

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Eating Nursing continues to go well. You nurse between 6 and 7 times a day; every 3 hours or so. I have no idea how much you eat each time, but my guess is between 4-5 ounces. You typically do much better in quiet environments with little distractions and rarely spit up or burp. If you do burp, it is usually 20-30 minutes later. You have started to show lots of interest in our food. You’re constantly reaching for my food or plate. I have given you little crumbs here and there and you spit them out. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Sleep

This month has been long and hard on the sleep front. You were sleeping great and even through the night about 50% of the time and then daycare started and you haven’t slept through the night since. Part of this it is from our swaddling inconsistency. We stopped swaddling at night to help transition to the lack of swaddle at daycare, but that didn’t go well, so we tried to swaddle at night. But, you got used to no swaddle and would try to break out of it while sleeping; which would wake yourself up. It felt like a lose lose situation. Then, you got sick and were waking up several times throughout the night and haven’t reverted back to your typical sleeping patterns of just waking up once or not at all. Hard times bud, hard times. Typically you go to bed between 8 and 9, wake up around midnight and 4:30. Naps very greatly between home and daycare. At home, you usually take a morning, afternoon and evening nap for 1-2 hours. At daycare, you usually only take a morning nap and we’re luck if you sleep for 30 minutes.

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Development

You discovered your toes this month. At the beginning of the month you would occasionally bring them up to your hands and by the end of the month, you were grabbing and rolling with them. When we change your diaper, you instantly bring those toes up and smile in pride that you’ve grasped them.

You haven’t figured out rolling over either way. You’re getting closer to doing so from back to tummy, but your arm still gets in the way. As a result, you often spin your body in circles all over the place. You really dislike tummy time. We are working on spending more time on your tummy but you just don’t like it. You have rolled many many times from tummy to back, but I still think it is a coincidence with the help of gravity as you never roll when you’re really ticked off.

You’re a master of reaching toys and grabbing them–particularly with your playmat and on your car seat. I love driving and hearing the little vibration from the frog that you’ve just pulled.

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You love to be held and carried around the house. I’ve tried holding you on my hip a couple times, but you’re not quite big enough and do much better being held outwards. Daddy is worried about you becoming a ‘hold-me-baby’; I like to think you’re just making up from not being with us in the day. You particularly like to be held during the witching hour, right when we get home each day, which is always challenging as I’m trying to get organized, make dinner and then get you and Lexi to bed. You wear size 3 diapers and 6 month and 9 month clothes. You still have your little bald spot on the back of your round noggin–but hair is starting to grow. Also, you hair is getting lighter by the month. Crazy to think you were born as a dark-haired little nugget. You recognize faces and light up in delight whenever you see me. You also respond to your name. When I call your name, you look up, lock eyes and smile. You’ve also started to vocalize a bit more. You love to coo and ‘talk’ to Mommy, Lexi and Daddy.

Daycare Oh William, you are adored at daycare. Mrs Laura and Mrs Heather just love your huge open-mouthed smiles. You are so good-natured and are getting more and more vocal. You need to work on your napping there though. When you do actually nap, it is usually in the swing or a bouncer and rarely transfer to the crib very well. For as a hard of a time as I had the first couple of days, I’m really loving you being there. I absolutely love being able to come down and nurse you, get in my cuddles and then not have to deal with some of the more challenging aspects like the poopy diaper blowouts and the crying. I really feel I have the best of both worlds and feel so blessed to have you in such good hands at work. On the flip side, you have pretty much been sick since you started. You caught your first cold 4 days in and it really hasn’t gone away. At the end of this month, you also got sick; had a stuffy nose, watery eyes, cough/sneeze and a fever for 3 days. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js