365: Days 99-126

This only took me 3 days to do. Guess that's what I get for getting a month behind! Wowza! 

 

Also? Take not of the winter clothes then summer clothes, then winter clothes, etc. Stupid Kansas weather.

April 9-Rolling around on the floor

April 10-Trying out the highchair. Propped foot and all

 

 

April 11- I love this face

 

 

April 12-Sleeping the whole 2.5 hours to Galva. At 6pm. Yeah, she was up a lot that night

 

 

April 13- Hanging with papa

 

 

April 14- Elsie taking care of Collins on our way back to KC

 

 

April 15- Playing while mommy gets ready

 

 

April 16- Little piggies

 

 

 April 17- Hanging out with my friends

 

 

April 18- Grossing mommy out by letting Elsie lick my hand

 

 

April 19- Daddy is so fun

 

 

 

April 20-Pretty girl

 

 

April 21- Watching mama clean her car

 

 

April 22- "She looks like a game of twister." Aunt Amy

 

 

April 23- Looking good in 1 of my swim suits. Darn flash is too bright

 

 

 

 April 24- Chubber

 

April 25- Getting way to big

 

April 26- Growing out of the bouncy seat

 

April 27- Tongue playing

 

April 28- Ready for church

 

 

April 29-Loving these chubby legs in shorts

 

April 30- Someones super happy for warm weather

 

 

May 1- Stroller always puts her to sleep

 

 

May 2- I wish pictures had sound. She was just staring at me and growling

 

 

 May 3- "Ugh mom, I think this has is too big."

 

 

May 4-Family pic before we went out for our anniversary

 

 

 May 5- Pro at sitting up

 

 

May 6- I see many many dolls in our future 

 

 

A few firsts

Well I'm slacking on posting these things so I'm just going to throw them all into one post.

 

First time rolling over (stomach to back). I just so happened so have my phone ready and could get pics. I don't have pictures of the first time she did back to stomach. I actually didn't even witness it. I run upstairs for 10 sec. and she did it for Derek. Go figure.

First time sitting up

 

First food (besides cereal)-squash

 

 

 

2nd food- sweet potatoes. And yes, I might just post a picture of every new food she tries. It's my blog and I'll do what I want.

 

 

 

3rd food-pears. I started making her food and it was pretty fun! I didn't do the squash but I plan on making everything from now on. She has loved everything so far!

 

 

First trip to the zoo. We went to the Wichita zoo with Derek's mom, sister and 2 of our nieces. Collins slept through most of it but it was perfect weather and we all had a good time.

 

 

 

 

Many more firsts to come!

 

5 Month Favorites

I wanted to do this every month but she didn't really have any favorites till now. As long as she was swaddled and had my boobs, she was good. Now we are getting to the fun stage where she actually plays with toys. So here are some of our favorite things..

 

 

 

Bright Stars Gym- This has been a favorite toy since she was a couple weeks old. I blamed this toy for her not rolling over because she would just lay and stare at the light up toy. Now she really grabs the toys, puts them in her mouth and rolls all around this thing. That light up toy is a life saver in the car too. Especially when it's dark out.

 

Baby Einstein Jumperoo- We have to place a pillow under her because she can't touch the ground but she still loves playing with the toys. I have a feeling she is going to love it even more when she can jump in it.

 

Britax B-Agile stroller- She loves sitting like a big girl in her stroller. She likes being able to look around and she usually falls asleep in it.

 

Taggies mirror- Girlfriend loves looking at herself in mirrors. Not only can she stare at herself in this but she likes grabbing at the toys on it. What really excites her is if she can see mommy or daddy in the mirror as well.

 

Teether ring- I think we have entered the dreaded teething stage. She likes this toy because she can easily hang on to it and the beads feel good on her gums.

 

Sophie the giraffe- Another toy that feels good on her gums. She knaws the crap out of the giraffe's legs and ears. The dogs are still dying to get ahold of this toy but I think their slowly learning that it's not for them. Although it highly resembles a dog toy. No idea why they had to make a baby toy sound like a dog toy.

 Check back next month for more favorites!!

5 Months

 

Time, please slow down! My baby is doing big girl things and it's making me very sad. Rolling  both ways, starting to sit up on her own, eating solids. She'll be moving out before we know it.

 

She loves playing in her jumperoo and exersaucer. She can't quite touch the floor when she's in the jumperoo so we put the boppy pillow under her so she can put her feet on that. She is going to love that thing when she learns how to jump in it. She wants to sit up ssooo bad. You lay her down and she lifts her head like she wants up. She can sit a really long time with the help of her boppy and can sit for about 15 sec. all on her own. She's like her mama and is very ticklish. I just love tickling her and listening to her laugh. She went to the zoo for the first time and although she slept through most of it, she was content and happy in her stroller when she was awake.

 

She loves touching the dogs and letting them lick her (gross, I know), looking at herself in the mirror, sitting like a big girl in her stroller, being outside, giving open mouth kisses, touching people's faces, pulling hair and chewing on things.

 

We started sleep training her at the end of March and she is doing great. If we can get her to skip her evening nap, she'll normally sleep through the night. But when she sleeps through the night, she is up for the day about 6:30am (as opposed to 7-8 when she wakes once) and then it's hard to not do that 3rd nap. She usually has a bottle for her last feeding and she'll drink 4-5oz around 7:30pm and then goes to bed. Our biggest issue right now is her waking 3+ times a night for her binky. I've tried putting them all around her but she doesn't even try looking for one when she wakes up. She just cries and rubs her eyes. It's a shame taping them to their face is frowned upon. Luckily she falls right back to sleep after we give it to her. I'd rather not have to walk to her room every hour though. Hopefully soon she'll learn to keep the thing in her mouth or she'll realize it's right beside her and put it back in her mouth herself. Which she can do during the day.

 

We started rice cereal right before she turned 4 months and she liked it for a couple days and then was over it. I got the ok from our doctor at her 4 month appt to start solids so she's been eating squash for the past week. We've done it once a day, almost every day. She'll eat about half a container of it before she starts gagging because she's full. I'm on a mission this weekend for a food processor so I can start making her baby food. Can't wait to try more fruits and veggies!

 

 

She is mostly wearing 3-6 month clothes but has a couple 0-3 month things she can fit into. Mostly dresses that she wears as shirts now. No 5 month visit so her weight and height are guesses. I tried weighing myself without her and then holding her but our scale isn't very accurate so her weight might be totally wrong.

 

She is starting to be unsure of strangers. As long as she can see Derek or I she will smile at anybody and everybody but if she can't see us, she has started to get upset. Twice now someone else has been holding her and she is puckered her bottom lip and started crying when she couldn't see mommy or daddy. As soon as she sees us she is fine and doesn't care if someone else is holding her. I assumed this was going to happen since she is home with me everyday, all day. She can start going to the gym daycare at 6 months so I think that will be good for her to get used to other people. I love that she's a mommy's girl but I want her to be ok with other people too.

 

 We still have a week left but I think we might have made it a whole month without going to the doctor. Between well visits and the whole dairy allergy thing, we have been at least once a month since she's been born. I'm pretty certain she has allergies but I don't think they'll treat her for it so I haven't called or taken her in. Her eyes get red and watery and she gets a runny nose and dry cough. According to things I have googled, those are all allergy signs. And since me and Derek both have allergies, it wouldn't surprise me. I can't pinpoint what she's allergic to. She doesn't have these symptoms everyday so I don't think it's the dogs. I hope not cause I don't want to choose between Collins and the dogs. Kidding!!

 

We are so in love with this little girl. Her smile is contagious and her cheeks are scrumptious. I may be a little biased but I think she's the best baby in the world. Now if I could just figure out how to freeze time and keep her just like this forever, we'd be set. Happy 5 months Collins Cate!

 

Sleep training

This wasn't something I expected to do already but about 2 weeks ago, we started the CIO (cry it out ) method with Collins. It had gotten to the point where she would squirm and not even want us to rock her (this was so sad and hard on me) and if she did let us rock her to sleep, she would wake up 20 min. after we laid her down. I would too if I fell asleep in my mommy or daddy's arms and woke up alone in a dark room. We had started letting her sleep on her belly because that was the only way we could get her to sleep. When she would wake up, she would immediately flip to her back and then get pissed because she was obviously still tired and also wanted back on her stomach but couldn't roll back to tummy yet. Obviously when we decided to let her sleep on her belly, we took the swaddle away. That transition wasn't so bad. We moved to a sleep sack instead and she liked laying on her belly with her arms stretched out. So between fighting going to sleep and then waking up all.night.long, we knew we had to do something.  

 

On a random Wednesday when she was fighting her morning nap, I decided to try and let her put herself to sleep.   It took about an hour of me going in every 5 min. and giving her the binky, rolling her over and telling her she was ok and I loved her.  Technically, your supposed to increase the amount of time before going in to soothe them but the 5 min. about killed me so I wasn't going over that. She finally crashed and slept 45 min. For her 2nd nap of the day, I only had to go in there 1 time before she fell asleep. That first night went good too. I think we only had to go in there 1 time before she fell asleep and after her early morning feed, I don't think she fought it at all. This was amazing since usually it took me an hour to get her back to sleep after that feeding.

 

The next day we had her 4 month well visit so I asked her pediatrician if it was ok that we let her CIO or if she was too young. She said this was actually the perfect age to start it because they are learning to self soothe at this age and as long as long as we weren't letting her cry for hours, she thought it was a great idea. She did say that they're at the highest risk for SIDS from 4-6 months so if we were going to teach her to self soothe, we should try and get her to do it on her back. Well that scared the heck out of me so we started laying her on her back when we would put her down. Her sound machine has a projector so we turned that on and she would watch that for awhile before getting fussy. We gave in a few times and flipped her to her tummy but now, she falls asleep on her back and stays like that usually all night. Sometimes she will roll to her side and sleep but  rarely do we have to go in there and flip her to her tummy. Which the stinker can roll from her back to her stomach but when she fusses to be rolled over, she isn't even all the way awake so I think she's just too out of it to roll herself.

 

I'm so glad we started this sleep training early. Now we just put her in her sleep sack , turn her sound machine and projector on and walk away. She usually talks or fusses and plays with her binky but she almost always goes to sleep without us having to go in there.  I'm considering putting binkies all around her bed because that's always the reason we have to go in there, if we do. She can grab it and put it in her mouth but if she can't find it, she gets mad. She doesn't normally suck on it, she just likes to hold it or suck on it for a couple minutes before spitting it out.  We went out of town last weekend so I was nervous how she would do in a new place and in her pack in play. She woke up a couple times the first night but I just had to move her back to the middle of the pack in play and give her the binky and she would go back to sleep. We have black out curtains in her room so I was nervous she wouldn't nap good in a bright room but she amazed us and went right to sleep for her naps and did much better the second night. phew! We can still travel :)

I'm so glad this has been such a smooth transition. It was something I dreaded since she was a newborn and I remember trying to sleep train the twins around 6 months and it was brutal. They had gotten in the habit of sleeping in their swing or being rocked to sleep and I knew I didn't want to get into that habit. Don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with rocking a baby to sleep and would have done it a little longer with Collins but when nap/bed time becomes a huge battle, that's where I draw the line. Now she knows where she falls asleep is exactly where she will wake up. And occasionally she will wake up, look around and remember where she is and then fall back asleep. 

 

I few things that I think have really helped with this transition:

 

  sound machine/projector

http://www.buybuybaby.com/product.asp?SKU=14643125&

 

I turn the projector off once she falls asleep but I leave the sound on all night.

 

 

 

Video monitor

 

http://www.buybuybaby.com/product.asp?SKU=130631&

 

If she starts crying, I can see if she needs me or if she is ok. I also like being able to see her and know for sure if she is asleep or just being quiet without having to go into the room.

 

 

 

Breathable Bumpers

http://www.target.com/p/breathable-mesh-crib-liner-by-breathablebaby-boy-chevron/-/A-14413597#prodSlot=medium_1_12&term=breathable+bumpers

 

I was sad to take her cute bumper out of the crib but I didn't want her to suffocate in them. We tried not having any bumpers but she would roll and bang her head on the crib or get an arm stuck so we got this breathable bumper. It's padded enough that she won't bump her head but it's safe if she puts her face up against it. Target has really cute designs so you can still have a cute bumper. I plan on putting her big one back in when she's older.

 

 

 

 

Sleep Sack

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12602424

 

We use this instead of using blankets.

 

I am by know means an expert on sleep training but I wanted to share what worked for us.  I already miss rocking my baby but she sleeps so much better now and we're all happy that nap and bedtimes aren't a huge ordeal anymore. Occasionally she will fall asleep when she nurses so I use this time to get my snuggles in. If she falls asleep eating, she wakes up when I burp her or lay her in her crib so she sees that she's in her crib and she can go back to sleep. Now I just pray teething doesn't mess this all up.