Five Months Old
5:15 PM
"Of this be sure: you do not find the happy life, you make it."
- Thomas S. Monson
- Thomas S. Monson
Our dearest girl is 5 months old. She is pure sweetness. I can't believe how blessed we are to have her as a part of our family.
In the past month she has become much stronger, always wanting to sit or stand. She still is not a fan of tummy time but I have taken to making her do it and she is getting stronger holding herself up off the floor in an almost crawling stance (no where near crawling motions though). She is obsessed with jumping. She makes many attempts at jumping - in her exersaucer, if you hold her so she can stand, even sometimes when she is laying across me she does a jumping type motion. She sure loves her Jolly Jumper!
In the past month she has become much stronger, always wanting to sit or stand. She still is not a fan of tummy time but I have taken to making her do it and she is getting stronger holding herself up off the floor in an almost crawling stance (no where near crawling motions though). She is obsessed with jumping. She makes many attempts at jumping - in her exersaucer, if you hold her so she can stand, even sometimes when she is laying across me she does a jumping type motion. She sure loves her Jolly Jumper!
Still no teeth but her bottom teeth are definitely working. I keep questioning whether I see 4 trying to come but of course I am new at all this. Yesterday my mom saw her gums and commented that she was trying to grow all her teeth up at once, which is exactly what I thought I saw. It will be interesting to see how soon they pop out and how many.
Isla has become so much more interested in toys in the past two weeks. We didn't really have many because to her she just wanted to put everything in her mouth so it was all the same. Now she is spinning the wheels and moving the toys on her exersaucer and engaging with the various functions those kind of toys offer so I have been happy for the few toys we do have! I am a firm believer she doesn't need millions of toys and favour moreso the imagination it takes with simple toys...but that being said since we definitely do NOT need clothes, I imagine she is going to get a ton of toys for Christmas. I am so stinkin' excited for Christmas btw. I love Christmas as is...I am basically a kid myself in how much I love it but now that I am older it's not about the presents but the magical time together as family and friends celebrating the joy of the season...decorating my house...going to the tree farm for photos...watching Christmas movies...listening to all the holiday tunes...and eating all the delicious food...it's just the BEST. I can't wait for Christmas now with a child - it just adds a whole other special element to it. I know this Christmas she will be too young to understand much but I am still stoked nonetheless.
By next month Isla will be ready to start solids! I am excited about that whole new adventure of seeing her taste foods but am also pretty confused about it. Everyone has a different opinion about how it should all be done and they all seem to believe they are doing things the best way. I will definitely just do what I feel is right for Isla but I still haven't quite figured out what that is! I think I will combine BLW with purees and just combine all the ideas into our routine to get the best of all the worlds. We cloth diaper so when we add solids, we then have to also add diaper spraying to our routine - something I am not entirely stoked about haha. In general I think I have been happy to wait til 6 months to start solids simply because we have a schedule now and starting solids changes our whole schedule. But it will also be a lot of fun!
This past month Isla has met a lot of family members. She met her uncle Micah, her great-great Aunt Isobel, her great-grandpa, and many other family members on Scott's side. She also met my godparents who took care of me often as a baby when my mom returned to work at 4 months. It was great to introduce her to everyone! She is so social and loves everyone - she has smiles for everybody and really loves the limelight. She has become a lot more clingy in a sense. She isn't shy but she likes to be able to see me. If she can't see me she gets upset until I appear. It's made accomplishing things around the house a little harder but I'll just move her around with me so that she feels safe and secure with me close by.
I started nap training two weeks ago because Isla kept getting worse and worse at napping until I finally realized I think she needs some help. I am not a fan of the crying it out (CIO) method but instead thought instead of a whole production to get her to nap, by this point I should be able to just put her down and she should fall asleep. So it took some (okay a lot of) patience but I would essentially put her down, she would immediately burst into tears, I would then put a blanket on her and give her the pacifier (more affectionately known as soo-soo). Then she would sometimes continue crying and if that was the case I would back up just out of view for about 20-30 seconds. If she hadn't settled I would pat her, put her soo-soo back in if it had fallen out, and try some shh-ing sounds and kiss her on the forehead and then back up again out of sight, because if she could see me she would wail a lot harder. The trick was not to pick her up or it was a "loss" because the next time I would try the whole thing again she would resist even harder. The reason we went here is because I honestly had no issue with rocking her to sleep, or baby-wearing while she napped or even nursing her to sleep and then moving her if I needed to do things while she napped but she started just not falling asleep. I spent an hour and fifteen minutes trying to rock her to sleep while she fought it and that was my limit before I realized if something isn't working, you've gotta try something else. She was definitely tired as she would get whiny and rub her eyes, she just fought hard. So I sort of just created my own modified sleep training schedule and it's worked great! Unless she is overtired or too over-stimulated, I can now just set her down and she turns her head and closes her eyes. It was a lot of work and patience but I am glad it has worked! She still gets her special nighttime routine with daddy and I have no desire to remove that...maybe when she is a little older but again only if we needed to change it. I don't see the point in trying to fix something that isn't broken - she sleeps the night still so even though our schedule is maybe a little unorthodox I just leave it. She goes down around 10pm and wakes around 8:30am. Eventually we will move her bedtime up. For now we are loving it and it works great for us.
Well that's the update on how things are going around here with our wide-eyed and curious little lady. She is so in love with learning and observing, always studying everything around her and noticing little details. I comment that I never thought I would find a baby so interesting but I am sure it's because she is my own - she keeps me captivated and engaged from morning to night, totally obsessed with her and finding everything she does so interesting and entertaining. I am smitten with our little princess.
Isla has become so much more interested in toys in the past two weeks. We didn't really have many because to her she just wanted to put everything in her mouth so it was all the same. Now she is spinning the wheels and moving the toys on her exersaucer and engaging with the various functions those kind of toys offer so I have been happy for the few toys we do have! I am a firm believer she doesn't need millions of toys and favour moreso the imagination it takes with simple toys...but that being said since we definitely do NOT need clothes, I imagine she is going to get a ton of toys for Christmas. I am so stinkin' excited for Christmas btw. I love Christmas as is...I am basically a kid myself in how much I love it but now that I am older it's not about the presents but the magical time together as family and friends celebrating the joy of the season...decorating my house...going to the tree farm for photos...watching Christmas movies...listening to all the holiday tunes...and eating all the delicious food...it's just the BEST. I can't wait for Christmas now with a child - it just adds a whole other special element to it. I know this Christmas she will be too young to understand much but I am still stoked nonetheless.
By next month Isla will be ready to start solids! I am excited about that whole new adventure of seeing her taste foods but am also pretty confused about it. Everyone has a different opinion about how it should all be done and they all seem to believe they are doing things the best way. I will definitely just do what I feel is right for Isla but I still haven't quite figured out what that is! I think I will combine BLW with purees and just combine all the ideas into our routine to get the best of all the worlds. We cloth diaper so when we add solids, we then have to also add diaper spraying to our routine - something I am not entirely stoked about haha. In general I think I have been happy to wait til 6 months to start solids simply because we have a schedule now and starting solids changes our whole schedule. But it will also be a lot of fun!
This past month Isla has met a lot of family members. She met her uncle Micah, her great-great Aunt Isobel, her great-grandpa, and many other family members on Scott's side. She also met my godparents who took care of me often as a baby when my mom returned to work at 4 months. It was great to introduce her to everyone! She is so social and loves everyone - she has smiles for everybody and really loves the limelight. She has become a lot more clingy in a sense. She isn't shy but she likes to be able to see me. If she can't see me she gets upset until I appear. It's made accomplishing things around the house a little harder but I'll just move her around with me so that she feels safe and secure with me close by.
I started nap training two weeks ago because Isla kept getting worse and worse at napping until I finally realized I think she needs some help. I am not a fan of the crying it out (CIO) method but instead thought instead of a whole production to get her to nap, by this point I should be able to just put her down and she should fall asleep. So it took some (okay a lot of) patience but I would essentially put her down, she would immediately burst into tears, I would then put a blanket on her and give her the pacifier (more affectionately known as soo-soo). Then she would sometimes continue crying and if that was the case I would back up just out of view for about 20-30 seconds. If she hadn't settled I would pat her, put her soo-soo back in if it had fallen out, and try some shh-ing sounds and kiss her on the forehead and then back up again out of sight, because if she could see me she would wail a lot harder. The trick was not to pick her up or it was a "loss" because the next time I would try the whole thing again she would resist even harder. The reason we went here is because I honestly had no issue with rocking her to sleep, or baby-wearing while she napped or even nursing her to sleep and then moving her if I needed to do things while she napped but she started just not falling asleep. I spent an hour and fifteen minutes trying to rock her to sleep while she fought it and that was my limit before I realized if something isn't working, you've gotta try something else. She was definitely tired as she would get whiny and rub her eyes, she just fought hard. So I sort of just created my own modified sleep training schedule and it's worked great! Unless she is overtired or too over-stimulated, I can now just set her down and she turns her head and closes her eyes. It was a lot of work and patience but I am glad it has worked! She still gets her special nighttime routine with daddy and I have no desire to remove that...maybe when she is a little older but again only if we needed to change it. I don't see the point in trying to fix something that isn't broken - she sleeps the night still so even though our schedule is maybe a little unorthodox I just leave it. She goes down around 10pm and wakes around 8:30am. Eventually we will move her bedtime up. For now we are loving it and it works great for us.
Well that's the update on how things are going around here with our wide-eyed and curious little lady. She is so in love with learning and observing, always studying everything around her and noticing little details. I comment that I never thought I would find a baby so interesting but I am sure it's because she is my own - she keeps me captivated and engaged from morning to night, totally obsessed with her and finding everything she does so interesting and entertaining. I am smitten with our little princess.
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