5 months!

We have reached 5 months! Every month seems to go by faster and faster! Where is my little baby going? In her place is a cute, bubbly little girl. She has developed SO MUCH in the past month. We still haven't started on cereal - we're strictly just formula right now. She averages between 25 and 30 oz in a day. We've decided that if she starts to continuously eat 30 oz in a day before her 6 month appointment, then we'll start her on cereal before then. If she stays like she is, we'll just wait until then. I desperately want to start her on solids, but I'm holding out! :) Here is how she's changed in the past month:

1- She blows kisses. Well, I call them kisses. I actually did an earlier post on this and you can watch a video of her doing it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9bZQwOoQY8 I don't know how long she'll continue to do this (as with all things she learns), but I'm really enjoying this one. It is so sweet and she just cracks me up every time she starts doing it!

2- She rolls over! Last month I was so frustrated that she wasn't rolling over and that she was "behind". Well, the day after she turned 4 months she rolled from her back to her stomach. A week later she went from her stomach to her back. This is a cute video of her rolling over from her tummy to her back that we took really early one morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXCzNwyuDSM

3- Chewing. This one is funny and I haven't quite figured it all out yet. She looks exactly like she's chewing food. What I don't know is if she's chewing to mimic us (we tend to notice it when we're eating) or if she's doing it as a part of teething. Either way it is funny to watch her gumming away at nothing.

4 -Pushing up. She was doing this before, but now she is SO much better at it! The other day, she was pushed up really high and was actually able to chew on her fingers and stay up all at the same time!

5- Laughing. She is starting to do this all the time now. She is also laughing more and more often just because things are funny, not just because she is being tickled. I love her little giggle!

6 - Riding in her carrier. We've put her in her carrier before and she's enjoyed it, but just recently she's come to really love riding in it. We've never actually used it out in public yet, but we're going to Atlanta this weekend to visit my sister, so maybe we'll try in out in the mall there. We can fold the top of the front down a little and her little arms just stick out over the top and she is a happy camper! Here's another cute little video of us walking around the yard with LL in her carrier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXHPsLAj-C0

7- Sitting up. We've been putting her in her bumbo for probably 6 weeks now and I think it has really paid off! She's just started sitting on her own. She has to lean forward and put her hands on the ground, but she's still sitting by herself! She looks so grown up and I can't wait for her to get better and better at it!

8 - Eating more. At the middle of June, she was averaging between 22 - 25 oz a day. Now we're averaging between 25-30 oz a day. It might not seem like that much, but to a person as small as she is, that is a lot! It makes me happy to know that she's eating more and my worry level about that has decreased a good bit since her oz level has gone up.

9 - Jumping. Before, when we would put her in her jumperoo, she would just either relax and sit, or stand, but never actually jump. She has just started learning that she can really jump and I think when she does it she surprises herself. We also used to have to put a pillow under her because her feet wouldn't touch the floor, but now she doesn't need her pillow! She is getting so tall!

10 - Control of holding things. She really is starting to be able to coordinate what she wants to do with the things in her hands. She can hold them, look at them, bring them to her mouth, twist them, etc. She's not just blindly grasping at things anymore - she really knows what she is doing with her hands!

11 - Finding her feet. She has realized that she has a brand new toy - her feet! She'll hold them, pull them, laugh at them. It is so cute! I knew we would get to this point and I'm glad that we have because I love seeing her laying on the floor or in her car seat holding her feet!

12 - Sleeping through the night. We're still working on this one. She is about 50/50 on sleeping through the night and I don't really know what to do about it. She is very inconsistent with what time she wakes up (if she does), so I don't think it is habitual waking. And she takes in a full feed when she DOES wake up, so I know that her hunger is valid. "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems" says that if they are truly hungry then I need to feed her more during the day. I try! I try so hard! If this little girl is not hungry, she will NOT eat! I get as many oz in her during the day as I can and we've even started doing a "dream feed" with her at night. This means that between 10 - 11pm (long after she's gone to bed), we get her out of her crib and feed her. The catch is that she never wakes up for this feeding. We leave her swaddled and everything, feed her, and just put her right back in. This is just another trick to get some more oz in her to get her to sleep through the night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm really at a loss for what else to do. I've followed Baby Wise, I've followed Baby Whisperer and it's just not happening EVERY time. I guess the good part is, when she DOES wake up in the middle of the night, she eats and goes right back to sleep. We don't have to rock her or do anything. So it's usually about 10 - 15 minutes. 20 tops. We feed her, change her diaper, and put her back in her crib. So I guess it could be worse.

13 - Swaddling. I've been battling this for awhile. When we came home from the hospital, we continued to swaddle her. We found that she slept 100x better when she was swaddled vs. when she wasn't. Plus, it is something that can help reduce the risk of SIDS. Well, it's worked for us well, but now I'm tired of it. And I think she needs to learn how to sleep without it. She's 5 months old! She's really getting too big for all the swaddleme's that we have and I don't want to buy a bigger size because I don't want her to be in them much longer! We've tried before to leave just one arm out and it has failed miserably. Not now! She's been sleeping with one arm out for almost a week now and she's doing great! I'm going to try and put the other arm out soon. Sometimes she gets that other arm out all by herself and sleep fine for hours. Sometimes she gets it out and it wakes her up. I'm just glad that we're on the road towards being done with the swaddling!

14 - Blue eyes. They're still blue! I'm holding out that they'll stay that way! I know that, technically, it can take up to a year to change, but most babies will change by 6 months. And her's are VERY blue. They are not getting darker at all and they are SO beautiful! I know if they turn I will think that brown is also beautiful, but I really want them to stay! Who would have thought that Matt and I would have had a blue eyed baby?! Not us! Between his hazel and my brown, we thought for sure that all of our kids would have brown (maybe hazel), but definitely not blue! Fingers crossed that they'll stay that way!

15 - Bows! She doesn't have a lot of hair, but she FINALLY has just enough to hold in a very small bow! I am SOOO excited about this and I think that she looks mega cute with a bow without the whole ribbon going around her whole head.

16 - Making an Indian Noise. We tried for about a week to get LL to do this, and now she finally does! It is so cute to me and what is really funny is that when you do this with her, she licks your hand. She's so weird. :) Of course, here's another video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C9OsR1yeec