Baby Boettcher Makes 4: 5 Month Update

This picture was tough to get today!! Our little monster wanted nothing to do with pictures this morning OR tonight-I just had to show a small portion of all the pictures I took trying to get a good one!

Update: This is the first month I don't feel like Bennett changed all that much. For the most part I feel like we have been hanging out with the same baby for the last couple months. Not that drastic of change as we had seen in the first 3-4 months.

Bennett has also been a "nomad" up until Monday the 13th. We, unfortunately, lost our daycare right before Christmas, and until we could find a new daycare, we had to find family members to help care for him while we went to work. He spent much quality time with his daddy, his Aunt Emily, his Aunt Bert and Jordan, and his Great Aunt Cindy. It is so nice to have so many family members close by in case things like this come up, but I am so happy to have him back in a daycare where I can get back into a routine for the morning drop-off.

Likes:

Faces and Hands (he loves to explore your face and hands with his hands)
Playing airplane and bouncing on our knees
ALL his fun new Christmas toys!
FOOD!!

Dislikes:

Nose sucker, or having his nose wiped or picked at (a weeklong cold helped us discover this dislike)
waking up before he is ready (results in one GROUCHY baby!)

Stats: No stats until 6 month checkup next month

Features: Nothing new to report here. Still looks pretty much the same.

Sleep: Oh man....yeah, we hit a sleep regression, or something. Who knows what to call it. Right after his 4 month birthday, Bennett started waking up 3+ times a night from rolling himself over during his sleep. Waking up 3+ times a night lasted about a week. He was waking up around 11 PM, 2 AM, and 5 AM. We finally decided to try to lay him on his tummy to fall asleep so he wouldn't startle himself awake. That seemed to work and we were able to cut out 1 or 2 night wakings. So now for the last 3 weeks we have consistently been waking up at 3:30 every night to eat, we try to shush him or soothe him back to sleep without feeding but he gets even more angry it seems. We had our first full night of sleep in a month this last Saturday where he slept from 9PM-7AM, so fingers crossed it is the start of something good again. I can't complain too much though, he goes down at bedtime and right after his 3:30AM bottle very easily. He can be smiling and laughing at bedtime or 3:30 AM and I just lay him down, give him a kiss, and say "it's not time to wake up yet, it's sleepy time" I shut out the lights and 5-10 minutes later he is asleep. So luckily we are not spending too much time awake with him, just 10-15 minutes to feed a bottle and then right back to sleep.

Eating: Started eating solids once a day-usually at dinner time since that is the time of day we are with usually with him. So far he has tried carrots, peas, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, pears, and avocado. He wasn't a huge fan of avocado or carrots. If we are home with him on Saturday or Sunday we will feed him oatmeal cereal mixed with apples or pears and he loves that! He also loves peas, and getting used to sweet potatoes and squash. I feel like he enjoys his solids now more than his formula, but he is still eating 5 oz. bottles of formula in addition to his one solid meal/day, he hasn't cut out any bottles, just eating a little more now with the solids. I made all of the baby food he is eating at home with my food processor and it has been great. It was tough to figure it all out at first but now it is simple and I enjoy knowing what I am feeding him, and feel comfortable even eating it myself!

Diapering: Size 2 diapers during the day, and wearing size 3 diapers at night

Clothes: Putting more and more cute little clothes away everyday:( It makes me so sad, but it was fun to get new clothes at Christmas and see how cute he is in the new stuff too.

Social: The day Bennett turned 4 months old he started rolling over from back to belly. It was fun to watch him learn a new skill, but at the same time he can't roll himself back over and therefore gets frustrated so we spend a lot of time playing "Bennett rolls over, and mommy or daddy rolls him back" and we do that over and over. Like I said above, he is currently FASCINATED with faces-his hands and fingers explore every crevice on your face. He wants his hands in your mouth, in your eyes, and grabbing your nose. Bennett also tries to grab for anything and everything especially at the dinner table, he wants to grab for our food, plates, drinks, fork, etc. It seems like he is always reaching for something completely out of reach. He is so smiley and laughs all the time now. The only time we hear him cry is if he is hungry or overtired. I love coming home to or seeing him wake up and he has his huge toothless grin!

Mama: I cried the first morning I dropped him off at his new daycare (yesterday), I don't even know why! I didn't even cry the first day back at work when I dropped him off. I am attributing it to the fact that I really don't know this daycare lady too well (her name is Melissa), and this really is the first time I have left him with a complete stranger. At least when we started him with Danielle when I went back to work from maternity leave, she and her husband are friends with Nate and Emily. I may not have known them well, but it was enough for me not to feel completely out of touch. I know he will be fine, and he loves anyone he hangs out with, but I still was sad to leave him there not knowing much about her. I will get to know her better though and I know he is in good hands.

Daddy: I think Josh is ready for Bennett to start sleeping through the night again, in fact, we both are. He is much better at soothing him back to sleep in the middle of the night than I am, I give in too easily and give him a bottle. Josh wants him so badly to sleep through the night that sometimes I think he makes it more difficult by trying to shush, soothe, and give him a pacifier before deciding to ultimately feed him, which occasionally ends up in him having to get up 2 or 3 more times than if he would just give into a bottle right away. I love that we switch nights getting up with Bennett, it gives us both a chance to do it "our" way to see what works.