Friday, August 3, 2018

Baby Paul: 5 months




 It's hard to believe that our little guy turned 5 months this week. I feel like we've started to hit a 'sweet spot' with him. He's such a happy little guy now and only cries if he is hungry or tired. Otherwise he's in a really good mood. It's fun to watch him learn new things each week! I'll be honest - it's been really hard to be back at work. We get so little time with him during the week as we usually wake him up 20 minutes before Phil leaves to bring him to daycare and he's only awake for an hour when we get home from work. But it really makes me appreciate the time I get with him - especially on the weekends!

Loves:

- Other kids. Paul absolutely loves watching and interacting with other kids, especially my nieces and nephews. He especially has a sweet spot for my nephew Matthew. These two had so much fun together over the 4th. Paul was just so enamored with Matthew. It was the sweetest thing to watch.




- sticking out his tongue. He often sticks it out when he smiles at us.


 
 
- his daddy. Phil doesn't have to do much to get him to smile these days.
 

Here are a couple of times I was trying to get him to smile for me and he was too focused on smiling at his dad to look at me!
 
That dimple!
 - making funny faces. He still cracks us up with his expressions!
 
He looks so concerned in this photo.  Ha.
 
What, you are going to Chicago for work? I did not approve of this!

- his activity mat. He has so much fun playing with the different hanging toys and now that he can roll and spin around on his tummy, he can get to whatever toy he is most interested in. It's kind of impressive how far he can move between rolling and spinning.



- being read to. I'm pretty impressed by how much he pays attention when we read to him. He really looks at the pages and pays attention. He seems really enjoy it, which makes this book-lover so happy!


Reading with Grandma Joan.
Dislikes:




- Sleeping in new places. It was really hard for him to adjust to napping at daycare, which makes sense as he's used to sleeping in a dark room with a sound machine. For the first week he wouldn't nap in the crib there, but he started napping in the crib on Monday and yesterday he took 2 1-hour naps so he's figuring out how to sleep there. For the first 1.5 weeks he was only sleeping maybe an hour total which is not much for a 5-month old baby!


- The Nose Freida. He still hates this but it's a necessary evil when he has a cold (which he got during his first week of daycare).


- There's not much else he doesn't like these days. As long as he's not tired or hungry, he's a happy little guy.


Sleep:


- We made the controversial decision to sleep train when I got back from the lake in early July. I know that sleep training is not for everyone, but it was the right decision for us. Before sleep training he was getting up 3-4 times/night and sometimes as often as every 1-1.5 hours. Now he is up about twice a night which feels manageable now that Phil and I split the nights. Because Paul is so small, we know it's not realistic to expect him to sleep through the night so I think this is as good as it will get until he is a little bigger. His pediatrician said it's not realistic to expect him to sleep through the night until he is 15+ pounds and we are months away from him getting that big!


- The best part of sleep training is that Paul can now put himself to sleep. We just set him in the crib for naps and night time. He might fuss a bit or roll around and coo but he settles down after 3-5 minutes most of the time and falls asleep. He tends to roll over and sleep on his stomach. You put babies to sleep on their back, but once they can roll from back to stomach, it's ok to let them sleep on their stomach.



Firsts:


- Daycare/being cared for by others. I returned to work on July 12th so he was cared for by family and a friend until his daycare spot was available on July 23rd. He handled the adjustment to daycare really well. He never cried with I left him, even when I dropped him at daycare the first day. So that makes leaving him with others much easier! His daycare teachers all said he is a very sweet, happy, "chill" baby. He must take after his dad - ha! (I'm not really described as being chill by anyone!). He's always happy when we pick him up. Like I said in the sleep section, he has struggled to nap at daycare but they said he's still super happy even on days when he wasn't sleeping much.

Hanging out with his buddy Gus while my friend watched him for an afternoon.

- Discovering his feet. Paul found his feet last month and often sucks on them.




- He's gotten much better at tummy time. You can see the progression in the next 2 photos. He has figured out how to prop himself up on his forearms.









He's trying to figure out how to crawl but right now it just looks like he is swimming because his legs don't make much contact with the ground when he moves them. But it's cool to watch him try to figure things out. I think he must be picking things up from other kids at daycare because he's made so much progress in getting up on his elbows since starting daycare. I still think we are a ways from him crawling but I'm ok with that!!

All in all, the past month was a great one for us and I think things are only going to get better and more fun!
 


13 comments:

Kelly (She Wears a Red Sox Cap) said...

Lol- I believe you were described as chill on your wedding day ha ha. Ironically, Eric and I are often described as "chill" and yet Max has never been described that way ha ha.

I'm glad Paul's transition to daycare went well! He sounds like such a fun little guy!

Also, SO glad you decided to sleep train when you did. Teaching my kids to sleep was hard but also so so good for them and us. I am NOT chill about my kids sleep ha ha.

katielookingforward said...

how has it already been 5 months?!? I'm not surprised he enjoys reading, he's your child! And I think sleep training given that you and Phil both have full time jobs is a good idea!

Gracie said...

He's such a big boy now! I can definitely see that sleep training would be important with you going back to your demanding job. It would be tough indeed to be up several times a night before a long day of work.

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

He is such an expressive baby! I love all those little faces he makes - adorable :-) And it sounds like he's going to be a reader like his mom.

Those pictures of Paul with your nephew are so sweet. You can definitely tell that Matthew is loving his time with him.

Marlys said...

It is the sweetest think to see Matthew & Paul's mutual admiration society!
It was a great idea that you did the sleep training as he was so easy to put down the two days I spent with him. He is truly a happy content little guy!
I miss him so much!

Charbelle said...

I love when you post pictures! I always have to show whoever I'm with because he's just so cute and I always react out loud! I'm glad he's figuring out how to sleep at daycare! Michael and I were in nursery yesterday and it was a bit hectic! We were originally short a person and we had a screamer, so when we got the extra person she was trying to calm the hysterical one down. Then another baby got upset and that was a domino effect, at one point Michael looked at me and said I quit, I didn't blame him! Fortunately it calmed down and after we paged the hysterical ones parents and the mom of the baby I couldn't get to calm down everyone else stayed happy for the most part. I think it's so sweet to see the interaction between Paul and his cousins! He's becoming a pro at tummy time!

Jeanie said...

Every photo makes me smile. It looks like things are really on the upswing, the stranger danger a thing of the past and all where it should be in the scheme of things. Glad day care is going well and naptime will straighten out. Probably good for him, actually, to learn how to sleep in other environments. I love that he's being social. And cute, cute, cute!

Stephany said...

As a former daycare teacher with infants, I can tell you that your daycare teachers probably LOVE that Paul can go to sleep on his own. It was always so nice when we had a baby who could do that, especially on the days where the babies were extra needy. :)

I'm glad the transition to being in daycare is going well, even if it took him awhile to figure out how to go to sleep there. Poor little dude. A new environment is tough when you're so little. But I'm glad he's not crying when you drop him off! That's a relief.

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

ah yes. the daycare illnesses. so much fun. ha. glad he is making the adjustment.

Carolina John said...

5 months goes by faster than you think, eh? The daycare sick is the worst. It's actually one of the biggest reasons Kelley switched to a SAHM. By the time you put the doc bills and how bad Ella felt on top of the rest of the cost, it didn't make sense to keep her in daycare. But that also might be more of an SC localized problem.

My brother Michael said something in an interview I read this morning that I think you would particularly appreciate right now:

Fatherhood is good. My daughter is six and is an absolute firecracker. Having a kid really helps keep me from drowning in my own self-absorption. It also kind of helps me understand the value of life and time. You have a kid, you fall in love with them as they turn into a real person, and you immediately start doing the math of how much time you have with them, what age they’ll probably be when you die, etc. You wish you’d had them earlier so the time with them could have been as long as possible, and you regret never even thinking about the whole having kids thing from that side of the equation. And with that mindset, all of your relationships are richer, your appreciation for your parents goes deeper, and there’s a visceral gratitude for just being alive every day that wasn’t there before. And that all ends up in songs.

https://www.themusicmermaid.com/home/singer-songwriter-michael-flynn-interview-new-album-pretend-like

suki said...

happy 5 months! time sure is flying by with the little ones - and so precious! gotta keep those feet photos handy for when he is older. ;-)

Amber said...

Paul does look like such a happy little guy! When Olivia's sleep improved her whole demeanour improved and our days together became so much more fun! We are going through another tough period right now with teething and clingy-ness but luckily we get amazing night sleep right now so that counteracts that! I know the transition to daycare has been tough but hopefully it will get better and better and as he gets older you will get to spend more time with him as he will be sleeping less!

San said...

He's so cute, Lisa. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be away from him for most of the day during the week.