Twenty weeks already! I’ve been referring to Lydia as 4.5 months old, but next week she’ll be nearly 5 months.
Probably the biggest thing this week was her four-month vaccines.
Sleep
A couple of times this week, Lydia has woken up in the middle of the night for a while, not just to feed. Not sure what’s going on here, but it wasn’t actually very disruptive. She didn’t need much soothing at all, and I honestly don’t remember much about what happened or how long she was awake. I just remember her lying there squirming a bit and occasionally making a little noise. I occasionally fed her, and I think one of the times I ended up pottying her before she went to sleep.
I don’t really have a theory about why this happened, but it doesn’t seem to have become a regular pattern. Some nights this past week we skipped the swaddle, and she did seem to both wake up and move around more frequently, so the rest of the time we went back to using it.
I guess the one other thing worth noting is that she’s been napping a lot the last few days, probably due to the vaccines.
I have failed to actually get Zeo data, so I think I need to try something else. I have a Wakemate and a Fitbit, so maybe I’ll be able to use one or the other of those.
Oh, one other thing. I’ve been doing an informal survey of people who coslept and never did sleep training about when their children stopped waking up at night. It seems like I’m getting answers in the 1.5-2 year age range. Also somewhat notable is that the parents I’ve asked don’t seem to find this milestone particularly memorable.
Eating
Her weight is nearly the same as last week (14.14 pounds), but the doctor measured her height at 26 inches! So she’s been growing taller at least. I don’t think I noticed much interesting in the nursing department this week. I did get my period again this week, so I spent some time worrying that my supply was lower. And maybe it was, but I’m sure Lydia is fine. I figure if she were starving, she would be waking up all the time at night, which she isn’t.
Elimination Communication
A very clear new pattern has emerged with EC. When I take Lydia, she usually goes. When Will notices that she might have to go and takes her, she usually goes. When I ask Wlil to take her, she almost never goes. I’ve tried asking him to take her at times I think she’s particularly likely to go, like when she’s just woken up from a nap, and she still has an almost perfect record of not going!
The most recent time this happened, I tried pottying her myself after it didn’t work for him. It took a while of waiting, but she did eventually pee. I guess the three theories are: we’re imagining the pattern, I’m subconsciously asking Will to take her when I don’t really think she needs to go, and Will is somehow communicating his expectation that Lydia will not pee to her and she’s complying with it.
Other than that, I don’t have much to report.
Babywearing
We had one big babywearing win this week when Lydia actually got her four-month vaccines while in the woven wrap. Her legs were sticking out, so she could get her shots easily enough. I liked that she was right there snuggled up against me, and that I could feed her very easily afterwards. The whole process seemed a lot better this time than it did at two months, and I would definitely recommend the method. Lydia did cry a bit more that evening, which I think might have been stored crying from the vaccines, but that seems fine to me.
Motor Skills
No huge jumps here. The sitting is pretty solid now. She will eventually topple over, but I’m not inclined to hover as much as I used to be.
She still wants to crawl, and she still can’t. She’s still frustrated about it.
One cool thing did happen early in the week. We were hanging out outside on a towel having some diaper-free time in the sun, and she managed to get from the tummy position to sitting. I think she may have pushed back against my foot with her foot to accomplish this, but it was largely unassisted. I do think not having her diaper on made her more able to do this than she otherwise would have been.
Personality/Other
Lydia has been pretty chill overall in the carseat this week, though she has still had times where she will complain about it. To a certain degree, I take this as a measure of her overall level of contentedness.
We took her to a book club this week. She wasn’t crazy about the situation when we first walked in, and she had one period a bit into it where she fussed and I fed her while walking around. But then the whole rest of the time (not sure how long, but multiple hours), she was pretty happy. It helped that the hosts had a hammock I could swing in while holding her.
We also took her to a surprise party. She was great about being quiet during the whole relatively long wait for the arrival of the guy whose birthday it was. But she really didn’t like it when we all started yelling surprise. I guess she got scared :-(. That wasn’t her favorite party, overall, though she did calm down as things continued.
Lydia does seem to laugh more when Will and I are engaged in playful antics, which I like. Our whole family can laugh together!
Me
I would say this week has been mixed from my end, but mostly good. As I mentioned above, I did get my period. Kind of a bummer, since I was hoping I’d go nine months, but from asking around, it seems like a lot of my mother friends who are also breastfeeding all the time, even at night, and holding their babies a ton also got their periods by now too. Oh well.
I’ve pretty consistently setting and completing about one goal a day.
I’ve also been on a bit of a quest to branch out and meet more mothers. So far, I’ve met people mostly through the homebirth community. That’s been a good source of people, but I want to meet more.
I also read a personal growth book I liked more than most recently, which I may blog about separately.
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