Caleb’s Five Month Update

At this point, I can say with confidence that this whole parenting thing just keeps getting better and better.  I love watching Caleb’s personality unfold and our days with him bring us so much joy.  Jordan has been home for summer break and it has been so fun to spend our days hanging out as a little family.  He goes back to work in a few weeks and boy oh boy will we miss him!

Due to a scheduling miscommunication, we still haven’t had our four month checkup (gosh darn pediatrician) but it’s on the calendar soon.  Based on some math using a home scale, little man is weighing just above 14 pounds and seeming longer and leaner by the day (minus a couple cute thigh rolls/wrinkles).  He’s getting so much more active and interactive and these last few weeks have been SO much fun!

How He’s Eating

Just like the last few months, we are still exclusively breastfeeding.  The only real update here is that Caleb stopped his bottle strike and has taken several bottles from Grandma and Jordan.  HURRAY! This has made me feel so much more free to go on the occasional date with a friend or run out to an errand knowing he won’t starve while I’m gone.  I’m thinking we will start to introduce some solids once he turns six months in August and can sit up a bit better unassisted. For some reason the idea that we are introducing his very first foods to him blows my mind a little bit and I can’t wait to see his goofy faces when he tastes all these new flavors for the first time.

How He’s Sleeping

Aside from our California trip where everything went to heck and he fought every single nap/bedtime (you can read about that here), Caleb has been a champ of a sleeper.  Seriously guys, he’s a rock star.  He typically takes four 45-minute naps a day (still hasn’t stretched those out, unfortunately), but we put him in the crib after an hour and 20-25 minutes of being awake and he falls right asleep within 15-20 minutes.  Bedtime has still been a bit of an issue because he usually wakes up from his last nap between 3:30-4:30.  Putting him down at 5 is a little too early, even though he does sleep 11-12 hours, but he won’t take another nap after that point (believe me, we’ve tried).  He’s been pretty overtired and fussy at bedtime the last few weeks, but I’m hoping as he stretches out his wake-times and naps this will work itself out. Either way, he usually sleeps 11-12 hours straight at night so I am a happy mama!

I will say that he has been cracking us up lately with two things in regards to sleep.  First, he has learned to scoot and rotate in his crib! Despite his best efforts, he still can’t roll back to belly but he arches his back, kicks his legs, and scoots himself in little (always) counter-clockwise circles in the crib.  We love to watch him on the monitor and he always ends up facing a different direction than we put him there or wedged with his feet against the crib.  We’re used to him just staying in one place so this has been a fun new development!

Am I the only mama who could sit and watch her baby during his entire nap? He’s TOO cute!

The second thing we’ve been loving is that he has gotten attached to a little elephant lovey we gave him.  I give it to him when he goes down for a nap and he will lay there waving it in the air and wrestling it for 10 minutes, finally rubbing it against his face until he falls asleep.  The only downside is he loves to fall asleep with it directly on his head and usually over his face, so I sneak in to the nursery and pull it off once he’s deeply asleep (see picture below).  He has good head control and will move it off his face if he needs to, but mama’s not taking any chances even when it’s absolutely adorable.

What He’s Liking

Caleb is officially a boy on the GO! He is constantly moving and constantly smiling (unless we are around lots of new people, in which case he is our little quiet observer).  When I put him on the floor his legs and arms are going going going.  He never wants to sit and always tries to do little squats until we pull him up to a standing position (after which he grins and bobbles his little head like this new vantage point is the best thing in the world).

When we put him in the Bumbo to practice sitting he does everything in his power to bust out of there every single time, twisting sideways, grabbing his toes, and arching his back like he wants to flip over the side.

He’s getting a lot better at tummy time and continues to roll belly to back, but he hasn’t quite mastered back to belly (he tries his darndest in the crib and just can’t get over his arm).

What He’s Disliking

Caleb caught another cold and it was a week of sneezing, sniffling, coughing, and general yuckiness.  He was in pretty good spirits but his mouth breathing and congestion were so pitiful.  I’d say #1 on his dislike list at the moment is the Nose Frida.  OH man does that kid scream when I try to use it! I had to pin him to the ground  and hold down his arms because he would grab the tube away and thrash his head back and forth! I hated to do that but it was so helpful in keeping his congestion at bay.  The only good part of this cold is when he accidentally sneezed mid picture and I captured it.  You might have to zoom in but it’s pretty quality!

A Mommy And Daddy Update

I can’t say enough how much I am loving my days with this little guy and his daddy.  I have a feeling I will look back on these months as some of my favorites because he is so sunny, smiley, and interactive most of the time but he can’t move around so mama doesn’t have to constantly chase him around! Caleb is such a mama’s boy and his little smiles when he sees me absolutely melt my heart.

Maybe the best time of the bedtime routine!

I would say the hardest part of the last few weeks has been figuring out how to balance Caleb’s sleep needs with our desires to run errands or hang with friends.  During the day we tend to just do shorter errands at a time so he’s not awake for super long, but nights have been a little trickier.  We tried to go to dinner at a friend’s house at 5:30 PM and stretch Caleb a little bit since he’s normally starting his bedtime routine by 5/5:30 and in bed by 6/6:30.  We got home around 6:30, did his nighttime routine immediately, put him down, and then he was a HOT mess, screaming and fussing until he finally conked out in his crib by 8:45 (and still woke up at 6 AM the next morning, which is much less sleep than he usually gets).

I was all over the place that night too.  I hate to see Caleb fuss and be so overtired and I know that getting good sleep is important for him, but I feel so ridiculous turning down an invite to be with friends at 5:30 (SO early!) because our baby needs to go to bed.  It seems like I see people out with their babies in the evening or out for long periods and I just don’t know how they do it! Caleb won’t sleep anywhere but in a dark, quiet room.  In a way we’ve trained him to do that, and it is great that he puts himself right to sleep when we’re at home.  But when we’re out and about, I wrestle with shame and self-doubt and all sorts of yuckiness because he can’t just chill, hang out, and sleep as necessary like “all the other babies” I know.

I know that this comparison isn’t healthy and every baby is different, but boy is it tough to let go and feel confident in the decisions we are making for our kid.  I’m trying to remember that all we can do is what we think is best for OUR baby in a given scenario.  Sometimes that will mean sacrificing our desires for his needs and sometimes it will mean stretching him and teaching him to be flexible.  I’ve been thinking a lot about where the shame and comparison come from with all this (I can feel a blog post brewing about it – stay tuned), and I have a feeling this is something God will continue to grow and heal in my heart in the years to come.

For now, I’m choosing to focus on the joy – the sweet, beautiful moments where my little man spots me and his whole face lights up.  I’m choosing to focus on how my heart feels like it’s about to burst when I look into his blue eyes and know that just like his heart once beat against mine, my heart and my hopes will always live in him.  He is my sweet one, my little man, my bubba, my firstborn son, and I love him more than I knew I could love another being (besides his daddy, of course).

Happy five months, sweet boy.  We love you more than the moon and the stars and are so grateful to be your parents.

P.S.  I realized we only got ONE picture of me with Caleb this month, and it’s this candid one Jordan shot while I apparently fully enjoyed a hamburger while out flea market shopping/thrifting.  Mama’s gotta eat, y’all. (Insert cry-laughing emoji here – what in the world am I doing?!)