Audrey is 5 months old today, March 15th, 2012!
Weight: 14.6 lbs (per our scale at home)
Length: {unknown}
Clothes: size 6 months (3-6 months)
Diaper: size 1-2 Huggies (Still! I think we are on the last package now, though, and will move her up to size 2 soon.)
Food: I am nursing Audrey in the morning and at night before bed, and she has been getting 3 bottles of breastmilk at daycare (2- 5oz bottles + 1- 3oz bottle) with 2 feedings of cereal mixed with 2oz formula at "dinnertime" and “lunch”.
Sleep: Audrey is mostly sleeping through the night still! This past month, she was a little less predictable. I think she was going through a growth spurt. A couple nights, she woke up wanting to eat. And then for over 2 weeks, she was waking up at 5am (instead of her normal 6am) and wanted to eat right away. She has been napping less at daycare, on average about 2-2.5 hours total.
I love this sequence of pictures... this month, Audrey wanted to eat the stuffed puppy dog. Doesn't she look guilty in the 3rd picture?
What a happy little girl!
I am proud to say that Audrey has gone 5 months with strictly breastmilk in her bottles. We were even mixing her cereal with breastmilk, but then stopped after about a week (I didn’t want to waste the breastmilk!) and started mixing with formula. But that’s all the supplementing we’ve done. Now, after 5 months, we’ve decided that it is a good time to supplement her bottles with formula when needed. When I first started pumping at work, I had a really good supply of milk. I would get at least 16 ounces of milk between my 3 pump sessions at work. Well, now 2 months in, my supply has decreased. I’m not sure if it’s because my body knows it’s not Audrey, if it’s stress because of work, if it’s lack of sleep, or if it’s just my supply decreasing. Who knows. But it really stresses me out if I’m not able to get a sufficient amount of milk in 1 day. Some days I only get 9 oz at work, good days now I get 11 oz. Most days, I’m usually somewhere in between, right around 10 oz. For a couple weeks this past month, I was getting up at 3am to pump. I was hoping that would increase my supply during the day and also just have another session to help get the 12-15 ounces Audrey needed during the day at daycare. It was really strange waking up to pump, even though Audrey was sleeping through the night. I’m glad that we made it to this 5-month mark, and I plan on continuing to breastfeed her hopefully until her 1st birthday. It’s a special time that I get to have with her in the morning and at night, not to mention that I want to continue the health benefits that the breastmilk provides.
Audrey has been sucking her thumb less this month. She’ll still find her hand if she drops her pacifier, but she prefers her pacifier. Although she does like to eat with her hands. It’s pretty funny watching her eat her rice cereal. We have to hold her hands down… otherwise she will keep them down so we can put the spoon in her mouth, then she brings her hands up to suck her thumb. Like it helps the cereal go down. So cute. And so messy! Needless to say, we wait until after dinner for bathtime.
Audrey’s still a very active little girl. She loves her bathtime and loves to play and splash around. That is one of the highlights of our day… giving Audrey a bath. We laugh the whole time! She’s still rolling all over her mat (and her crib!), and she can sit up when I hold her hands though she still needs assistance. She is really growing into her jumparoo... her feet (well, one foot at a time) touches the ground now! She’s growing and getting stronger every day; it’s really incredible.
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Check out that hair! Overall, her hair is getting lighter, but she still has the
really dark baby hair at the bottom... right below her bald area. Love it! |
Audrey is laughing a bit more now and cooing and making a bunch of noise. Carl or I can get her laughing at least once every day. Carl can really get her going when he is playing with her before bathtime. Just this past week, she started snorting at him because she’s laughing so hard. And there have been several times that I’ve been in the other room and heard her laughing at Carl. They are so cute together!
I’ve been taking advantage of this beautiful weather lately. It has been in the 60s-70s for the past week. Every night when Audrey and I get home, we go for a walk around the neighborhood. This is the kind of working out I can do! I get to spend time with Audrey and look at her cute smiling face the whole time. Our normal route is 1.6 miles and usually takes us about 30 minutes. Our longer route (usually reserved for weekends) is about 2.3 miles. Carl usually heads out with Chief when he gets home from work and meets us somewhere halfway. Most days, Audrey falls asleep during our walks. Fresh air and the rhythm of the bumps in the sidewalk work every time.
We have established a good nightly/bedtime routine that works for Audrey. Our nightly routine goes like this:
5:30pm – get home from daycare, change Audrey’s diaper, then head out for a walk (when the weather’s nice) or watch Ellen on TV
6:30pm – feed Audrey cereal
6:50-7pm(ish) – Bath
7:15-7:30pm(ish) – I nurse Audrey; Carl washes bottles and makes bottles and packs my pump bag for the next day (Carl’s the BEST! It’s a huge help that he takes care of this!)
7:45-8pm(ish) – Carl gets Audrey ready for bed, reads her a bedtime story, and puts her to sleep for the night
Happy 5 months, Audrey Bear! It's been a really, really good month. It just keeps getting better and better spending time with our happy girl and seeing you grow. We love you!
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