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!