Claire @ 4 Months

 

Wow, the months are just flying by! I suppose December always ends up going by quickly with all the festivities of the Christmas season. I can't believe we have a four month old! Claire is so, so sweet and fun. We just love her so much! She is to the point where she is pretty pleasant most of the time, unless she is tired or hungry. It is so fun! Her little personality is coming out more and more each week. If I had to sum her up at this point, I would say she is sweet but stubborn. If something makes her mad, she will let you know it.

Weight/Height: I will wait and fill this in after her 4 month well-check. She was 15 lbs. 6 oz. when we took her in to the dr. for her cold this week. She mostly still wears 3-6 month clothing but is also starting to fit into some of her 6-9 month stuff.

Eating: We're still trying to figure out her allergies (coming through my breast-milk), but for the most part she is doing better. I am still doing no dairy/soy/nuts/fish, but I have started being a little less strict about it (as in I sometimes don't read labels super carefully--just avoid the obvious forms of the allergens). I have been less careful than I used to be and haven't noticed any problems/reactions in Claire, so hopefully she's starting to slowly grow out of it. (The Dr. thought she probably would somewhere between 4-9 months old.) I am still pretty much exclusively pumping, which is really time consuming but works for us. I like to see exactly how much she is getting, and she likes it because the flow of milk is easier to manage and more consistent. It's also nice to be able to let Sam or my mom feed her occasionally, but I would say I am still the primary feeder, and she usually eats best if I'm the one giving her the bottle. The only time we really ever nurse anymore is if she needs to eat in the middle of the night, which is becoming rare. She usually eats 5-6 oz. 4-5 times a day (every 3-4 hours). It just depends. I would say a fairly typical day for her at barely 4 months is the following:

6:30/7:00 am- Wake up for the day (I pump); 6 oz. bottle
9:00 am- Morning Nap (I pump)
10:00/11:00am- Wake up from nap; 5-6 oz. bottle
1:00- Afternoon Nap (I pump)
2:00/3:00- Wake up from nap; 5-6 oz. bottle
4:30/5:00- Evening Cat-Nap (I pump)
5:00/5:30- Wake up from nap; 4-5 oz. bottle
7:30- Bath (I usually pump while Sam gives Claire a bath.)
8:00- 5-6 oz. bottle
8:30- Bedtime

Sleeping: I hesitate to speak too soon, but we're doing better in the sleep department! After all the craziness of Christmas, Claire's sleeping was a mess. She would pretty much only sleep with me holding her (even at night) and wouldn't sleep great, even then. She wasn't used to her crib and pretty much woke up every ten minutes if we tried to have her sleep there. It was awful. We decided we had, had enough. We never had any time to ourselves, and I felt like I was turning into the grouchiest, meanest person ever. After being recommended multiple sleep training books, we ended up reading How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Ferber. It's a pretty large book (400+ pages), but I read the whole thing before we started and then dog-eared important parts for Sam to read. To each their own, I know some people are really against sleep-training, and I understand their concerns. For us, this ended up working really well. It was one really bad, hard night followed by much better nights. I liked how Ferber's plan allowed us to let Claire learn how to go to sleep on her own, in her own bed while also allowing us to check on her and reassure her during this time. I won't go into tons of details, but here's briefly how it played out: The first night was horrible. She pretty much cried on and off all night except for maybe 3-4 hours. I was in tears for most of the night and wanted to give up and put her in bed with us multiple times, but we decided (with much encouragement from my husband--I really would have given up early on without him) to at least try to make it through one night and then see how she did the second night. I was really skeptical, but she did SO much better the second night. She woke up 3-4 times during the night but only cried briefly (less than five minutes each time) and then went back to sleep. Her sleeping has continued to improve since then. We have had a few bad nights, but she is usually sleeping about ten hours at night, which is amazing! She has also started to extend her naps (which used to only last 30 minutes or less, unless I held her). I have never appreciated a good night's rest so much in my whole life!

Firsts this Month:

• Sleeping through the night! Hip-hip hooray!
• Trying to sit up when she wants to see something (lifting her head up off the blanket)
• Grabbing her feet (and sometimes even sucking on her toes :)) and grabbing her head
• She had her first cold and took it like a champ. She had 24-48 hours where she was feeling pretty crumby, but, gratefully, she got over it pretty quickly.