Jenson update: Five months old

Jenson is five months old and gets more fun every day.  This month included lots of snow and cold (longest winter ever!), but some great visits with Lo’s family and a trip to see my family over Valentine’s Day.  Plus, his cousin Maxwell was born, and he’s excited about planning a trip to see in him Las Vegas.  My postpartum hair loss started, so I got 6 or so inches cut off my hair…it’s still everywhere though.  Boof is taking slightly more interest in Jenson.  She’s sniffed him a couple of times, and briefly licked his hand once.  They’ll be BFF’s soon enough when Jenson starts with real food.

• Age:  5 months and some change, by the time of posting.
• Weight:  13.5 lbs at his 4 month appointment.  He weighed about 14 lbs (unofficially at home) when he was 5 months and 1 day.
• Length:  I used a measuring tape and it looks like he’s 26 inches, which would explain why he grew out of even more clothing in length.
• Size:  He’s in 3-6 months for outfits, 6 months Carter’s brand (still a little big), and some 6-9 month sleepers, depending on brand.  He’s growing out of everything lengthwise.  I got some onesie extenders, so that should prolong him wearing some of those.  He has a long torso.
• Diapers:  Cloth diapers are still going well.  Our favorites seem to be Best Bottoms and Flips, and then Bum Genius Freetime for when he’s going to be in it for longer and we want him to feel dry against his skin.  He wears disposables at night still since he wears the Snuza, and is wearing size 2’s since we ran out of the 1’s.
• Hair and Eyes: His hair is filling in and getting longer, and is still brown.  His eyes seem to be changing ever so slightly.  They are more grayish blue now – probably on their way to hazel, like ours.  Mine lean towards green, but Lo’s are straight hazel.
• Teeth: None yet, though I’ve been expecting them for over a month now.  He’s still been super-drooly and does a lot of chewing on anything he can get in his mouth, but I guess that just part of being that age.

• Sleeping:  He’s struggled with his sleep a little this month.  Many babies have a sleep regression around 19 weeks, and while I wouldn’t call it a regression, he definitely wasn’t as sound of a sleeper and had more wake-ups.  We decided to start leaving his arms out of his swaddle and were so terrified of how that would go since he was normally a good sleeper.  We left one arm out a couple of times and then just left both out one Friday night expecting a bad night.  He slept 12 hours that night before nursing, and then 2 more hours.  Somehow he squirms around so much in the crib that in the morning, his head is usually against the outside rail – no matter how far I lay him on the other side.  I think that’s part of the reason he wakes sometimes.  He still goes to bed between 8:30 – 9:30 most nights and usually wakes to nurse sometime between 330-630.  He’ll nurse then (or slightly earlier) and go back to sleep for 1-2 hours, though several days he was up for the day after his 630 nursing..  He wakes and fusses throughout the night, but he puts himself back to sleep (or doesn’t fully wake up).  I usually hold or nurse him to sleep, even though “they” say you’re supposed to put them down slightly awake and let them fall asleep on their own, but it’s one of the best parts of my day.  His sleeping face is just gorgeous.
  He still takes fairly short naps, though we’ve had a few 2-3 hour naps from him on the weekends.  We’re trying to get better about not picking him up right away when he starts fussing after a nap.  He’ll either put himself back to sleep (sometimes after we give him the binky), or he’ll lay there and play for a bit, cooing and looking at his hands.  Other times he wakes up horribly upset.
• Eating: 100% breast milk.  I plan to wait until 6 months to introduce food, and the Dr. is okay with that.  Pumping is going well at work, as annoying as it can be sometimes.  I’m lucky that I can just sit in my office and pump at my computer, so I really shouldn’t complain, but it’s still a process.  I can usually freeze several bottles worth of milk each week.  One week I froze enough for 10 bottles, and the next week I had to take 3 bottles from the freezer because of low supply.  He takes 5 bottles of 4 oz. each day when I’m at work, and then nurses 2-3 times in the evening (and 1-2 times in the morning).  We’ll start some food next month and I’m nervous about it.  I’m reading Baby Led Weaning and will probably do some of that combined with homemade purees.  I don’t plan to do rice cereal because other than iron, it’s fairly nutritionally void, and I’m not going to be in a hurry to give him a certain amount of food if he’s not interested.  It’s fine if he gets most of his nutrients from breast milk for awhile.  He still has reflux, but it seems to be getting little better.
• Movement:  He only rolls front to back still, and doesn’t even do that very often – it’s like he forgets sometimes.  He’s come close to accidentally rolling the other direction when he’s suddenly arched his back, but I don’t think he’s trying to do it.  He loves to kick his legs when we put him on his changing table – he kicks like he’s running really fast.  He’s also able to grab toys with both hands and bring them to his mouth now, and can switch toys between hands.  He can put in and take out his binky, though when he does that, he usually just chews on it.  I’m trying to get better about letting him lay and play on his own, so he knows how to entertain himself.  He does really well like that, but I struggle to not be in his face all of the time (Boof feels his pain).  I can prop him to sit for about 2 seconds before he starts tipping over.  He usually fusses like it bugs his belly, so I don’t do it that often.

• Words & Sounds:  He’s a constant screecher – like a baby pterodactyl.  He also loves to babble, blow bubbles and raspberries.  When he’s just around us, or a small group, he’s almost constantly making noise, even if they are just little coo’s to get us to look at him.  But if he’s around a bunch of people or in public, he’s pretty quiet.  He laughs a ton and is ticklish around his armpits.

• Milestones:
  – Studies his hands very closely and has good control over them. Can pass object back and forth and get them to his mouth.

• Favorite Toys/Activities:
  – Sticking his tongue out
  – Hanging out in the carrier.
  – We picked up a new (used) playmat because he outgrew the other one and could pull the arch down.  This one has crossing arches and is bigger, so he fits much better on it.  It was more places to hang toys too, so he likes the options.
  – Putting everything his mouth
  – Hanging out of his changing table and playing with us.  He loves when I kiss his face (unlike Boof) and opens his mouth as soon as I get close to his face.
  – Chewing on his pacifier – he doesn’t usually want to suck on it unless he’s going to sleep or is upset, but he likes to chew on the side of it.

– Enjoys looking at pictures on the fridge
– He loves it when we sing to him, whether they are real or fake songs.
– Also, he met a girl.  Technically they met before, but now he actually knew she was there and liked watching her roll all over the place (she’s over 8 months old).

• Dislikes:
  – Rolling over, apparently. He did this more last month than this month.
  – Having his neck/chins washed in the bath.  He fine with the rest of it, so we have to do that at the end because it ruins his bath.
  – Putting on or taking off his onesie/clothes.