Madeline: Five Months

This five month update is over a week overdue, but we have been so exhausted lately, I haven’t had the energy to write it up!

So, five months! I know I’m biased, but this girl just gets more adorable and scrumptious with each month. She’s getting lots of delicious baby rolls that I want to nom on all day long. She’s about 2 seconds away from growing out of her 3-month clothes.

This month has been kind of hard actually. Generally, she just seems more irritable and crabby. I’ll start with our sleeping woes. I have read about the dreaded 4-month sleep regression and think we may have been/still are in the midst of it at 5 months instead. Maddie has not been sleeping as well as she was at 4 months. These past few weeks, we’d put her down in her Rock ‘N Play and she would wake herself up a few times and would start squirming a lot in the early mornings. I’d find her all scrunched down in the Rock ‘N Play and she just looked uncomfortable. We also felt like we were disturbing her more easily when we would come up to bed. We knew the time had come to really get her out of both the swaddle and the Rock ‘N Play and into her own room. While she has not exceeded the weight limit of the RnP, she is getting taller and doesn’t fit in it as comfortably as she used to. So first things first, the swaddle! It was kind of funny because I was putting her to sleep one night and told myself the next night, I would start swaddling with one arm out the next night, but that same night when I went to wrap her, she would not let me wrap her left arm! It was like she had decided on her own to be done with it. She squirmed a little more than usual, but overall, she was fine without it. I did one arm out for about a week and then took out the other arm and just wrapped her body so she could still have it as a blanket. This was a really easy transition because she was clearly ready for it.

This past Friday, we decided to try to the crib. We have been trying to put her down for naps in the crib to get her used to sleeping there over the past month or so. The first night was horrible. Now with the freedom to roll around, she was rolling all over the place. She woke up what seemed like every 30 minutes looking for her binky and I had to keep getting up and putting it back in her mouth. We put some pillows under the mattress at one end to elevate it at an incline so it would mimic the Rock ‘N Play, but we kept finding her at the bottom of it and once on her tummy with her face smashed into the corner so we took the pillows out the second night. After the second night of barely any sleep, I did some searching on the interwebs and read a great suggestion that a lot of what babies might miss about the RnP is the fact that it hugs their body. So we took a towel and rolled it into a u-shape and stuck it under the sheet so it was secure and it created a little nook. Maddie woke up a number of times within the first two hours, but then slept almost the whole night with one 30-minute wake for a quick feeding. Then last night, Night #4, she was waking up a lot again until about 3am. Overall though, I think the towel under the sheet is helping because it gives her a little extra security and also prevents her from rolling in her sleep, though she really seems to favor sleeping on her sides. I plan to take the towel out this weekend to see how she does. I have been sleeping in the bed in her room so it’s easier for me to get up to check on her and help her as needed and also because I don’t like being far away from her. Once she is back to sleeping for long stretches, I guess I will move back to my room, but wahhhh, can’t I just sleep in the same room as her until she is 25?!

This experience has made me realize that Rock ‘N Play is both a blessing and then a curse once you want to move your baby out if it. We knew this would be hard and are so so tired. We have been pretty spoiled with a baby who basically slept through the night from 6 weeks until 4 months. I’m trying to be optimistic that by the end of this next weekend, she will have adjusted to the change. Pray for us. And also, bring me wine and chocolate. And a nap.

People keep asking about teething. We haven’t spotted anything poking yet, but are wondering if this also might be to blame for her crabbiness lately. She’s drooling a lot more, really chewing hard on things, howling at us during the day, and seems extra tired. Argh! The struggle is real.

It is really at times like these when I wish we had family nearby to help us out. As amazing as this experience is/has been, it’s difficult to never get a break.

How about some positive things, eh?! First, these pictures! I die of cuteness. Maddie’s room gets really amazing light and I want to do a photo shoot every weekend. Poor thing.

This girl CANNOT WAIT to eat. She is fascinated any time she sees us eating. She likes to be very close so she can see what we eating/drinking and is now grabbing for whatever we have. I feel so bad I can’t give her anything yet as our ped wants us to wait until 6 months. She really cracks me up though because she tries to grab our food or drink and then opens her little mouth. Oh man, it kills me! I have given her a few little sips of plain water from my cup and she seems to like doing that. I’m so looking forward to getting to introduce solids next month!

She is just about able to sit up on her own, but falls over after a minute when she gets tired. She also loves when we put her on the floor or on her activity mat and she just rolls onto her tummy. She gets mad if we leave her like that for too long or if she can’t turn herself back over. She really has a lot of strength and scoots herself a bit too. I suspect she might be an early crawler!

Bath time might be one of her most favorite things. She is loving splashing around in her tub and trying to eat the washcloth and trying to drink all of her dirty bath water…

Maddie also really loves to be out and about. In fact, my husband has to take her out every day somewhere whether it’s to the park, a walk around the complex, the mall, etc.. It’s pretty tiring! I’m hoping that once she can really sit up for a while, she will enjoy being at home more as she will be able to sit and play with her toys.

Related posts:

Madeline: Two Months Madeline: Four Months Madeline: Seven Months Madeline: Ten Months