Five Months Old - Spit Up Queen

Today Grace is a 5-month-old baby. The past month has not been an easy one for me, but she is still the sweetest little thing ever. She is truly a happy baby, smiling all the time at both people she knows and at strangers. Also, she's laughing now! I am not a very "silly" person, but I will make any silly face/sound I can think of just so I can hear her sweet little giggle!

Skills:
-Grace can easily roll from back to front now. She has somehow forgotten the skill of rolling from tummy to back though, so she is frequently finding herself stuck on her belly.

-She can reach and grasp toys with great consistency now.

- She knows her name and will turn to face you when she hears it.

- She can grab her feet. She is just now getting to see her feet because for the first time in her life, she's wearing something other than footie zip ups.

Feeding:
She breast feeds at night, and takes the bottle all day at daycare and with Grandma.  She's receiving mostly breast milk with sporadic bottles of formula when I'm unable to pump enough. She has no trouble with the bottle now either, and even will reach for it when she sees it.
(Bottle refusal was really stressful for awhile, especially when she went an entire day refusing to drink even one single ounce from the bottle. But for everyone who told me she'd be just fine, they were right. She re-learned the bottle, eventually).

She is spitting up a lot lately, and bigger quantities than ever before. She embarrassed Brian by spitting up 4 times during swimming lessons last week (large amounts too)!
She spits up equally from breast milk or from formula, and it seems to be large amounts. It doesn't seem to cause her any stress, and she's still gaining weight fine, so I'm not too concerned about it right now.

Loves:
- she still loves kicking her legs! She kicks them all the time, especially when she's happy, but also when she's mad as well.

-Grace loves the bath! She's always enjoyed sitting calmly while we wash her, but now she really shows us how much she likes it by kicking, splashing, and getting water everywhere.

- she loves toys and objects! She'll reach for, look at, and suck on any toys placed in her vicinity.

- she loves "talking"! She coos and squeals and grunts, and we just love her sweet little voice.

- swimming lessons! It's hard to tell how much she is gaining from these lessons. But as far as I can tell, she's getting used to being in water, shes getting a little bit of activity to tire her out, she's having bonding time with her daddy, and I think she's having fun! Last week they put they babies fully underwater for the first time! She was surprised, but didn't cry or fuss at all and actually smiled at Brian when he pulled her up. She loves kicking and splashing in the pool, and even squealed a few happy noises at swim lessons this week.

Sleep:
Ahh, the ever elusive "sleep". This past month has been extremely challenging for me in terms of her sleep. We had many nights with wake ups every 1.5 hours, which made for exhausting days at work for me. The "4-month sleep regression" was a very real thing for us, and was very poorly timed to coincide with my return to work.

This past week, she's stretched her sleep out to 3 and even 4 hours at a time. I'm hoping this is an upward trend and that it continues.

I've started doing no nap after 4pm and also no naps longer than 2 hours. In addition, we are still doing a bath/bedtime routine and are now putting her down as early as 7pm.


I've found that "looking forward to the weekend" takes on a whole new meaning as a working mom. All week I look forward to just being with her.

Right now as I type this, she is sitting sweetly in my arms nursing for her dinner. And in this moment, there is truly nothing more in this world I could possibly ever want.

A New Working Mom

I don't mind sleep-deprivation for
this sweet little face

I have been back at work for one full month. And I want to write this post so that I remember what it feels like right now, as a working mom of a 4.5 month old baby.

It's really, really hard.

My sweet little 4.5 month old baby doesn't sleep well at night. On our best nights, she'll wake up every 3 hours. On our worst nights, she wakes up every hour. And she is in no rush to fall back asleep when she's up, either. 

I don't just run to her crib as soon as I hear a peep. I listen to her fussing and wait to hear if she'll settle herself. More often, she doesn't settle herself. Her cries escalate until it's very clear she is not falling back to sleep on her own.

It is purely exhausting. Sometimes she'll stay awake from 4-6 am, and then fall sound asleep at 6, right when it's time for me to get up and get ready for work.

Working a full day after such broken sleep is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I feel as if I'm struggling to keep up. My mind is a fog of breastfeeding, pumping, teething, sleep training, worries. I find it so hard to engage in regular chit chat with anyone.  All I can think about is my sweet baby who I've left for the day and how I just want to get back to her. It's so hard to adjust back to regular working world, when my own little world has just been altered so drastically.

I'm not really in the staff lounge much anymore anyway. Pumping takes the first 20 minutes of my lunch break, so I get about 10 minutes to eat and 5 minutes to make copies or prep for the afternoon. This pumping time is so important to me though, because it's the only time I get to pump, and it's not really enough. I'm not able to pump enough breast milk each day for Grace to drink at daycare the following day, so she's now receiving a supplement of 1-2 bottles of formula every day.  I'm not anti-formula, but it isn't as good as breast milk, and it's not what I had hoped for, so I do feel a little let down about it.

Spring has finally arrived in Michigan!

I pour every ounce of energy I have into teaching, yet I still feel that I'm not keeping up at work. And when I get into my car at the end of the day, I have nothing left to give and just collapse into the seat, and struggle to stay awake on my drive home.

I used to feel a secret sense of pride at being the first car in the parking lot every day at school, and sometimes the last one there in the afternoon. Just the janitor, me, and sometimes my unmarried, childless, male coworker. I'd stay late whenever I needed to, no big deal and didn't affect anyone but me.

Now, the teachers' parking lot is full when I arrive, and it's still full when I leave to head home after school. I feel guilt for leaving work shortly after the bell rings. But I feel guilt for even being at work away from my baby for 9 hours as it is. I feel as if I'm not a good enough teacher or a good enough mother all at the same time.

The elusive, sought-after: sleep

Thankfully, some of the kindest comments I've received are from the moms of my students. They are, after all, moms themselves. They are so supportive and have been there and done that before.

I don't know how to make it better though. I don't know when she'll start sleeping more. All I know is that I'm doing the best I can, and all I can do is take each day as it comes.

Leaving Baby for a Weekend

Last weekend I left our 4 month old baby for 48 hours while I spent the weekend in Chicago.

I had tons of anxiety about it before I left. I mean, who leaves their brand new baby for a whole weekend? Well, I'm here to say that it can be done, and can be done with no problems at all in fact.

My girlfriend Jenna is getting married this summer, and we had planned her bachelorette party weekend while I was still pregnant. As I was yet to give birth, I had no idea how attached I was about to become to this little baby, and how hard it would be to leave her. So we planned for this girls weekend and I assumed leaving the baby would be relatively painless.

I didn't realize that once she was born, I would feel tied to her in a way I've never known before. And that after returning to work, my moments with her became the most valuable moments possible and that I couldn't bear to leave her if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

In addition, we found out Brian would have to work the entire weekend, adding another layer of complication.

It turns out though, that leaving her turned out to be okay, it just required a lot of moving parts.

In order for me to leave, my mother-in-law, Sue, kindly agreed to come spend the weekend with Grace. In order for Sue to come spend the weekend with Grace, my sister-in-law kindly agreed to work at her parents' furniture store to cover for Sue. In order for my sister-in-law to work at her parents' store, she had to have her nieces babysit for her children.

Basically, I have a whole list of people to thank, who rearranged their lives to help us out for this weekend.  But mostly, the thanks goes to Brian's mom, who moved in and just took wonderful care of Grace all weekend long (including late night wake ups).

And the weekend away was a blast. It was so nice to be with my college girlfriends again, some of which are also new moms themselves. It was nice to take long, leisurely showers, and to get more than 3 hours of sleep  in a row at night.

I had worried for months about leaving Grace for that weekend. And I worried while I was gone. But the weekend went as well as I could have hoped. Grace was in the best hands with Brian's mom, who kept me up to date with pictures throughout the weekend.

So, I'm here to tell you, that it is possible to leave your new baby for a whole weekend with no problems at all. When I returned, she was full of smiles for me, and it was as if I had never left.

I'm thankful that my first overnight trip away from Grace went so smoothly and easily. But as easy as that was, I still don't plan to do another one for a very long time!

4 Months is a Sweet Age

It's funny how time works. Sometimes  life feels as if it's moving slowly, and I feel anxious to move on to the next phase. I wanted to be engaged for so long before I actually was.  Then when I was engaged, I just was ready for the wedding to happen!  I wanted to be a mom for so long before I actually was.

Now that I have Grace, and I've reached a place with her where I can identify her needs and fulfill them (usually), time is just moving way too quickly for comfort. 

4 months is truly a sweet sweet age.  She is growing and changing every single day. She sucks her thumb now, like a big girl. Not her whole hand or random assortment of fingers like an infant, that she was just doing one week ago.  Also, she laughs now! It takes a little work to get a laugh out of her, but it's so precious when she does!

And, most importantly, she actually reaches for the bottle instead of screaming bloody murder at its sight. Has she already learned that the bottle is a good thing? In just a few short weeks?

This week, Grace had her 4 month doctor appointment. Our pediatrician said Grace has great head and neck strength, and is right on track with her noises/smiles/etc.  I was a little worried about Grace's rolling milestones.  She doesn't roll over very much. It's completely random and rare.  But, when the doctor placed her on her stomach to test her tummy time ability, Grace stuck her head straight up, and then promptly did a full roll over.  I was shocked!  She doesn't do that at home!

"Well, no concerns in the rolling area!" the doctor said.  Well, unless you acknowledge that was like the 6th time she has rolled over, ever...

And now, in the few days since the appointment, she's rolled several more times, both back to tummy and tummy to back! Crazy how she can pick things up so quickly.

Four months is also the youngest that babies can be for swim lessons, so of course I enrolled Grace right away.  She was the cutest little swimmer I had ever seen.  Brian was able to leave work early to be there. They practiced kicking, arm motions, and sitting on the side of the pool. Grace didn't really smile when she was in the pool, but she didn't cry either, so that was good!  She is on her way to being quite the little swimmer.  We have three more lessons in April, so I'm curious to see if she'll seem more comfortable in the water each time.


Four months old is a hard age because it seems like she never sleeps for more than 2 hours at a time.  But four months old is also an amazing age, because she is growing and changing and reaching milestones all the time.  If it meant never sleeping more than 2 hours at a time again, but her staying this age forever, I would probably take it, it's just that sweet.

Cousin Love

Today, we had a visit from some of Grace's favorite people: her Aunt Colleen, Uncle Roger, and cousins Dylan (age 8) and Max (age 3).  Oh my goodness, she just loves them.

Dylan and Max are such sweet cousins to her.  They love to hold her, play with her, talk to her, make her laugh. Max brought her all her toys to play with and kept asking if she wanted more toys.  Dylan held her close and read to her, which just melted my heart.

Also, they brought some new baby gear for Grace!  A jumperoo and an exersaucer.  She'll be ready for both within a few months, so we're very excited to have these here.

Colleen has done an amazing job raising her boys to be polite, caring, and kind. Brian and I always talk about what she has done and what we can do to make sure Grace ends up just like them.  We're so lucky to have these older cousins to set a good example for her.

Four Months Old

Grace turned 4 months old last week, and her first few days as a four-month-old were off to a rough start.

She had just barely recovered from her first ever cold, but went back to daycare Monday and came home with a new full blown cold Monday afternoon.

The beginning of the week, she was just miserable, with a new cold, some tummy troubles, and teething symptoms. She was just sniffling away with some random coughs and wails in there. Luckily, the second half of the week she actually perked up. Wednesday evening on, she has been the happiest, sweetest little baby (albeit still stuffed up).

Here's an update with Grace otherwise at 4 months:

Likes:
- She likes all of the toys! Toys that she used to never notice or pay much attention to before, she's teaching and grabbing for everything. And everything goes in her mouth!
- loves to do itsy Bitsy spider with my mom
- likes her play mat
- likes to "stand" while being heavily supported
- likes touching everything. She reaches out to touch our faces, and will grab anything at all that is placed near her.

Dislikes:
- She definitely dislikes it when no one is paying attention to her.
- dislikes the "Nose Frida" contraption that we use to remove snot from her nose. It helps her breathe! But she screams bloody murder when we use it on her.
- dislikes being put down to bed.  She's figured out that the sleep suit, swaddle, and the sleep sack each mean bed time, and she definitely gets mad when she's put into one of those.

Sizes:
3-6 month clothes
Size 2 diapers (pretty much ready for size 3 when our current 2s run out)

Noises:

She makes lots of "ahh"s, some "ooh"s.", and "ohh"s. Each happy noise she makes is so cute and precious to me. This week for the first time, she made noises to me while we were in the car on the way home from daycare. It was so sweet, I acted as if she were telling me all about her day.

Features:
Her eye color is still a blue-ish grey!  Her eyes are beautiful, and I know they will be no matter what color they end up as.
Her hair is a light brown, with a bald spot on the back of her head. I'm hoping hair starts to grow there soon, poor thing!

Sleep:
I had heard all about this dreaded "4 month sleep regression". But, I thought maybe it would be a great equalizer. All those people with great sleepers would experience a regression to night wakings again, and over here we would just continue on with our every three hour wake ups. After all, she can't regress even worse from waking up every three hours, right?
Well, I was wrong. We are now on a 1.5 hour sleep block all night long. Sleep for 1.5 hours, wake for a half hour and then she sleeps for another 1.5.  It is absolutely exhausting.  Each time I put her down at night (in her crib now, in a separate room), I find myself wishing "okay, it's 10:00, please please don't wake up again until after midnight." Or "okay, it's 3:00, can we please just sleep from now until 6am?" (The answer is always no).

Thankfully, we have her 4 month checkup Monday. So I can find out from her dr how many middle of the night feedings she actually needs, or what is going on with this.

Besides these long nights, she is just the happiest little girl though, so I really don't have too much room to complain. She's happy to play on her play mat, entertaining herself for up to a half hour now. She smiles all the time and even giggles sometimes.
Today is my first day of spring break, and I am just going to cherish every single moment I have cuddling and holding her while I'm off, even these never ending middle of the night moments. I know they won't last forever, and I know she won't fit so perfectly in my arms forever. So I'm just going to hold on tightly while I still can.