Our baby in review: His Fifth Month
I can’t believe my baby is five months old. No longer can I cling to saying he’s “four-and-a-half months.” He is a full-fledged five-month-old, which is so close to SIX MONTHS which is SO OLD and AUGHHH!
Before I melt into a gooshy puddle, here is the fifth-month update:
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Vital stats: He hasn’t been weighed or measured since his four-month birthday (when he weighed 17 pounds, 2 oz. and measured 63.5 cm long), so we’re guessing … maybe 18 or 19 pounds? He certainly feels like a whopping 20-pounder. You would think my arms would be getting stronger, with all the lifting and lugging, but he just keeps getting bigger, so they never catch up.
Milestones: Sitting up! He started doing it right after he turned four months, but he’s gotten sooo good at it. It’s hilarious to see him just sitting on the floor, playing with toys, and being this whole little person and stuff. He also started “crawling” this month — more of an army crawl, and only backwards. We fed him cereal for the first time (yeah, THAT was an ordeal). He discovered his toes. He celebrated his first Halloween. And we started giving him a sippy-cup of water to play around with — he loves it!
On the move: Since he only crawls backwards, it’s very funny to watch him get wedged under the couch or the armchairs with his big cloth-diapered butt. And sometimes he will scoot backwards and cry while he’s doing it, because he’s trying to get to you but can only crawl away from you. Hopefully he will figure out fowards eventually (ahem, although I never, um, did crawl forward. Ever.).
What he’s been eating: His diet is still almost entirely breast milk. We were giving him a little bit of cereal at bedtime for a week or two, but have since pretty much stopped. He loved it at first, but then started to fuss after the first few bites — and since it wasn’t helping him sleep any longer, I just sort of said, “Whatever,” and stopped.
Pumping/bottle-feeding: I still pump a bit most days, to build up the freezer supply and give him the occasional fresh bottle when we’re out. He gets so distracted when we’re out that it’s sometimes impossible to nurse him in public, so the bottles are handy. He’s almost got the hang of holding it himself, which is nice.
How we’ve been sleeping: Remember how I said he was up every two hours all night during his fourth month? Except for a couple of decent nights, his entire fifth month was the same way. SO TIRED ALL THE TIME. Seriously. I was a lot more rested in the first three months, because he was getting one four- or five-hour stretch a night. I haven’t had one of those in two months now, and I have definitely been feeling it. Some days I am a total zombie and feel nauseous from being so tired, and I take Ibuprofen almost daily for headaches. According to everything mainstream I’ve read, he should not be getting up so often. But according to the breastfeeding gurus, it’s totally normal. FML. I am surprised, though, with how I’m still able to function. Sleep deprivation is hard, but it’s different when it’s because of your baby. They sort of give you the momentum to keep on going, even when you’re almost sobbing from being so exhausted.
Diapering: Still totally LOVING the BumGenius one-size all-in-ones and the BumGenius one-size pocket diapers. I can honestly say that while I started cloth-diapering strictly because of the cost (and that’s still a great benefit), I love it most for the cuteness now. I don’t mind changing diapers (yet, at least) because I get to pick a new colour, match it to his outfit, etc. Ah, so rewarding.
Things that surprised me: How much I enjoy his company. He’s like my little buddy! We make each other laugh, and he’s “aware” enough that if I make a certain movement like I’m going to tickle him, he laughs just knowing it’s coming. Babies = people! Who knew?
Things that have made me melt: When he lets his little body just collapse in my arms, with total faith that I will catch him and cuddle him. When I kiss his silky tummy and he grabs my hair and laughs. When I read to him at bedtime, and he looks up at me and smiles after a funny line in the book. When I rock him and nurse him in the middle of the night, and marvel at his blonde wisps and chubby little hands clutching me. How did I get so lucky?
Seven minutes to heaven
Baby Boy has been EXTREMELY fussy today.
Why? WHY? I’ll tell you WHY! Sorry, I’m a little punchy from lack of sleep. And excess crying.
Here is the perfect storm of events that led to this: he woke up slightly earlier than usual, took his morning nap much earlier than usual, and therefore woke up from his (short) nap much earlier than usual.
This resulted in a nightmare baby!
Yes, a baby who is still tired, but can’t let himself fall asleep, because it’s way too early for his afternoon nap, and OH MY GOD, the crying! The CRYING! He is not much of a screamer, normally (not since the blessed pacifier intervention), so it was super, super pleasant. Or something.
I rarely let him “cry it out” for naps (and never do at night), but the last time I did, I set the timer for six minutes (to keep myself from charging in to scoop him up). So this time, I plopped him in his crib and set the timer for seven minutes — I figure a little longer each time = a good thing.
And you know what? The weirdest thing just happened. I was sitting here, listening to him scream over the monitor, eating my lunch (raw veggies, apple slices, milk — not because I’m all healthy-ho, but because I indugled in cookie dough mid-morning). And his cries faded away EXACTLY before the microwave timer beeped.
Seriously, it was like, Wahhhh … wahhhh … sniffle … *silence* … beep! beep! beep! beep!
Lucky number seven!
Making my own baby cereal
I’m considering making my own baby cereal from brown rice.
You know, because I saw Josh and Anna Duggar do it, and I adore them and want to copy them shamelessly. Anyway …
Has anyone tried it? The only thing holding me back is worrying that he won’t get enough iron, since the packaged cereal is iron-fortified.
Thoughts?
Sitting up
Baby Boy is officially sitting up on his own. He looks like such a little boy, sitting there.
Ohhh, why is it so amazing to watch them grow up and learn new things, and also so hard to acknowledge that your little baby is getting older? That is the parenting paradox, isn’t it?
The thing we’re too scared to talk about …
Yes, the time has come to blog about The Thing That Will Not Be Named. OK, fine, I’ll name it: SIDS. I’m tired of having it cause me so much worry, and yet not blog about it.
SIDS has basically terrified me since I was pregnant. Since before, actually. The thing that scares me the most is right there in the name: “sudden.” Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The idea that it strikes babies suddenly, without warning, and then they are just … gone … Yeah, it’s kept me up on more than a few nights, to say the least.
My anxiety about SIDS went into high-gear when Baby Boy was born. He was so unimaginably perfect and fragile and yummy and MINE. But when Darling Husband laid him, all swaddled, in the clear plastic bassinet next to my hospital bed, I felt the nerves starting.
Sure, it was nighttime, and sure, I’d been awake for the entire hellish night before, but I knew right away I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t stop watching him. Making sure his chest was rising and falling. I was convinced that the only way I would sleep was if a nurse was stationed RIGHT THERE to watch him breathe. Unfortunately, they don’t do that — not even in Canada with our super-awesome healthcare.
So I laid there and watched him breathe, and only slept for an hour or two all night. I couldn’t understand how I was expected to sleep, and just … just TRUST that he would be alive when I woke up???
I wish I could say that I relaxed when we took him home from the hospital, and I did … somewhat … but not really. I still obsessively checked his breathing. He slept in the Playard bassinet right next to my bed, but I wouldn’t rest until I could SEE him from a lying-down position. I slept on about three pillows so that I could open my eyes and see him without having to sit up.
Always watching his chest.
Always listening to him breathe.
Always jolting upright if his breathing seemed erratic.
Always touching him lightly if his breathing seemed too quiet.
Always convinced he was too hot.
Always turning on the fan.
Always worrying that sleepers were too warm.
Always touching the back of his neck to see if it was sweaty.
Always pulling blankets far, far away from his face.
Always worrying.
After the first month or so, my fear of SIDS eased up a bit. I think it was probably from exhaustion. And getting used to him. And realizing that he wasn’t going to spontaneously combust if I turned my back.
But the fear never went away. It is only in the last month or so, when Baby Boy grew out of the dreaded “SIDS is most likely to happen between 2-4 months of age” zone, that I calmed down a little more about SIDS. I relaxed about letting him sleep on his stomach (because I can’t stop him). He can roll himself over easily now. He is getting bigger and stronger every day. I remind myself that we don’t have any of the risk factors (except stomach-sleeping). I am trying to not let the fear consume me.
Even now, as I type this, Baby Boy is napping in his crib in the next room. I have the baby monitor right here, but it never picks up his breathing noises (even though it’s on the highest sensitivity). His door is shut, because otherwise he wakes up at every little noise, and I can’t open it to check on him or he will wake up immediately and be a cranky mess.
I’m not going to lie — it’s HARD to have him in there, and me out here, wondering and hoping and praying he is OK. I still think about SIDS, and worry about SIDS, and I’m not sure if other mothers do to this extent. It’s getting easier to calm myself down about it, as he gets older and creeps towards the “safe zone” of being one year old, but … it’s just hard.
OK, I just went and checked on him.
I couldn’t help it.
I could feel myself getting chest pains just from writing about it.
He’s still sleeping peacefully … with his fan on … in his lightweight outfit … with no blankets … and no crib bumpers … and nothing else in the crib … etc., etc., etc …
That’s what I hate most about the SIDS fear. It’s that the experts give you a huge list of things to do to help lower the risk, but it could still strike, even if you do everything exactly right. No one knows exactly what causes it. They may never know.
All we can do, as parents, is follow the recommendations, pray that our babies stay safe, and then try to relax about it. I’m still working on the third thing …
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