We’ve had a baby for 5 whole months! As of yesterday. It’s still the best. C is amazing.
C at 5 Months
I said this last month, but I absolutely stand by it: Oh, my gosh. She is SO FUN. She is so silly, so happy, and so chill. Pretty much everything about her personality from last month still applies. Her smiles are big and genuine and many, and I hope it stays that way forever. She moves so much and is working hard to get up on her hands and knees to crawl. She’s not there yet, but I see the wheels turning.
A couple nights ago, she figured out sleeping on her tummy, which is adorable.
We went to a birthday party and a baby shower in the last few weeks. I am an anxious person, and I get a little nervous before we go to these types of things because – how will she do? But she teaches me time and time again that I need to chill the heck out because she does amazingly well. She smiles and takes everything in and probably tries to lay on a table or two, and definitely gets tired by the end, but is mostly so calm.
C’s first tooth popped through about a week ago. She bit me a couple times to let me know what was going on, and then she didn’t really nap that day, but she mostly handled it like a champ. Her second one has been causing a little more trouble under the surface, but it looks like it’ll pop through in a day or two.
Sleep
Bedtime has gotten so, so much better in the last month. Putting C down for the first time usually takes 20-45 minutes, including story time, and then if she needs anything after that, it’s typically only once and takes around 5-15 minutes.
Things are still changing, though! C doesn’t always want to just be nursed to sleep anymore. Instead, she’ll nurse 95% of the way to sleep, wake up, and roll away from me. Sometimes, this just means she wants me to walk around instead of rocking her. Others, she wants to be put in her crib to fall asleep while I rub her tummy. Still others, she wants to be put in her crib for a little bit, but it turns out to be harder than she expected to fall asleep, so she wants me to pick her back up. It still doesn’t take very long overall, but it’s a little different for me to not have milk be the magic sleep secret.
She’s usually up once during the night and once during the 6am hour right now. That works pretty well for me, since she usually needs her diaper changed once to avoid leaks, and I’m usually up at or before 6.
I loved when I could just nurse her back to sleep in 10 minutes in the middle of the night. But we’re still not usually up for more than a half hour these days. She’s also working on putting herself to sleep sometimes. A few nights ago, she was so awake at 4:30am and not getting sleepier, no matter what I did. I told her I was going to get some water and I’d be back if she needed me. She squirmed a lot for about 5 minutes and passed out on her own.
Naps are pretty rough, and often only about 30 minutes. I try hard to get at least one longer nap a day by soothing her back to sleep, letting her sleep on me, or driving her around, but she isn’t always amenable to that.
So, she’s tired pretty early. I usually start getting her ready for bed between 6:45 and 7, and put her down for the first time around 7:30. Some nights, she’s up at 11:30 and then sleeps the rest of the night till she needs a little milk around 6. Other nights, she sleeps till 4:30 and then gets up for a little more milk at 6.
I’m sleeping okay most nights, but it could be better. I try to go up to bed around 9pm-10pm, read for a few minutes, and then pass out. And then I usually wake up once with C and once in anticipation of C waking up. Depending on when I went to bed and how tired I am, I get up between 5:30 and 6:30. C is usually up for the day between 7 and 8. If she gets up any earlier, I try to nurse her back to sleep.
Feeding
C eats like a champ, and I feel so lucky for that. She is still very interested in our food when Jack and I are eating. The other day, she was getting a little fussy before a nap but I needed lunch, and watching me eat entertained her till I was ready to put her down.
Schedule
I’ll try for a day-in-the-life post next week! But as an overview, right now, C eats every 2-3 hours. I don’t offer as many just-in-case feedings since she is looking for something to bite right now, and I’d prefer it’s not me. Sometimes this means she doesn’t get as much milk during the day, so we offer a bottle of pumped milk at night if she’s having a hard time going to sleep. I offer a nap about 1.5-2 hours after she wakes from her last one. If she doesn’t take the nap, depending on how much sleep she’s had and what the day looks like, I’ll either wait a half hour and try again, or just take her for a walk or a drive to make sure she gets a nap in.
It is incredibly nice to have the flexibility to follow her lead, even if it makes planning a little tricky.
Things I Don’t Want to Forget
- How peaceful she looks when she does fall asleep on me.
- Her morning smiles – and her smiles any time I turn the light on in her room and she realizes she gets to play more.
- When she cried and cried before falling asleep while teething, and then the end of my ponytail fell over my shoulder. She grabbed it, and then fell asleep twirling and chewing on my hair. I tried so hard not to laugh as I saw what was happening.
- How she absolutely lights up when she stands.
- She gets a little underbite and looks like a grumpy old lady when she’s trying to prevent us from giving her medicine.
- How much she loves just playing in her crib even when she doesn’t want to nap.
- Her giggles when we “get the wiggles out” before naptime/bedtime.
- How enthralled she is with books.
Things We Use and Love
- Pretty much everything from her 2-month post. She doesn’t love the pacifiers as much right now, but occasionally they work. She no longer has patience for the Podster, but it served us well when she was teeny.
- Pretty much everything from her 3-month post.
- Pretty much everything from her 4-month post.
- Copper Pearl loveys. Like everything else from Copper Pearl, these are ridiculously soft. C loves playing with them and shoving them in her mouth. My mom got us 2 before she was born and I just ordered 2 more.
- The Taylor Swift Method. – We used to listen to classic lullabies while I put C to bed, and she’d very often get all worked up the second she heard the first note of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I saw @heysleepybaby talking about how Taylor Swift music is baby Ambien and figured I’d give it a try. She settles quickly once I turn this playlist on and rarely makes it past the fourth song. She has never once cared if I sing a lullaby, but she becomes entranced when I sing My Tears Ricochet, which I don’t even know all the words to. So, this playlist will heavily influence my Spotify Wrapped for 2022.
- Haakaa Baby Food Feeders. I started freezing a little breastmilk in these for her to chomp on while she’s teething. After the initial shock of the cold, C decided she loves these and goes to town on them.
