Danny at 4 Months

Take 1

Take 2

Take 3 - Nice face!

2, 3 and 4 month comparison

While mommy and daddy recognized their 3 year wedding anniversary yesterday, today marks Danny's 4 month birthday. Day after day he continues to amaze us with his cheery and silly personality, especially in the tub! I keep saying I'm going to film his bath time. It's too funny. I get completely soaked from his splashes. We just couldn't love him more. As far as milestones go, he's still rolling over tummy to back and he rolled over once from his back to tummy, but I haven't seen any repeats yet. He's totally grabbing with his hands and movement is becoming less jerky. He's not great about bearing weight on his legs, but we'll get there! He goes to the doctor for his 4 month appointment next week. I'll be interested to hear how much they brag what they say about him.

Weight: Approximately 14.8

Likes: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (for sheez), music, dancing, watching football with daddy, his activity mat, monkey lovie blanket, itsy bitsy spider and patty cake, Green Eggs and Ham, pulling mommy's hair (ouch), sitting in his bumbo, baths, being naked.

Dislikes: Same old, same old - riding in the car, playing independently for too long, napping.

Sleeping: Oh sleep, how I both love and hate you so. I love you because when I get a few hours, it makes me feel so good, but I hate you because you make things so complicated. While we've been messing around with a partial swaddle for some time, we've finally broke him of the swaddle all together this week. He now rocks this sleep sack. Considering Danny is already sleeping terribly, we figured flailing arms/reflexes from being newly freed from the swaddle couldn't hurt.

Why the short naps, Danny? "If I told you, mom, it wouldn't be such a fun game, now would it?" You take your guess - too little stimulation, too much stimulation, up too long, up not long enough, bad habit, wants a snack, can't self-soothe, just wants to say hello, farts and wakes himself up, you get the point. In all seriousness though, I think it's largely that he's not able to self-soothe yet, which is something we're working on. Supposedly at around 4 months babies' sleep patterns evolve to be more like adults, so they cycle into periods of light sleep, the first period being at 45 mins. This might explain why he wakes up from every nap at 45 mins on the dot. We're also up a couple times at night again, like as often as when he was a brand new baby, and sometimes for the day at 4am. Sigh. He's pretty much cried himself to sleep the last two nights and goes down easily (most times) after nursing in the middle of the night. I know he's hungry when he wakes, so nurse him I will! Cry-it-out hasn't worked for naps though, so not quite sure what to do since I really aim to be consistent.

Eating: Nursing has become quite a sport lately. Danny is way too interested in what's going on around him to care about sustenance. No longer can I pawn myself off as a pacifier while Jimmy and I try to grab a drink or dinner out. In fact, I can't even talk to Jimmy or anyone else in my quiet home while I'm nursing. My (naturally soft) voice is way too much distraction. Ha! I can definitely tell he's gotten more efficient and doesn't need to nurse as long as he once did, but I still feel at times like he needs to focus and just eat a little bit longer. We'll see what the doc says about weight gain. What's a new mom to do, but push on??

At our anniversary beach picnic last night. Nice bags, mom!