April 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-8 Months

I feel like this was an extraordinary long month. So much has changed this month!

Weight: 16 lbs and 15 oz. His height is 26 inches. He is really starting to chunk up. I love baby rolls.

Health: He had his first real bout of sickness this month. He barfed any solid food he ate for that entire week. We still aren’t sure what caused it because he is back to eating the same things now, so we don’t think it was allergies. He also had a heart check up this past week to monitor the issues he had from being born a month early. The holes in his heart that we had been monitoring have all closed! So we are in the clear there! He does still have some extra blood vessels to his lungs which are common in pre-mature babies because of the lungs not being fully developed at birth. Isn’t it amazing what our bodies will do? The heart specialist said that these are nothing to be concerned about and eventually they will go away. We will be discussing with our primary doctor whether to get another check up in a year or so.

Diet: He has had such a big month food wise. I was still breastfeeding at the start of the month for his first feeding of the day, but right after Easter George decided he was done. He refused to latch and just screamed and pushed me away. So instead of trying to push it, we have moved to formula completely. He is eating three solid food “meals” a day now. His typical feeding schedule is as follows: 4 oz bottle when he wakes up around 5:30am, oatmeal for second breakfast with another 4 oz bottle, lunch is a side dish of fruits or veggies with another 4 oz bottle, 4 oz bottle around 4, dinner at 6:30 is a side dish of fruits or veggies and some of our dinner, at 7:30 he has a 4oz bottle before I put him to bed, then we top the night off with a 6 oz bottle at 10pm. I would like to get where we didn’t have to do as many bottles, but unfortunately we cannot give him more than 4 oz at a time. If it is anything more than that he spits it all back up. He still spits up with the 4 oz but it is not as much. So we end up actually going through even more formula but the same amount keeping him full if we tried do more than 4 oz.The only one he keeps down is the last bottle of the day which doesn’t really make sense but it is what it is. He is doing a mix of purees and baby led weaning with solid food. Sometimes he refuses to eat solid food and will only take a puree and other times it is the opposite. He loves to feed himself with the spoon with the puree but with real food he gets impatient and wants us to feed it to him. This month, he tried blueberries, oranges, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, corn, french toast, watermelon, cucumbers, plums, pasta in the form of tuna and hamburger helper, and graham crackers. He does not like whole blueberries, but loves them in puree form. He also was not found of the broccoli and cauliflower. He is obsessed with graham crackers and plums!

Clothes: He is in 6 month clothes comfortably. He can still fit into a lot of his 3-6 month clothes, and we have been using some 6-9 month items as well. He is in a size 2 diaper and a size 2 shoe.

Sleeping: We have had sleep patterns all over the place. We will have days where he will sleep through the night no problem in his crib. Then other nights he wakes up every two hours and then ends up co-sleeping in our bed because it is the only way to console him. Sometimes though just putting the pacy back in his mouth and giving him his elephant will be enough to lure him back to sleep. We have been doing better at getting him to nap once in the morning and once in the afternoon. He goes to bed at 7:30pm and then we wake him up at 10 for another bottle to help him get through the night. Both of these times it is pretty easy to get him to sleep by a little rocking and my lovely rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Tom is successful getting him to sleep by just rocking him for seriously a minute or two and then putting him in the crib wide awake. I have to have him half-asleep before I put him down, so my rocking takes a little longer. He does sleep with a pacy and a stuffed elephant now. If you pull the elephants tail it sings a lullaby so that is one of our go-to distractions to get out of the room while he is still awake.

Likes: Bath time! He just started splashing this last week. I felt bad because normally Tom has been in charge of bath time, and he has been waiting for months for George to play in the water. Literally the first day Tom had his evening shift and I had to take over bath duty, George started splashing like a mad man. He gets really mad when I pull him out too. He likes to bang and shake things. He loves our cell phones. He likes to see things move and swipes things around which can get a bit dangerous when you go looking for an app later. He is obsessed with peekaboo, and you get the greatest laughs out of this. He gets laughing so hard he starts hiccuping because he isn’t breathing. He also loves when you do anything with his feet. He is really fascinated by things that turn so wheels or knobs are a big hit right now.

Dislikes: He is starting to hate his carseat. I think part of it may be that we need to get a bigger one. He does not like cold food or drinks, so we have to make sure things are luke warm. He doesn’t like a sippy cup yet. He gives me a look like, “WTH is this Mom?” He still hates when you wipe his face and when feeding time is over.

Milestones: He is definitely getting better control of his hands. It is so cute watching his concentration. He is starting to try to mimic us. He smacks his mouth in the popping motion if you do it enough times to him. He also will put his hands together if you clap. He hasn’t got the clapping part down, but he knows to initially put his hands together. He is now rolling 360 all the time. He rolls from back to stomach and then stomach to back like it is no big deal. He is a really good sitting and he can sort of pull himself to this position and then standing. He pulls his knees up under his chest like he wants to crawl, but he hasn’t figured out what his arms need to do yet. He also celebrated Easter this month, albeit maybe begrudgingly.

Quirks: He has found his balls. Changing his diaper is a chore now because he feels the need to stick his hands down there. Tom tells me this doesn’t stop for a long time. He “sings” at church. This is really the only time George squeals along to music. We have music on a lot around him, and it doesn’t seem to interest him like it does at church. But he is always vocal during the hymns which makes our family crack up. Just singing his praises! You can tell when he is really tired because he starts to rub his eyes or put a toy over his face. I can tell that he is about to fall asleep when he pulls his stuffed elephant to cover his face. He needs a baby sleep mask I guess.

We parents are: doing much better after the academy ended, and Tom officially started his new job. I will say that this is the first month since last summer that I have not worn a sports bra to bed. It is sooo freeing to let them breath again and not worry about liquid coming out at random times! Work has been a little nuts for me with the end of the year winding down and one of my co-worker’s last day is during finals week. So we have been working like crazy to get everything squared away for her departure. Tom and I haven’t seen each other much this week though because our schedules have been pretty much opposite so that has been a little stinky, but it meant he came to have lunch with me once this week so we could at least see each other not sleeping!

The dogs are: a freaking mess. I don’t know what is going on with them, but they are having some major issues. We have had puke and/or poop almost every day in the house. They also have gone through the trash on more than one occasion and almost destroyed another couch cushion. And it is when we are IN the house with them. You would think this behavior would happen when we aren’t home, but no they do all this craziness while we are sleeping or sneakily do it when we are on a different level of the house. It is really hard to reprimand a dog when you don’t catch them in the act. And Crosby has started barking every 10 minutes between the hours of 8-10 when George is asleep. They do seem to still love George for the most part, even more now that we are exploring more with food. Perpetual snack time in their eyes. Grace has gotten really clingy in the past week since Tom started his shifts. It’s like she is my little shadow in the mornings.

All in all, George is a really happy baby. His personality is really starting to come out as a sweet fun little boy. Each day is a new adventure as he is so curious, and you can just see his mind growing as he explores his surroundings. I have a feeling this next month will be even more fun as he grows!

It’s hard to believe that 8 months ago we started our journey as parents with a child on the “outside.” This month was momentous considering we finally got the all clear that all his early birth issues are no more. Today we are participating in a March of Dimes event because of our personal experience with the NICU. It is kind of special that the event ended up being on a “birthday” of sorts. We have so much to celebrate, and we want to give other families who have risky pregnancies or early births the same opportunity. If you would like to support our walk, please consider donating here. Let’s help all the babies!

March 30, 2015 by Stephanie

All the Barf

When you start introducing solid foods to your kids, you worry about allergies and their reaction to it.

Well we had our first negative reaction to solids last night, at least we think. George did not respond well to the broccoli and cauliflower we had for dinner. We had thought they were good foods because they basically have little handles for him, but apparently everything else about them George was not a fan.

I woke up to George crying at about 1am. I figured he had just lost his pacy so I went in there to go searching for it. He has a glow in the dark pacy just for these occasions so I can find it without my glasses in the middle of the night. (He has a tendency to throw the pacy out of the crib so the glow in the dark quality is a must.)

Well I wasn’t able to find it, and I felt under his neck to see if he had rolled on top of it. Instead of finding a pacy, I stuck my hand in baby goo. I thought that George had just spit up some as he sometimes does so I turned on the light to find a burp cloth, but to my dismay I saw George swimming in green baby barf.

Seriously, it was like the scene out of Pitch Perfect where they all had fallen in the vomit. Thinking about the picture of it, I honestly don’t know where the bed of barf came from in his tiny body. So. Much. Of. It.

I woke up Tom because this was clearly a two-person clean up job. Tom stripped the baby and took him for a bath because it was all over George, and baby wipes just weren’t up for that challenge. I took the clothes and sheets and ran them under the sink to get the major chunks out.

Fortunately, we double up the sheets and mattress pads on George’s crib just for occasions like this. I was able to strip off a layer and have a clean sheet waiting for us. This was awesome that I didn’t have to try to wrangle a clean mattress pad and sheet on the crib mattress at 1:30 am. For other parents out there, if you don’t do this trick, I highly recommend the double sheet method! Now I can just worry about laundry tonight when I am much more awake.

We finally got him all cleaned up around 1:30, and George was just happy as a clam. He was so excited to have his parents up and thought it was play time. He was just giggling and laughing away. He had no fever and no diarrhea so there wasn’t much more we could do at this point. As soon as we laid him back in his crib, he was fast asleep again.

I, however, was paranoid for the next hour basically getting up every five minutes to make sure he wasn’t drowning in puke.

I probably fell asleep around 3am only to hear George coughing again.

You got it. He had thrown up again.

Luckily this time, he managed to keep it contained to just his onsie and just a little on the sheet. Wipes to the rescue this time! I changed him again though just so he didn’t have cold wet clothes to sleep in. I cuddled him up-wright on my chest in the rocker for about 30 minutes to make sure he was ok. Back to the crib, again fast asleep, around 3:30.

He threw up again after I nursed him this morning at 5:30, and it is the saddest thing to watch. Then he did it once at the babysitter, so now we are home trying to get Pedialite to stay down for him.

Needless to say, we will not be giving him broccoli or cauliflower again anytime soon.

Tom’s reaction to the barf: “Well George, that may not be the most someone in our family has puked, but it is surely the most per square oz. That was just all the barf.”

Crosby got up with us to make sure everything was ok. He sat patiently watching his boy get taken care of. He was such a caring big brother.

This was Tom’s conversation about Grace once we got back in bed.

Tom-“Oh I am sorry Grace. Don’t let us bother you.”

Me-“Did she even get up?”

Tom-“No…Well yes she did when you let them outside while I was washing George. Then her diva self just crawled back under the covers. And now she is hogging the bed like she can’t be bothered…. Come to think of it, we should have let the dogs clean that up.”

Me-“Eww gross. That’s all we need is all of them barfing.”

Tom-“Well at least the dogs clean it up.”

Me-“I guess. Anyway, can you please turn her because I surely do not need to sleep with Gracie butt in my face after all that.”

The conversations that happen in the wee hours of the morning…

The doctor has us monitoring George for now. They are worried about dehydration right now since he hasn’t kept anything down. So we’ll see how this afternoon goes with the prescribed Pedialite. Since he has been throwing up everything, they aren’t convinced that it was the broccoli and cauliflower. It may be a GI bug that he just needs to work out of his system. This is the first time he has been fully sick, so I am in full mom freak out mode knowing there isn’t much I can do besides watch to make sure he has wet diapers. Although besides the throwing up he is not acting sick.

I wish I felt like this when I was sick…

Now he is mocking me congratulating myself yesterday for his naps by protesting them vigorously today.

George this is a sick day, not a snow day. We must rest!

I feel like we have truly been inducted to the Parent Club now since we have been doused in baby barf. Ahh the glamorous life of parenthood.

March 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-7 months

Weight: 15 lbs and 15 oz. He is in the 11th percentile for weight. His height is 25.75 inches, which is also the 11th percentile. His head circumference is 44.5, and is in the 80th percentile. He doesn’t look disproportionate, but his head is huge.

Health: He had an ear infection this month. He didn’t really seem any different or fussy, but we found it at his 6 month appointment. He just got the all clear yesterday! He had a really runny nose around that time too, but it hasn’t seem to bother him too much.

Diet: He is only nursing one time a day now. I said goodbye to the pump before our trip this last week. I don’t know how long I will breastfeed him for his morning feed, but it probably wont be much longer. He was still at 50% breastmilk until this past Monday. I am glad that I took the entire month to wean him off because it has meant I have had very minimal pain. I have had no engorgement by only cutting out a few minutes out every couple days. (It has been great wearing real bras and dresses this week since I didn’t have the pump attached to me at all!) This kid and food though. If you didn’t see on Instagram, he throws absolute fits when there is food around and he isn’t eating. We cannot eat in front of him and leave him out. It’s both funny and obnoxious at the same time. He will scream when we get to the end of a bottle or bowl of food. He knows that when we put an his SnapBib that it is time to eat and he starts grabbing at everything and whining until we have the food in front of him. So at least he has a good appetite. He has tried a lot of new things this month: bananas, cantaloupe, kiwi, apple, mango, pizza crust, ice cream, eggs, oatmeal, crackers, and tomatoes. He didn’t like the cantaloupe because it was too slippery, and he couldn’t keep it still. He liked it if I held it for him. The tomato however he did not like at all, but there are some adults that don’t like tomatoes so that wasn’t too surprising. He eats solid food three times a day: oatmeal for breakfast, veggie for lunch, veggie or fruit for dinner. He does purees a lot through the week, but he is getting better at holding the spoon on his own. He can’t figure out the dipping part so as soon as it is gone off the spoon he will drop it on the floor unless I am quick enough to catch it. We do a lot more exploring of solid solid food on the weekends, but he does have real oatmeal (not the baby stuff) every morning now. He prefers the purees because he knows he gets the food faster. He gets really frustrated if he sees the food in front of him and can’t figure out how to get it to his mouth. Plus I think he may just expect us to put it in his mouth still at this point. It is really fun watching him explore food. It is also making me rethink what we eat too so we ensure that he is eating healthy from the get go.

Clothes: We are mostly in 3-6 month clothes, but there are some 3 month and 6 month items he is in. He is still a size 2 diaper. He can fit into size 2 and 3 shoes depending on the brand.

Sleeping: This is still a work in progress for us. It seems like he changes every day. We are trying to get into a routine but again he can’t decide when to be awake and when to be asleep. We have found the key to getting him to take naps. We have to take one with him. Not ideal, but on the weekends we take full advantage of sleeping more through the day. He is doing better sleeping when we put him down at 7:30pm. For the past week he has stayed asleep until we wake him up for his 10pm feeding. Our problem now is that he either wakes up every couple hours during the night or will be up around 3am for the day. Either we have to feed him again or we bring him to bed with us to finish out the night. However, last night he slept through the entire night on his own for the first time in months! The night before he was up every 2 hours, so I will take any full night we can get. We do the same things each night, so I am not really sure why his behavior is so unpredictable. Also, we are able to have him sleep on his belly at home now, but that means he rolls in the crib. A couple nights ago I found him with his arm through the bars playing with the baby monitor cord.

Likes: Oogaa teethers! He actually likes a lot of his toys. One of his other favorites is a small blue stuffed elephant with bungee legs. He is grabbing things a lot better now so he actually turns wheels and shakes things. He is mesmerized by my hairdryer. He loves his feet. George loves seeing his dad come home. He also loves the two little girls that go to the same babysitter. He just giggles and smiles at them when we get there every day. So cute! He also likes pens. He holds them really well when he isn’t trying to eat them. He drew on paper for the first time this weekend.

Dislikes: Socks. He will pull them off as soon as I put them on. Ending a feeding session. He HATES when I try to wipe his face clean. He will throw back his head and yell in a rage at the wipe touching his face.

Milestones: He has rolled over from his back to his stomach just one time. He can hold a bottle on his own. He sits up really nicely. However, he wants to stand more than sit most of the time. In fact just yesterday, he was sitting on my lap facing me and he pulled himself up to a standing position by pulling on my jacket. He has no inclination to crawl but this kid wants to stand on his own! He also took his first big road trip to NC this past weekend. He met many new friends, and he was the best little wedding date.

Quirks: He is talking a lot more. I feel like everyday he has a new squeal. If he is sleep cranky, George will pull my hand to cover his face and put his hand over mine. He does this a lot in the car when I put his pacy back in. He just grabs my hand and holds it over his face. It looks like I am trying to smother him, but I swear it is his soothing mechanism. (and that I am not smothering him)

We parents are: doing ok. We have 3 more weeks until the Academy is over so we are going to be happy about that. I do feel a sense of freedom not having to pump anymore. I have sooooo much more time in my evenings now that I am not pumping at night or cleaning the bajillion pump parts. I have actually gotten to watch some of my TV shows live! It has completely changed our nights. Tom and I sat on the couch together last night (on a weeknight) for the first time in ages. This is a game changer.

The dogs are: tearing up our couch, but that is a story for another day. They are so sweet with George. I have found Crosby laying in front of the crib a couple times. My emotions couldn’t handle that sweetness. George thinks they are the funniest creatures. He just laughs and laughs at them. I just love watching them interact.

George’s personality is definitely coming out more and more. He is such a sweet sweet boy. Most of the time he is all smiles. It is so fun to watch him learn and grown every day. It is so hard to believe though that he is closer to being 1 than he is to being 0. Crazy!

February 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-6 Months

Weight: Right under 14 lbs. He is still pretty lanky but he is definitely getting longer. We will get updated measurements next week at his 6 month check up.

Health: He is doing pretty well; no health concerns as of late. He is full on teething now. Still no teeth, but I feel one on the top trying to make an appearance.

Diet: This has been a big month diet wise! It is the last month he will be primarily fed by breastmilk. We are going to start the weaning process next week. He still is mostly fed with breastmilk with one formula bottle right before bed. We do have formula on hand for when we are out an about on the weekends though. He is really difficult to nurse right now, so when we are going to be away from the house it is just better to feed him with formula. When I do nurse him, he will only latch for a minute, then yank himself off and scream. Then latch for another minute before he pulls himself off in a fit again. It is a cycle that goes on for awhile. He will only get about 5 minutes of actual latched on feeding (even though the whole experience may be about 20-30 minutes) done before he is screaming so hard that we are both in tears. The real kicker is that he will then be hungry again in an hour or so. This has been going on for the last two months. So doing this out in public is not ideal. This behavior paired with the fact that I am barely scrapping by with making enough milk for him throughout the day (with extra pumping on the weekend and nights) is why we will be stopping our relationship with breastfeeding this month. Some days I feel really good about this decision, and others I feel really guilty. But the reality is, it is just not working for us, and we are both pretty miserable about the experience. On the plus side, we started REAL SOLID food this month. George could not be a bigger fan of real food. He attacks it with such ferocity. We have done a combination of purees and the Baby Led Weaning approach. Right now he is much more favorable of the purees. His pincer grasp is not the greatest, so feeding himself usually ends up with more of it on the floor. He does grab it (after sufficiently smashing it into the tray) and attempt to bring it to his face. He usually drops it before he can knosh on it. When he does get the food pieces to his mouth, he usually spits those big pieces out more than he does with the puree. So we are experimenting with both the puree and whole foods. He is getting a better grasp on holding a spoon for himself though, but he doesn’t understand dipping it in the bowl to get more. So I dip it and then he takes it from me to put in his own mouth. He honestly just tries grabbing the bowl itself and tipping it into his mouth. My mom got a great video of this and shared it on Facebook, but I can’t figure out how to save it for myself. He growls at you if you don’t get him food fast enough, which then turns into crying if you are really slow. He just wants the food now! He is also known to lick it off his bib once we are done with what is in the bowl. This kid LOVES eating real food. So far we have tried sweet potatoes (his first real food), peas, pears, squash, bananas, carrots, mashed potatoes, french fries, and pizza sauce.

Clothes: We are still in 3 month clothes and size 2 diapers. He is definitely growing so we may be into 3-6 month range here soon.

Sleeping: Sleep is a funny thing right now. George refuses to take naps at home. At the babysitter’s, naps no problem. Actually, he will take naps with us, but only if you are holding him for the entirety of the nap. We aren’t good at the transfer to the crib part so we always wake him up. And once he is up, he is up. So I guess it should be a testament that he doesn’t want to miss anything while at home and loves snuggling in our arms. But it poses a real problem on the weekends when the no napping means he is cranky or that we have to hold him all day. We have tried a lot of different things to get him to nap, obviously none of them seem to work. So suggestions are welcome at this point. As far as bedtime, it has been interesting this month. I had several suggestions over the course of last month with the nap/sleeping through the night situations that he needed to go to bed earlier. He was going to bed around 9pm and getting up at 4am, with very little napping throughout the day. So we tried the earlier bed time, and are still trying it. We feed him around 6:30, give him a bath, then put him to bed around 7:30. Like clockwork, he never sleeps longer than a half hour. Only two times in the past few weeks has he stayed asleep longer. At first we tried consoling him to sleep for the next TWO hours. We would take turns every 15 minutes trying to get him back to bed. We are silly parents, obviously this was not working. So the last week we have been still putting him to “bed” at 7:30. But now after he wakes up from the only nap we ever can get him to take, each of us will take one turn to try to get him to sleep before we let him stay up with us. And he seems pretty content and calm staying up until that last feeding that we do around 9:45. And now he has been staying asleep from 10pm until we wake him up at 5:30 am. It is one of those things that we have to follow his cues instead of worrying about doing what the books say. My only concern for his sleep is on the weekends when we fail to get him to nap. During the week this process seems to work just fine, and he seems happy with the amount that he is getting.

Likes: He is generally a really happy baby. He loves to watch us dance, and he will laugh so hard at us being silly. He likes it when you bicycle his legs. He gets a kick out of it, pun intended. Basically any funny noise you make at him will make him giggle. George loves to be in the baby wrap so we spend a lot of time with it. He has several toys that he loves now, his favorite being this plastic ball thing. FOOD. He loves to stand. He would rather be doing that than sitting. Speaking of sitting, now that he is able to sit up more, baths are a little easier for us all. He is starting to like it more because he has more room to kick his feet around in the water. He loves to munch on his own feet too. I swear his foot is in his mouth a majority of the day.

Dislikes: Naps. Being alone. Not getting food fast enough.

Milestones: He rolls from stomach to back on both sides. He has not rolled from back to stomach yet, but he is flailing around a lot so I think it will happen in the next week. He does roll to his sides, just not completely over. While he is on the floor he will scoot himself around in circles whether he is on his back or stomach. He seems pretty content not being mobile and does not show any signs of wanting to move forward or backwards. No rush. He will move when he is ready. He is ready to sit on his own now though! He sits unassisted for a a few minutes. He also likes to bend all the way forward like he is doing the butterfly stretch and then bend back to a seated position. It is like he is mocking me with his flexibility.

Quirks: He gives neck hugs now. Best moments of the day. The night my grandma died, he held my face with his hands for the first time. I was leaning over him, and he just reached up and put his palms on my cheeks like he knew I needed it. I cried big fat ugly tears all over that sweet face. He likes to hold my face a lot now. He makes all kinds of humming and squealing noises now.

We parents are: ready for the academy to be over. Tom is itching to get on the road with the police department, and I am itching to have my husband back. I am also in shock that this little fella is 6 months now.

The dogs are: have bad cases of cabin fever. So we have been having some behavior issues. They do however love to help clean George at dinner time. They are interacting a lot more. It is really fun to watch them play together. Watch this video for some surefire giggles of George trying to eat Grace’s nose.

It’s hard to see how much they change from day to day. You forget how small they used to be.

January 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-5 Months

How has it been 5 months?

Weight: 14 lbs and 24.25 inches. He is in the 7% for height, and 2% for weight. His head, however, is in the 58% at 42.25. (Which explains why we have a hard time getting his head through shirt neck holes. He also doesn’t fit into any hats except the one that I crocheted for him, and it stretches a lot.)

Health: He still has problems going #2, but the doctor said it was nothing to worry about at this point because there is no blood in it. She said he may just be a gassy baby. Other than that he is a happy drooly baby!

Diet: He is still mostly on breastmilk. We have a bottle of formula before bed. This month has been really hard breastfeeding wise. I know that I am not making enough. I am still barely making enough even with pumping during the formula feed. Most days I have one pumping session that I get less than an ounce, and most others are not much more. George eats at least 4 oz per feeding. Watching my supply basically start to dry out and having to pump/feed almost every 2 hours, I have decided that this will be our last month breastfeeding. Unless something drastically changes, I plan to start the weaning process once he is 6 months old. It has become more of a burden and it is taking too much time for what I am pumping. Or not pumping. I don’t feel like it is fair to keep pushing both of us to do this when it obviously is not working well. It just makes for one un-happy and guilty mommy. (George could care less as long as there is something in his belly! He is a mess otherwise.) I have tried all the tricks so believe me there really isn’t much more that I can do to increase my supply. Some women just aren’t able to breastfeed because of the supply, and their bodies never adjust to the demand. Despite my best efforts, I happen to be one of those women. I feel like there needs to be more out there for women who try but cannot make the supply. I feel that it is very polarized: either you formula feed or you are an expert breastfeeding with supply galore. It has been very stressful and hard to find material out there for those in the middle. I think there is also a lot of negativity for those who stop “early” too, so I want to say power to all moms for however long you try. Breastfeeding is not an easy journey, and I don’t want to feel guilty for stopping now. So we will happily make it to 6 months. We plan on starting our solids adventure around then any way, so we feel that it is the perfect timing to end our breastfeeding journey. There is a huge weight lifted off me now that I know there is an end in sight. While I am glad that I was able to do it, it is a struggle that I am happy to know will soon be over. I will say cutting holes into my sports bra has helped tremendously while pumping. It makes things much easier to do both at the same time hands free. So that was an improvement this month. We did try rice cereal this month, and he HATED it. We have tried both spoon fed and bottle fed, and he did NOT want to have anything to do with that rice stuff.

Clothes: We are still in 3 month clothes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still in them next month either. We are in size 1 diapers right now. By the end of this week, he will be in size 2. And that is mostly because I don’t want to go buy more size one since I know he has almost grown out of them, and we are down to our last stack this week. He also started wearing shoes when we go out on the weekend. It makes him look like such a big kid!

Sleeping: I think he is going through some sleep regression. We have a pretty good routine for bed time. I read him a story and lure him to slumber. Then he wakes up, and Tom has to take a crack at it. It usually takes us about 30-45 minutes to get him to actually be asleep. Unfortunately, he has started waking up around 4am, wide awake and hungry. It’s that awful timing that if I feed him and get him back to sleep I have about 30-45 minutes to sleep before I need to start getting ready for the day. So we end up just staying up. We tried switching his bedtime to 8 pm earlier this month and that just didn’t work for us. It took us even longer to get him to sleep and then he was getting up at 2 or 3. So his bedtime stays at 9pm for now. He is really funny about naps. He definitely gets cranky and will fight going to sleep. The only way we have gotten him to sleep for naps is by having him lay perpendicular to my stomach so his face his buried in my arm and then you have to pat his butt. Works every time. He also will only sleep on his back here at home, but at the babysitter will only sleep on his stomach. Weird kid.

Likes: He has really started playing with his feet this month. (This picture was the first time I saw him try to put it in his mouth though.) George is constantly holding them and trying to pull off his socks. He has started splashing during bath time. I am not sure if he likes it because he is always startled by it, but he will keep doing it. He likes to grab the hair at the nape of my neck and pull it like it is a handle. I never have a full ponytail anymore. He has to either have his hands or a pacy in his mouth. He loves to talk now, so he loves hearing you babble to him. He likes to stand more than sitting. I swear he will stand on his own before he actually crawls. His legs are so strong. He likes when I babywear him, so if nothing else works to soothe him in the carrier he goes. He still loves holding our hands. He LOVES Larry the parrot on VocabuLARRY. He will be screaming, and then when the show comes on, he stops and smiles in amazement.

Dislikes: Not being able to see you. He is more aware of his surroundings now, and knows when you have left him alone. He hates to burp and for feeding time to end. It is quite comical for us, but he acts like he is being tortured. If there is not a nipple (of any variety) in his mouth he screams this horrific scream. So we have to have a pacy ready for after feeding so we can calm him down from the feeding being over. I am not sure if he doesn’t like diaper changes, but he doesn’t want to sit still during them. He tries doing back bends when we change his diaper, or he has to monkey hang on my arm.

Milestones: We heard his first real laugh this month. He also rolled over for the first time. He looks like he wants to crawl; he pushes his butt up like an inchworm. He just doesn’t go anywhere forward, but he turns himself in circles. He can grab things now, but he doesn’t really know how to control it once he has it in his hands. He sort of can get his pacy back in his mouth if you count him chewing on the plastic part instead of the rubber part. He is trying to sit up. He looks like he is doing crunches trying to pull himself into a sitting position on his own.

Quirks: He hums himself to sleep. It is so cute. He attacks his pacy like a lion going after his prey. He will still lay newborn style when he is laying on your stomach. Never too big I guess to snuggle up tight.

We parents are: still trying to figure out a good schedule. Things are good, but Tom’s schedule isn’t the same from week to week, so that makes it somewhat difficult to have things consistent. It has been nice to get back in the gym consistently. om was sick this last week, so that was a little rough pulling double duty so George wouldn’t catch whatever Tom had.

The dogs are: loving him more and more. George has started noticing them a lot more. He laughs at them now and reaches out to them.