July 5, 2019
Four months old y’all! Can we talk about how much babies change around 3 and 4 months. It is like there’s been a developmental explosion at our house!
Development
SO. MUCH. CHANGE. It has been fascinating to watch Caroline develop and change over the last few weeks. She has gotten very good at grabbing things and bringing them to her mouth. We have really loved Sophie le girafe! It is super easy for her to grab, and the hooves are easy for her to put in her mouth and chew on. Highly recommend.
She is extremely chatty, a lot like her mom. Caroline wants full eye contact when she’s having a conversation (as she deserves!). I make a point to really engage with her and carry on conversation as long as she pleases.
Around 15 weeks Caroline was pushing herself onto her side all of the time. I would help her onto her belly to give her an idea of how to roll on her own. At 17 weeks Caroline rolled onto her belly all by herself! Once she figured it out she was rolling all of the time. I am so proud of her, but selfishly wish she would slow down!
Sleep
Along with this developmental explosion has come a sleep regression. I didn’t realize that these two things were tied together until I saw this post on Instagram by Taking Cara Babies. It made so much sense!
Caroline still goes down around 6:30 or 7:00 pm. Her sleep regression started a few weeks ago with her waking up around 6:00 am. This didn’t cause me to get less sleep, since I wake up at this time to pump, but it made the morning pump a little more difficult. Around this time, Milton and I traveled to Austin and stayed in a hotel with Caroline for the first time. She did great! The second night she did wake up in the middle of the night, but I gave her a little bottle and she went right back to sleep. We (minus Milton) spent the next week at my parents’ house. Caroline’s sleep was really great, but she kept continuing to wake up earlier than normal.
Once we got back home the regression was in full. Caroline started waking up twice a night, and now we are down to once a night, with a full night’s sleep here and there. Most of the time I am able to go in and wiggle her back to sleep within a few minutes.
Now that she is a full on roller, she has rolled onto her belly in the middle of the night. The first night she did this I was on edge! Truth: I went in and put her back onto her back at least twice. I text some friends for reassurance, and the next night I just let her roll. We have the Owlet monitor, so that thing would scream if she was suffocating. It is still a little scary to see your baby on her belly through the night though!
Growth
Caroline weighed 14 pounds and was 24 inches long at her four month check up. This puts her in the 73rd percentile for weight, and the 60th percentile for height. Back at her two month appointment she was in the 25th percentile for both height and weight, so we have been doing so much growing. She is wearing mostly 3-6 month / 6 month sized clothes. It has been bittersweet to box up her smaller clothes.
Feeding
Caroline eats anywhere from 28 to 32 ounces a day. We were doing 5 feedings a day of about 6 ounces. Her reflux has continued, so we recently switched to 6 feedings of smaller amounts in order to lessen the spit up.
We are still pumping strong! My supply has been keeping up well (read how I keep my production up in this post). One recent change that I’ve made is taking dairy out of my diet. I was chatting with a friend of a friend that I was in a wedding with a few weeks ago. She is a pediatric resident, and she suggested taking dairy out of my diet. I am on week three of no dairy and Caroline’s spits have DEF gotten smaller and less frequent. Yes, no dairy is SO HARD. I have not given up my coffee creamer though. After about a week and a half of no dairy, I relapsed and had some pizza. My stomach was hurting within 10 minutes. Cutting the dairy is benefitting us both.
