Brooklyn {Four Months}

Length, Weight, Percentiles:
At two months Brooklyn was 11lbs 14oz. At her 4 month appointment she weighed in at 14lbs 2.5oz. (50th percentile)
She was also 23.5 inches long at two months, and now she is 25.5 inches (89th percentile)

Features:
Blue eyes, and (very) little hair; blonde hair though. Just waiting for it to grow. She has perfected her smile and it is so easy to get her to smile these days. Her cheeks are getting more chunky, which I absolutely love.

Sleep:
BAHHH......So all my previous posts have come back to haunt me. Brooklyn was doing SO well! Sleeping in her crib, putting herself to sleep, swaddled......then she started breaking out of her swaddle. It would immediately wake her up. So, a few nights of 3 or 4 wake ups/night and we  put her to bed in her rock n play. That seems to help. She is unswaddled, but I think it gives her a cocoon-like feeling. We have tried a few times to put her back in her crib, unsuccessfully. Each time she wakes up multiple times a night. We have tried swaddled, partially swaddled, unswaddled, and three different types of swaddles (Halo, Miracle Blanket, Love to Dream). I just give up. I am going to let her sleep in that darn Rock N Play as long as she wants. In fact, for three nights in a row, she slept completely through the night (8:15-6:30), so I am done trying for a while and going to take advantage of the sleep I am getting right now.

When she gets overtired, she is a bear to put down. She cannot calm herself down. So the key is to start her bedtime routine when she "typically" gets tired, usually 7-7:30 PM. We have had one too many nights of her freaking out because she is so tired and cannot calm herself down enough to fall asleep. The nights we keep it consistent, and start to put her to bed around 7 or 7:30, she falls asleep easily and on her own.

She still rarely needs cuddled or rocked to sleep. I don't think I have yet rocked her to sleep. She would much rather prefer we put her down and sooth her by putting a binky in her mouth, "shhhhhh-ing" or holding her hands down so she feels secure and doesn't knock the binky out with her own hands.

Brooklyn is napping 3-5 times a day now, sometimes eliminating an evening nap (which is the one she really actually needs to get her to her bedtime without a meltdown). Depending on the length of the nap will determine how many naps she has. If they are longer naps, she will nap 3 times, but if they are short catnaps then she will take 4 or 5 naps.

I am hoping with her napping at daycare now, in a pack n play, it will teach her to sleep in her crib again without a swaddle. We shall see......

Diet:
Drinking 4-5 oz. of breastmilk or formula at a time. Still prefers nursing or breastmilk though. I bought some new formula (used to use Similac Advance) and she seems to like it MUCH more (now using Gerber Gentle). She prefers to drink out of the Medela bottles, and although they are not cute or fun, I just bought them in the 8 oz versions. She is still eating every 2.5-3 hours. She will have 1 bottle of formula a day, maybe, and other than that it is usually nursing or breastmilk.

Clothes and Diapering:
Wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month or 6 month clothes.

 

Social:
Such a happy little girl. She smiles so easily now, just like Bennett did. I also love that Bennett gets her to smile now too. She is much more interested in him nowadays. She will gives us little giggles here and there. She loves silly noises (bababababa, gagagaga). She also loves to be talked to, and will coo right back at you once you get her going. She has really found her voice the last couple of weeks and has the loudest little conversations with herself. She is best in the morning, as most babies are, and tends to break down and fuss towards the evening and end of the day. She has also discovered her feet and is almost always holding onto them.

Likes:
Being talked to, Patty Cake, Itsy Bitsy Spider, or any song, standing/being vertical, playmat,

Dislikes:
Having to burp, the sun directly in her eyes, tummy time, having her eyes wiped