Five Months

Nearly half a year ago I was holding the sweetest baby boy. I felt my heart swell to seismic proportions to accommodate the love I have for my tiny son. I know it sounds cliche but I love him more and more every day. 

Jack Five Month Stats: 

Weight: 17 lbs! 

Length: about 26"

Sleep: it's getting better. Still waking once or twice a night. 

Nursing: this really deserves a post of its own but short-story version, it's going much better. I'm still struggling a little with supply and we are going to hold off for now on revising his upper lip tie but all-in-all things are better. 

Cloth diapering is also going great. Still going to do another post on that soon.

Fluffy tush!

Speaking of future posts, I am going to announce the winner of my Firmoo glasses giveaway tomorrow. So check back to see if you won! 

Jack is still sitting up great. He has great leg strength too. He's trying to crawl but gets frustrated quickly. He's rolling both directions and usually flips right onto his back if I put him on his tummy.

He's hilarious. He does whatever he can to mimic us. He doesn't quite get what we are doing when we whistle but he tries. He squeals, blows bubbles, giggles like crazy and I swear he's said mama a time or two. Lol. Obviously he has no clue what he's saying but "mommommom" comes out every once in a while. ;) 

This is his, I'm seriously having fun look. Lol

He's still not the best napper but I usually have success putting him in the K'tan Breeze to help him sleep. 

He's doing much better putting himself to sleep at night. There have been a couple times when I've been able to put him in the co-sleeper with his glow sea horse music playing, a paci and he'll go right to sleep. Sleep for the win!! Although nights like tonight took me an hour of rocking, singing, etc before I got him to sleep. Win some, ya lose some at this stage. 

He's also taken to solids. We've gone really slowly with this. He's had oatmeal cereal three times and bananas twice. He currently has thrush so we are going to wait until that clears up to feed him anything but breast milk for a while. Poor kiddo :( I have let him suck on ice chips in those mesh feeders. He really likes that. 

The only downside to his new awareness of food and drink is that he throws a conniption every time we eat in front of him. Lol. He will grab my plate, bowl or whatever I am eating. And don't even think about trying to drink something in front of him. I usually end up acting like I'm giving him a drink and will hold the cup up to his lips thinking he's getting a taste when he's not. I'm sure my doing this isn't really helping, lol, but hopefully it means we can move into sippy cups with little trouble! 

I also wanted to take a minute and share some expert parenting advice since I've become all so knowledgable over the past five months. *brushes the sarcasm from her shoulders*

1. Don't expect your baby to sleep through the night for a very long time. (sleeping through the night is considered if they sleep five hours or more straight)

2. Or if you are one of the lucky ones and your little one does grant you a big solid and starts sleeping through the night at five weeks, don't expect that amazingness to last. Cause it won't. And if you say it does, I'll call you a big fat liar face.

3. Do what feels natural. Honestly I never felt like I had much maternal instinct until I actually gave birth. I decided then that I wasn't going to read any books or set a schedule. I was going to do what felt right but still taking some solid advice here and there from those I trust and that concept has worked incredibly well for me so far. Sure, Jack is no where near a by-the-book kind of kid and I'm constantly having to change up my ways to meet his needs but it is great to constantly learn and grow as a mother. 

4. Enjoy your baby. Today we went to the Washington County Fair and while I was hanging with Dan, Jack and my parents and brother Rusty we noticed a baby about Jack's size sitting alone in his stroller while his mom completely ignored him for a good 20 minutes. Sure, I realize you can't be constantly doting on your kid every second but they learn so much by interaction and watching you. Plus, I have fun hanging out with Jack. Yeah I need my alone time (ha!) here and there ( if I'm lucky to actually get it) but I still can't imagine just leaving my baby there for 20 minutes and then act annoyed when he starts crying. 

5. Lastly, if your kid wakes you up at 6 am and has no intention of going back to bed. At least go outside and take a minute to enjoy the beautiful sky and stillness of a quiet morning.