4 months

Happy 4 month old!

Apparently this month is all about sleep.  Or lack there of!  90% of my notes are about sleep issues.  I even wrote about it on facebook: "The 4 month sleep regression is upon us! We've gone from mostly sleeping thru the night to 2-3 wake ups where only nursing works. Ugh. I hate this stage. Not sure when I'll do some sleep training. 4.5 months is a little young for my liking but really if I wait 2 weeks til he's 5 months what difference does it make?"

Sleep:
We had it good.  I would nurse him on the couch after the girls were in bed.  He'd fall asleep and snooze on me a little bit until I carried him up to bed.  Many nights he would sleep through the night! Then getting him to sleep got harder.  And then he was waking up 2-4 times a night. Day time sleep went south too.  And with 3 to 4 naps a day, that a lot of opportunities for frustration! It was harder to get him to sleep and to stay asleep, even with the swing.

So I started with naps.  I tried to move towards falling asleep on his own in the crib.  I'd put him down drowsy and let him cry up to 5-10 minutes.  Then I'd soothe him and try again.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  And sometimes I didn't even try.  I just let him nap on me, or in the car, or in the swing.

On Tues 4/7 I wrote: "got him to do 1 and half naps in crib.  During the morning nap he went down in his crib, woke up after 45 min-hour, nursed, and then slept more on me. Afternoon nap was on Boppy after nursing, late afternoon nap in crib."

4/28: He had a big morning nap after 30 min of trying to get him to sleep; slept 10:30-12, took a decent afternoon nap, then slept in evening on the way Kohls. 

4/29- Afternoon nap - put him down drowsy, fussed for 6-7 mins then drifted off on his own. Slept 2 hours.  Success!

Nap practice helped with nighttime sleep.  Eventually.  But it was a long month.  It seems so minor in hindsight but when the whole day, bedtime, and the whole night is up in the air, it's just a lot of continuous anxiety about what's the right thing to do.

On 4/21, "Odd night.  He fell asleep nursing on the couch 8:15-8:45. In bed just before 9. Woke up as soon as I headed up to put him in bed.  Played in bed for an hour with a few whines.  Jeff went up once or twice but didn't do much. It was quiet again by 10 so I guess he just drifted off on his own? 

4/25: Down easy but cried 4 times before midnight. Twice I went in and soothed him, twice he went back to sleep on his own.

4/28: Fell asleep nursing, woke up on way up but fell asleep after fussing for 5 mins.  

Other sleep stuff:
Becomes a tummy sleeper
Starts moving bedtime earlier on his own

Motor:

Flips onto his tummy quickly when put down on his back

Starting to pull his legs and arms under him

Happenings:
Baptism - April 18th
Easter - April 5th  Easter- fussy, didn't nap well, wouldn't sleep once put down

Big smiles!

Easter cutie

First Easter!

4 months

Woohoo, 4 months!

Not interested in sitting up!

Tummy sleeping!

Giggles with Daddy

At least someone enjoys watching
Food Network with me

Handsome boy

Tummy time with Claire

Great Grampa in town for Daniel's baptism

Sweet boy in the Baker/Schulze family baptism gown

Being baptized is hard work!

Roly poly 4 month old

Swinging at Uncle JJ's

Got my toes!

Tub time with Claire

Daniel - 3 months

Daniel turned 3 months on February 30th!  Oh, wait.  Only 28 days in February.  Well, we'll just say he was 3 months old for the month of March.

Sleep:

It's all about the sleep this month.  Or challenges with sleeping.  Although it's not really the sleep itself that's the issue.  It's getting him to fall asleep that's making me a little crazy.

Nighttime sleep:
He actually slept through the night on March 1st and 2nd!  And for some reason, I feel more tired than when he doesn't.  Then in the middle of the month the issues really ramped up.  He would fall asleep nursing,.  I would put him in his crib but he would wake up 10 mins later.  A couple nights we did this multiple times: nurse, sleep 10, wake up, nurse sleep 10, wake up.  I was ready to tear my hair out.  

Or one night where he fell asleep with a little patting and jiggling while I was reading Claire a bedtime story. He snoozed for a bit and then woke up to nurse. He fell asleep after first side but then woke up again.  So I figured out he needed to nurse both sides even if he fell asleep in between.  I thought I had solved the problem!  But I hadn't.  Even once I thought I had him all settled in bed he'd wake up again half an hour later and fuss.  After a few nights of nothing really working, I just left him in his bed to work it out. He'd let out a random fuss every 10 minutes or so for 30 minutes and then would finally go out.  This happened multiple nights.

It doesn't sound so bad typing it out.  But it was frustrating.  I never knew if he would be in bed by 8:00 or 10:00.  I was never quite sure when he was really ready to go to bed.  And then he was asleep for good but then hearing him cry was stressful because I couldn't really turn off mommy mode and relax.  I was getting no downtime.  Which is not good!

But once he was down for the night he did pretty well.  He'd usually wake up once to eat, either around the 2 o'clock mark or between 4 and 5.  And then he'd sleep until 8 or 9.

Naps:

He's been napping in the swing a lot late morning and mid afternoon. Sometimes he naps on the way to school and then again in the evening.  So 4 naps or so.  He likes to turn his head and snuggle his face into the side of the swing or car seat.  In the swing or bouncer I'll tuck a blanket in the side to give him something extra to snuggle against.  I feel like I should try to stop using swing to put him to sleep.  But it so easy to pop him in and let him drift off with less crying.  And with two others to take care of, I often choose the easy way out.  But on 3/20 he feel asleep without too much effort in my arms around 3:25.  I put him down in his crib and he slept until 4:05!  Naps continued to happen wherever and whenever was easiest but at least the crib was an option!

Development:
This month it's about the rolling! On 3/13 he was experimenting with rolling both ways. Back to front he made it 3/4 of the way.  He slowly managed front to back! Then on 3/24 we have successful back to front rolling! It was very slow and took multiple tries.  But the next day it became hard to keep him on his back without him rolling.  He wasn't yet rolling bed though.  He stayed on his back where we put him.

Trying to roll but only made it this far!

Fun stuff:
He's ticklish!  His belly, under his chin, a little spot on his collarbone... all good places to tickle and make him giggle!  He also loves when you move his arm to do pat a cake.  It makes him laugh out loud!  Most any vigorous arm movements produce laughs but the singing adds an extra level.

Sizing:

3-6/6 mo clothes

Squeezing in sz 1 diapers the first part of the month, moved up to size 2 by the end.

Napping with Mommy

More sleeping on Mommy's bed!
(We escape here for some quiet in the afternoons)

Sleeping again!

Awake!  Happy St Patrick's Day!

Back asleep!  Taking a little snooze
while big sisters play at the mall

Happy boys!
From Daddy's birthday day trip to Chattanooga

So cute!

A little tummy time!

Sibling snuggles

What do you mean I'm supposed to stay ON the mat?

19 months

This gorgeous girl is 19 months!

Feb 26 - Mar 25, 2015

The language explosion continues!  She's adding words to her vocabulary like crazy!

Her vocabulary includes: 

Wahh-beeee! (water)

Mine! (I'm not even sure where she learned this one.  But she says it plenty!)

Close

Open

Up (Upoo)

Stuck (leg stuck in crib, toy stuck in bag strap)

Carrot

Strawberry  (Bawbay)

Bean

Pepper

Fork

Milk (mee)

Bread

Banana (nana)

Apple (appoo)

TV (teebee)

Drop (Dropee)

Go go (Tells paaps "go go" to pull her legs and drag her on the bed)

Blanket (bink/pink/bank)

Daniel (dan young, din yull, din yum, dan yo)

Bunny (may may)

Thank you (dah coo)

Kiss - Mwa

Aw gone

Sock (sounds the sames as stuck)

Candy/cake/cookie (cuh cay)

Pacifier (by/fwy)
dog (doh)
Woof (woah woah)
Neigh (day) 

And many more!

Other language stuff:
So not only is she rapidly adding words, now she's even doing two words phrases!! Such as more water (moah wahbee) or mama blanket.  She also is doing some generalization with her words.  All 4 legged animals get either a dog or horse sound.  Both an apple and an orange are apples.  All berries and melon are strawberry.

Motor/indepedence: She can put her own shoes and socks on with pretty good success.  Not always on the right feet of course.  We've also been letting her sit at the table for playing and snacks.  She was climbing up on them so often we finally had to give in.  And her body awareness developed enough to keep her reasonably safe from falling off. We still have her in the high chair for meals though.  Trying to keep her contained a little longer so she focuses on eating.  

She seems more interested in coloring and drawing than Claire was at this age.  I don't know if that is because her fine motor skills are better or if she is exposed to it more because of Claire, or because she just wants to do what Claire is doing.  My family also taught her "bones" which is like a fist bump.  So she can do that when prompted.

Other stuff:
Ellie is totally in monkey see, monkey do mode.  And of course Claire is usually the other monkey she's copying!  She wants to do what Claire is doing so we have both of them sitting on the couch, covered with blankets watching TV.  Or both sitting at the table coloring.  She saw Jeff push on his puffed cheek to make a pffft noise and immediately did the same.

She has a huge appetite.  She finishes her own breakfast and then will climb up in Claire's chair and finish off her leftovers.

And tantrums.  Oh the tantrums.  I can handle your run of the mill, throw myself on the floor because I didn't get my way kind of tantrums.  But the "nothing will please me" tantrums do me in.  The ones where they scream for something so you try to hand it to them but then they scream that they don't want it so you take it back but then they scream for it again?  Yeah, I hate those.  And we are getting more of those, especially in the car.

Watch our grass, here I come!

Airplane!

Hi mama!

Eating Claire's breakfast

Neighborhood egg hunt ahead of Easter

I still fit in this right?

Playing on the big kid playground

Drawing

Playing at the mall

Water play at the children's museum in Chattanooga

Video of Ellie at breakfast saying all done