Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Cooper's Fourth Month

Cooper was three months old (in his 4th month) from September 25 - October 24.  Here's what he was up to this month:

Weight: 16ish lbs
Diaper: Size 2, but he will be in 3's soon!
Clothes: Some 3-6 month, mostly all 6 months (and a few a bit bigger)

Eating: This boy is an EATER.  Last month, he was averaging about 29 oz a day.  This month, he's averaging about 32-35 oz a day.  He gets 5 feeding during the day, and then wakes up once (sometimes twice) in the night to eat again.  So he eats between 6-7 times a day.  All of his bottles aren't the same amount of ounces (it just depends on what time of the day it is), but most of his bottles during the day are 6 oz, his last bottle before bed is 7 oz, and his bottles during the night are 5 oz (or less).

Now I just have to figure out how to get him to eat more in the day so that he doesn't want any at night!



Sleeping:  While we are still getting up in the night to eat, I will say this, Cooper is an AWESOME sleeper.  He has been doing almost perfectly with his naps this entire month.  Sure, he has his naps where he wakes up early, but they are very far and few between.  He has been sleeping wonderfully during the day at Grammy's, and I'm so happy about that!

At night, while he's still waking up, he is also sleeping great.  He goes to bed between 7:45 - 8:00, wakes up to eat, goes right back down, and sleeps until 7:00.  While I'm not crazy happy about him still waking up in the night, it could be a LOT worse.  

I've done (what seems like) hours and hours of research on his night time sleeping and what I should do.  I've looked more into babywise, other blogs, and just plain googling.  Honestly, I have done EVERYTHING except for two things:
-put cereal in his bottle
-let him cry it out

So, honestly, there's not much I can do.  I *can't* let him CIO because his room is so close to LL's and she is a super light sleeper.  It wouldn't fix anything if he was crying and she was awake.  That's not answering any of the problems and it's creating new ones.  I'm also not comfortable with CIO because he is still legit EATING in the night.  It would be one thing if he were just snacking, but he's not.  He has a doctor's appointment in two weeks, so I'll see what she says about it.



Schedule:  He's still on the his 3.5 hour schedule, but he is SO ready for the 4 hour schedule.  I know babywise says to conquer the night problems before you move the schedule up, but I KNOW that he is ready.  I really can't hold him back during the day just because he's waking up at night.  And if it makes things worse, I can always go back.  It's getting to the point where not moving him up is really starting to effect him in the evenings.  We'll probably be changing him this week.  Here's his current schedule:

7:00 - up and eat
8:15 - 8:30 - down for nap
10:30 - eat
11:45 - 12:00 - down for nap
2:00 - eat
3:00 - 3:15 - down for nap
4:15 - wakes up (he wakes up early on his own because he knows this is what time I pick him up every day!)
5:00 - 5:15 - eat
6:45 - cat nap (*maybe*  he's not really doing this but about 50% of the time.  One of the reasons that I know he's ready for the 4 hour schedule)
7:30 - bath time
7:45 - bottle and straight to bed
(He usually gets up once, maybe twice, a night.  The time is not ever consistent anymore - it's all over the place).

Hair:  I'm sad to say that I think he has even LESS this month than he did last month.  It's just super thin.  It's like his head is growing, but his amount of hair is staying the same - haha.  He still has his little bald spot, but it's not getting any bigger (praise the Lord!).

Smiling/Happy/Laughing:  I said it last month, but it's still true now.  This little boy is a HAPPY baby!  He smiles, giggles, coo's, and is just so pleasant.  He rarely cries, and is just mostly content to just be with us and play.  I love it!



Sucking on Hands/Fingers:  I can't figure out if it's teething, or if he's just going to be a finger sucker, but this boy almost CONSTANTLY has his hands in his mouth.  He even tries to get his hands in there when he's in him woombie!  I think it's for sure a little bit of teething, but I don't know.  



Teething:  (like I said above), I think he's starting the teething process.  His hands are almost constantly in his mouth.  If it's not his hands, he's putting a toy in there.  Sometimes it *looks* like we can see little tooth bubbles, but then sometimes they don't look like they're there.  So I don't really know??  He's also starting to drool a ton.  Add that to his spitting up, and his clothes are constantly SOAKED.  We've had to start putting a bib on him a lot.

Head Control:  He has really got GREAT control over his head, so we've started using the bumbo more AND we've started using his jumper!  He still isn't quite sure what to do with his jumper yet, but he's trying!  He will actually "jump" a little, and he likes to look at the toys.  I'm pretty sure that he will soon love it as much as LL did.







First time in his jumper!




Spitting Up:  He seems to go through phases.  He'll have a few days where he barely spits up anything, and then he'll have days where it seems like he is spitting up as much as he is eating!  He's still growing like crazy, so I guess he's getting what he needs.

Swaddling:  He is still in his woombie for naps and night time.  I think he's getting close to being ready to stop, though.  He keeps trying to roll over in his crib (scary!), and he fights to get his hands to his mouth.  This week we started leaving one arm out of him woombie to see if he's ready to start the weaning process.  Even if he's not quite ready yet, I hope he'll be done with it completely by 5 months.

Bruise:  I say bruise, but we don't actually know what it is.  When he was born, he had quite a few bruises from coming down the birth canal so quickly.  There was a marking on his arm (near his wrist) that we assumed was a bruise, also.  At his two month appointment, it was still there.  I've been keeping an eye out on it, and it's definitely getting lighter.  Hopefully it'll be gone by six months like his doctor wants.  I've also noticed that the warmer he is, the lighter he is.  If his arm is cold, it is more purple in color.  ???


Emotional Baby:  One thing that we're learning about with Cooper that we did NOT deal with with LL is that he is more emotional.  If a noise is too loud, he'll make a "pouty" face and start crying.  If his diaper is too wet, he'll let you know about it.  He gets more "startled" than she did, and will cry then, too.  When Laura and Gino were down for Dad's birthday, we were trying to get a pic of them with all 3 kids.  I was jumping on Laura to try and make LL and Ben laugh, and it scared Cooper and he started crying.  It's just funny because we're not used to it at all - LL never really cared about any of those things.

Scooting/Rolling:  Coop is still rolling to both sides from his tummy to his back, but he's not really getting the "back to tummy" thing, but I think I know why: instead of pulling his feet to his belly and bending and rolling, he digs his heels into the floor and arches his back!  This means that he is scooting around a TON, but it's not really helping him roll - haha.  I'm sure he'll figure it out soon enough!

Lorelai:  These two are still CRAZY in love with each other.  LL still does amazing with him and he absolutely adores her.  If she is in the room, he watches her the entire time.  He smiles, grins, and giggles at her more than anything else.  She's starting to not really like that he's actually *playing* with his toys, and is always telling him to "share" (which in her mind means that she gets to play with any of his toys, regardless of if he is currently playing with one).  We've really started working with her on Cooper's Toys vs. LL's Toys, and what "sharing" really means.








Here are some more random pics from this month:

Thumbs up.  ;)














Yes, he was flicking me off.  ;)




Showing his school spirit early!!



Daddy's getting him started as soon as possible!



He's getting to be a pro at tummy time!






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