5 Months

Has it really been 5 months?  150 days? 3600 hours?

Isn't is incredible that you can spend 3600 hours straight with a person (nay, 3593) and never grow tired of them.

Wrapping up month 4. I would have to say this has been the month with the most ups and downs so far.  Not necessarily "downs," just a few more bumps. We have had a few sleep challenges and a few eating challenges, but we are learning and growing each day. Charlotte is teaching me so much about parenting, and about myself.

More notably, we have had some incredible highs. Charlotte is an absolute crack-up!  She is now laughing frequently, and becoming a real chatter-box. She is experimenting with new sounds  (like yelling) and becoming proficient at toy-to-mouth interactions.

No, she does not roll, or sit, or have teeth, or weigh more than 12 pounds.

Yes, she does fit in most of her 0-3 month clothes still, but out of principle I dress her in 3-6 month attire.

She is full of joy, and love, and happiness, and we couldn't be any more blessed.

And she loves the Bruins, so Jeremy has agreed to keep her.

I gave her a taste of avocado on Saturday and she was quite offended. Jeremy, not wanting any to go to waste, consumed it for her. We will try again next month. After hours and hours of research, I have settled on this method for introducing solids.  We will start at 6 months and see how it goes. If nothing else, it will make for great pictures!

She loves her exersaucer, her jungle gym, and her Jenny Jump-up.

She graduated from front-carry to back-carry and is pretty pleased with herself. I love it too! Since she is so light, on my back I can hardly tell I am even holding her.

She naps like a pro, and loathes bedtime. Seriously, how can she tell the difference? Once asleep, she snoozes peacefully for 11-12 hours.

One thing I know for sure: I am ready for some sunshine! And so is Abbey...

Big girl

GO BRUINS!!!

Bath time

Mmm...Sophie

Best friends

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (I know the flower is huge, but it's the only green one we have!)

Jumping our First Hurdle

I have been procrastinating this blog.

I wanted to be able to post, "Sleep problems are solved! Everything is back to normal!"

and

They are!

After almost 2 weeks of waking up at night, taking 45 minute naps, having a hard time going to bed, we have officially conquered Charlotte's sleep regression (4 days and counting!) The sleep-squelching bandit? The Swaddler! After much trial and error, lots of tears (from us both) and advice from every woman who has ever birthed a baby, or even been in the same room as a baby, or said the word baby, we figured out our little Miss did not want to be a baby burrito anymore. She was yelling "set me free!"  It just took 2 weeks for me to figure it out. The transition out of baby bondage was pretty smooth. The first night (still swaddled) we had a 45 minute sleep-cry-sleep-cry session before she finally succumbed to Mr. Sandman.  That night she woke up once but went right back to sleep. The next night the crying started even earlier.  She started her revolt as soon as the blanket was zipped up. Refused to nurse, didn't want her Paci, just wanted to yell, "let me out of here!" So, throwing caution to the wind, I unzipped her torture chamber and released her arms.  Asleep within 45 seconds.

Really? That was all you wanted? This couldn't have been so simple! Why didn't you just say so!

It wasn't. Well, it almost was. That night she woke up every 2 hours, but was back asleep in less than a minute.

I thought, let's give it one more try and if night #2 is as big of a train wreck as night #1, we will return to baby bondage and head back to the drawing board. So bed time rolls around. We follow our same bedtime routine, except no swaddler this time.  She nurses well, and falls asleep with in 5 minutes of being put down. Not holding my breath, I head to bed with the baby monitor in hand.  At 5 AM I jump out of bed and realize I haven't heard from the baby in 10 hours! Wanting to check on her, but willing to do anything to not wake her up, I begin to ponder my options.  Too cold to go peak through the window, and Abbey wasn't able to get me any useful info; I decide I just need to go make sure she was okay. As I'm reluctantly dawning my slippers, she makes a sweet little noise through the monitor. As if to tell me, "don't worry Mom, I'm as happy as can be. Thank you for letting me have my arms back!" She slept until 7.

Night 3 went even better: not a peep after I put her down until 7 the next morning.

Now, night 4 we hit a speed bump. On Thursday nights we have House Church. I attempted to put Charlotte down at her normal time, following her normal routine, and it was an epic failure. She would fall asleep, then wake herself back up within 2 minutes.  After missing out on the entire evening, we decided to head home a little early and put her to bed in her own crib.

Sleep mission #2: Learn how to sleep in a foreign environment. I didn't have any of her own blankets with me, so I'm hoping next week that will be secret weapon. I know, you're on the edge of your seat to hear the outcome of this crisis!

As far as the starvation saga goes, she seems to be pretty well satisfied. During the day she is content and happy as a clam. Bound and determined to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months, I have started giving her an extra 2 ounces of breast milk at bedtime. Seems to do the trick and saves me from needing to give her any food yet.

Now for my confession, I didn't take a single picture this week!  So for those of you who visit this blog simply to admire my beautiful baby, check back next week! We are having professional pictures taken on Monday by my incredibly talented cousin and I am jumping out of my skin excited!  I have absolutely no idea what to dress her in, but I have the weekend to decide.

Better get started!

Starving to Death

Apparently when a baby turns 4 months old, they realize that they have been starving to death for the past 4 months.  Every mom I have talked to has said the same thing. "He was sleeping through the night fine, then at 4 months started waking up hungry." Well, lo and behold, Charlotte got the memo. Last week, her appetite was insatiable. For the past 2 months, she was 100% consistent: Wake up at 7:30, eat, play for 1-1.5 hours, nap for 1.5-2 hours, then start all over.  She would go to bed at 7:15 and sleep for 12 hours.  Then one day, everything changed.  She started waking up 30 minutes into her nap, starving. She really couldn't make it any more clear: "Feed me!" And, out of the blue, at 4 in the morning, just had to eat! So after a few days of feeding her every 2 hours, drinking lots of water to try and keep up, it seems like she is getting back to normal.  Yesterday she went back to her 3 hour routine and slept from 7-6 (then went back to sleep until 8:20).  So I'm praying this was her way of increasing the volume of feeds and now she will be more satisfied.

Heaven knows, we need to feed this baby! She had her 4 month check-up and is indeed, a peanut!  At just over 12 pounds and 23 inches, she is in the 15th and 5th percentiles respectively.  Nothing to worry about, she is developing wonderfully!  She smiled and flirted with Dr. Shettell the entire appointment. (Insert shameless plug) We absolutely LOVE Dr. Shettell. He was a resident at Mercy the past few years where I worked quite a bit with him.  As luck would have it, he was opening his family practice the week before Charlotte's birth and was accepting new patients. He is so kind, easy to talk to, great with the baby, and extremely reasonable!  AND he's a big breastfeeding advocate, which not all physicians are. He encouraged me to not worry at all about her weight and continue exclusively breastfeeding for the next two months. "Breast is best!" Seriously, did he read my mind?  Did Jeremy pay him to tell me what I wanted to hear? So, if you're in the market for a new family physician, he comes with the Kelly Pagan stamp of approval! (As both a nurse and a mom)

 We are slowly getting our house back in order. Jeremy finished the baseboards in the Master bedroom, so no more family nursery.  It was glorious to sleep in our own room after nearly a month away. So now, only 3/4 of our possessions are in the family room instead of 100%. Progress.

Charlotte continues to light up our everyday. She has started laughing, but makes you work really hard to hear it.  She loves games that shake and scare her. Almost falling to the ground is possibly the funniest thing that has ever happened to her. Hopefully she will love roller coasters and skydiving too!

Those who follow this blog, know that Jeremy and I ventured out on our first date away from the babe last week.  We had a spectacular time.  Dinner a la Olive Garden thanks to some generous gift cards and Harry Potter at the $1 theater.  Charlotte was a good girl for Michelle and I didn't spend the whole night worrying about her.  She took 6 ounces from the bottle like she'd been doing it from day one! She a genius... We will for sure be making a habit of this!

Because it makes me so happy...

Helping mom get ready :)

Autnie Jay and Uncle Tay

Testing ability/willingness to take a bottle!

So proud of herself!

First time in 3-6 month clothing