Cara is FOUR Months

I am FOUR months old!

 

 

I like:  Fart noises (seriously, we get a giggle from her when I make them haha), when mommy reads to me (she LOVES colorful books), touching daddy's face when he feeds me, when mommy fake eats my fingers (because she won't touch my face just yet), the color yellow (she went nuts when we had her watching Minions haha), Sophie the teether giraffe (or really any teether toy) and holding the bottle during feedings.

Mommy and me reading each night

I'm holding the bottle now!

 

I dislike: being held while finishing a bottle (she will start it that way and then she wants to lie down for the last of the bottles), binkies (she is officially a finger sucker and HATES her binkie now), and gas bubbles.

 

I am now: We had her Dr. apt today and she weighed in at 13 lbs. 9 oz. and 24.4 inches long. Her height and weight were around the 40th percentile and her head was in the 80th percentile so basically we have short, skinny Megamind! Haha. Cara is wearing size 3 clothes and size 2 diapers. But we're getting close to upping the clothes to the 3-6 month size.

A Typical Day looks like: Mom leaves for work around 7:30 and dad starts his day at work real quick. Cara wakes up around 8 ish (might be 8:30 depending on how well she slept during the night) and daddy gets her dressed and ready for the day. He does tummy time, practice talking, little workouts (squats and stuff to get her muscles strong) and lets her play on her activity mat while he works. She eats about 3 - 5 to 6 oz. bottles during the work day and then (at the beginning of the month) we will give her a small one around 6 (about 2-3 oz. just to hold her over until bedtime). Around 7:30 PM we take her upstairs for a bath (either in the bathtub or a wipe one), grease up her dry spots (unfortunately she has a ton of them) and lotion up the rest, and then we feed her a 6 oz bottle and put her down after that. She's still getting up once or twice a nice (depending on what you still consider the night. Usually once around 2 AM and then 6 AM)

This last week we decided we should transition her into getting used to not having a bottle to go to bed so we made the 6 PM bottle a 5 or 6 ounce once and then we do 2 ounces at 7:30. Our plan is to transition the 6 PM bottle to 7 and eliminate the 7:30 bottle and we'll get her used to a bedtime routine without a bottle. The teething process has made it so that when she gets up she's up for a little bit, she doesn't cry, but she will whimper a little.

Holding my head up...about
To roll over from tummy to back

Naps with Dad are awesome!

 

This Month I: started reaching and grabbing for toys, my own fingers, and holding the bottle when I'm being fed. I am getting so so close to rolling over from back to tummy (she's got some pretty strong legs!), went back to rolling from tummy to back again, and started the fun teething process (luckily not cranky yet, but definitely teething. I'm oddly excited for this even though it has messed with her sleeping)

Watching fishies with Dad

Teething rings with Mom

Parent's Notes: I swear each month gets better and better. Watching this little girl learn and start doing new things is seriously my favorite part. I feel like I'm constantly watching her, playing with her, doing stuff with her and don't take time for myself, but honestly she's my favorite little human and I just don't mind that a majority of my time is dedicated to her (Plus we put her down for bed early enough I can take that time for myself if need be).

It's funny because I think I'm used to not sleeping as much and actually prefer sleeping 7 hours to 8 or 9 hours. Even on the hardest day when I think I'm dreading that I can't relax after work I get so excited to see her face and how she lights up when she sees me that it makes any harder, more exhausting times so much easier to push through. I'm realizing now how much of a life change having a baby is, nothing will ever be the same again in the most awesome way, I'd never go back to before we had her at this point. She's just so cute and perfect that it's the best change ever!

One of my favorite things that happened this month is usually when I get home I roll my tongue (either so it sounds like a Spanish R or between my lips so it looks like I'm spitting) and I start my voice low and go up higher, well around the 21st I got home and Cara started gurgling and making the high pitched sound to get me to laugh. When I stopped laughing she would make the noise again and if I left the room she'd do it. Almost like that was her association with me and it was the cutest, funniest thing ever! I was in tears the first time she did it. I, of course, tried to record it, but she doesn't always like performing for the camera.
 

Update on last month's goals:

• We've got a good nighttime routine figured out. Since I miss out on most of the day with her I'll get her ready for bed (a wipe bath, lotion, and some grease for her dry spots, then the owelet and pajamas go on and I give her kisses before handing her off to dad on his nights or starting to feed her on my nights). She throws fits randomly and will take her time going to bed some nights, but we've found if we give her more formula bottles during the day she'll sleep most of the night peacefully. Teething was the only thing to upset that rhythm. We also figured out how to get the cats to STOP waking her up early and so we don't have to lock them out (once we hear clawing on our mattresses it's a sign they'll wake her up so we stop them right then, but they've stopped doing it for the most part now).
• It was hard to split working and caring for Cara in the beginning, but now things are running much smoother and I'm happy to say I think we have a good balance of things.
• There's really no more preparation we could do for the 4 month mark. I mean we let her smell our food and we're gauging if she's showing interest in it (because I've read that's when it's best to introduce them to solids). We'll see how she responds this next month.
• I only skipped a couple workout days (not including Saturdays since that one is either do something physical or workout) and that was for date nights or something important came up. I got my other workouts in that week and things have been feeling much better.

Goals for next month:

• Introduce Cara to the start of the holiday season - only not really because I start this time with scary movies, but we'll get to go costume shopping soon - eeesh!!
• Maybe try ONE more hike this season with Cara. She seems to love being in nature. The only annoying party is getting sunscreen on all of us.
• Introduce her to oatmeal cereal (rather than rice, since I've heard that doesn't have any nutritional value) and hopefully that'll help the sleeping at night thing.
• Work on teething helpers since it's starting to bug her in her sleep. Hopefully we can find a good thing to use that'll also help with the sleeping.
• Stick with an activity for after dinner/before her bedtime so that we aren't just wasting time doing nothing. I think this might help with her fussy hour as well. I've got an idea for each day of the week that we're going to try this month and see how it works. Plus it's a good schedule that will grow and evolve with her and we can keep up as the years go by.
• Work on night time weaning and getting rid of the night time bottle and transitioning to a new bed routine.