A Five Month Update: My Second Boy

How can you be five months old already?! It hardly seems any time since you arrived, a tiny little bundle with a perfect face, into the world. It scares me how quickly time is speeding away.

These shots were all taken on 12th March 2015, when you turned 5 months.

Weight and Body
You are growing bigger every week and you're now really quite heavy to pick up. I'm not going to be able to carry you around easily with one arm for much longer.  At your last weigh-in about ten days ago you were 13lb 13 oz, and you'd just risen over the 25th centile for weight. We can really tell how much bigger you're growing by the clothes that you're fast growing out of. We bought you some new sleepsuits in January that were HUGE on you but now they're the perfect size. It always amazes me to think you can grow so much only on my milk!

Your strength and coordination is coming on in leaps and bounds. In the last month  you've started to try to pull yourself up to sitting using your tummy muscles when we've left you in a semi reclined position.  You definitely do not like lying down like a new baby for very long, and prefer an upright view of your world.  You are now able to sit unaided for about five seconds before you fall to one side so it won't be long before you reach this important milestone. You're not rolling over though yet, although you can roll to your side. You still hate tummy time!

Personality

Another development this month is your new-found discovery of screeching. It's not a pleasant noise, particularly when you practise it at 4am. You've found a feisty side of your character and will show us quite clearly when you're not happy with something (usually when we have to put you in your car seat!).

You've also discovered that we have a cat. Your big blue eyes lock into Ozzie in astonishment and follow him round the room. Ozzie, being the antisocial feline he is, is not at all interested in you.



Gorgeous chubby, dimpled hands!

Now that you have your Jumperoo you love to be on your feet bouncing up and down in it; your legs are really sturdy for your age.  You're also enjoying being thrown about a bit more; Daddy is going to have two little tykes jumping on him before too long!

 

Feeding and Teething

Your interest in food is increasing. You sit with us at mealtimes in your highchair, making chewing mouth movements, although it makes me feel guilty to see you watching us eat. We've given you the opportunity to have little tastes of mashed potato, broccoli and banana but once the food is in your mouth, you lose interest and spit it back out. We obviously need to wait a bit longer before starting weaning.



We keep checking for signs of your first tooth, as the dribbling continues unabated.  There's nothing there yet but your gums are obviously bothering you quite a lot.

This month, we think you had a massive growth or developmental spurt as your night time sleeping seemed to deteriorate and you wanted to feed much more often.  I've found it hard to keep up with your demands; breastfeeding became a bit sore as your frustration made your latch less than perfect. Then I developed blocked milk ducts which was quite uncomfortable.  We seem to be through those feeding problems now though.



Sleeping
However, we're not out of the woods with regards to your sleeping.  It's really hard to get you off to sleep in the daytime for any substantial nap, unless you're out and about in the car.  At night, you've started waking up every two hours and won't settle back down easily, if at all.  Mummy and Daddy are having to take night shifts again like when you were newborn. It's exhausting!

But look at you - you're so very much worth it. x