Andrew at 5 Months

Here we are at 5 months! Hard to believe!

I think Andrew is still in the 14-15 pound range. When we were at the doctor last week, he weighed in at 14 lbs, 4ozs, but that's only 2 ozs more than he weighed at his 4 month check-up, so I think his illness had brought his weight down a bit. Regardless, I can tell that he's growing!

And he's certainly developing! He's laughing up a storm these days and grabbing for everything in sight.



He's also doing pretty well with sitting up, going maybe 30 seconds without assistance.

He seems to be keeping those blue eyes and is getting blonder every day.

{Warning: Boring mommy talk ahead!} This month we've been working on sleep training/baby boot camp/self-soothing, whatever you want to call it. Months ago we had Andrew sleeping pretty well at night, but he had slowly regressed and eventually was waking up 4-5 times every night. That's no good for anyone! The biggest change has been that Andrew now sleeps in his crib for all naps and at night, instead of in the bassinette attached to our bed. I had been so reluctant to do this because being able to just roll over and check on him throughout the night was such a comfort. But it was time. The first three nights we put him in the crib, he slept from 10:30 until around 6 without making a peep! It was terribly exciting! That stellar performance has not necessarily repeated itself every night, and being sick definitely threw him off (lately, there's been a cry-it-out session around 4 each morning), but we're definitely better off than we were before.

At night, we no longer have to swaddle him because he goes to sleep with a full tummy. But for naps, when he goes to sleep 1.5-2 hours after having eaten, he just cries and cries, unless he's swaddled. We've resorted to what we call the Swaddle 2.0, where the blanket is wrapped over his arms and under his body. It's much harder to break out of than an ordinary swaddle, but if Andrew gets real mad, he can even break the Swaddle 2.0 {as demonstrated below}. Anybody out there have a suggestion as to how we can get this little guy to take naps without a swaddle? Or should we just not worry about it until he's asking to be swaddled for his kindergarten rest hour?
Despite Andrew's cold and the sleep training, this month has been a particularly great one. It's been so much fun to see our baby begin to interact with the world around him! Andrew remains a sweet, happy baby who is a complete joy to his parents!