6 months

I cannot believe that Holden hit the six month mark this month!  I have no idea how time is passing by so quickly.  It's definitely bittersweet to watch your baby grow - it's so hard to see the little baby phase disappear but it is so fun to to venture into each new stage.

Sleep
Well, sleep hasn't been the greatest around here lately.  It's been a roller coaster of ups and down this month.  Some nights Holden wakes up 3 or 4 times, and some nights he only gets up once.  His naps at home usually range from a half hour to two hours but at daycare he takes a lot of 10-15 minute catnaps.  I'm really hoping that he'll get the hang of naps at daycare soon!

We finally moved Holden out of his Rock N Play cradle this month and into a Pack N Play in our room.  I'm just not ready to move him out of our room....not actually sure when that will happen. :o/

We gave Holden the pacifier back one night when he kept making a sucking sound while he was asleep but restless.  He only gets it while he's sleeping and so far it's working out really well since he is now able to find it and put back in his mouth on his own.

Eating
Holden tried a lot of new food during month 5. The only food we found that he really didn't care for were apples and peaches.  He will eat apples if they are mixed with another fruit but he isn't too fond of them alone.  He really likes peas, bananas, and pears.  Holden continued to eat 6 ounces bottles every 3-5 hours this month.

Clothes
Holden officially outgrew all of his 3-6 month outfits this month.  All of his clothing is 6-9 months or 6-12 months.  Well, we are still stuffing him into his 3-6 month winter coat.  Hopefully cold temperatures will disappear before completely outgrows the coat.

Health
Thankfully, Holden was pretty healthy this month.  He did catch another little cold but it didn't get very bad or take very long to go away.  I weighed him at home at the 6 month mark and got an unofficial weight of 22 pounds.

St. Patrick's Day :o)

Likes

-Holden loves to babble and he loves to do it loudly!  He often squeals and yells while he's playing or just jabbering.

-He still loves to play in his jumperoo.

-Holden likes to roll around on the floor and play with his toys.  He's really into his rattle and Sophie giraffe.  He mostly just likes to bang them into the floor.

-He really likes to move around. He's not a sit and cuddle kind of guy.

-Holden likes to listen to music.  He listens to everything from rap to the Lakota Lullaby station on Pandora each night with his daddy.

-He likes to pull on mommy's hair and necklaces, and searches for her necklace when she's not wearing one.

coloring on a snow day from daycare :o)

Dislikes

-Taking naps at daycare.

-Going to sleep.  I can't wait for the day when I can put him down awake and he doesn't cry/fuss himself to sleep.

-Holden doesn't like being handed off to strangers or people he doesn't see often.  Once he's had a chance to check them out from the safety of mom or dad's arms, he's okay with going to them.

checking out the skeleton in mom's classroom

Firsts/milestones

-Holden took his first ride in the font seat of shopping cart this month.  He loved looking around at everything and squealed several times. :o)

-He's getting really good at sitting up unassisted but can't hold onto the pose for more than a minute or two before toppling over.

-Holden got to swing for the first time at the park while visiting his grandma and grandpa in Woonsocket.  He also got to go down a slide with his daddy.

-He got to do some sensory play with a cupcake on his six month birthday.  He didn't get to eat any even though he tried several times to sneak a bite.

5 months

I have no idea how my baby boy is 5 months old already!  Month 4 was my favorite month so far.  Holden is such a happy little guy and has such a fun personality.

Sleep
Uff, sleep was a rough one this month.  Holden got his first cold and it totally threw off his sleep schedule.  At the worst point, we were up about every hour to hour and a half each night, and usually had along wake up of up to two hours with crying.  It was rough on everyone.  I discovered that he would sleep next to me in bed in longer stretches, so to keep everyone sane, we started co-sleeping this month.  Holden would start the night in his cradle but after his first wake up (as early at 10 pm some nights) I would put him in bed with us.  This wasn't ideal but it helped us all get a little more sleep.

At the end of month 4, Holden was starting to get back on track during the nighttime, but was still having a hard time napping at daycare.  Most days he only sleeps a total of one hour at daycare, with his longest nap being around 25 minutes.  His naps at home were a little better, usually sleeping just over an hour for each nap.

We ditched the pacifier at the 4 month 3 week mark.  He was waking up multiple times a night when the pacifier would fall out and would fuss until I'd put it back in his mouth.  One night I listened to him blow air out of his mouth to spit the pacifier out and then fuss for it again.  I decided after that that he didn't really need it so we just stopped giving it to him the next day and it didn't seem to bother him at all.

Eating
Holden started baby foods the last week of his fourth month.  He started with green beans, which he wasn't too sure about the first night.  The second night, he ate like a champ and he hasn't minded eating his veggies since.

He continues to eat 5-6 ounces each feeding, though he has stretched the time between bottles from every 3-4 hours.

Clothes
Holden wore a mix of 3-6 month and 6-12 month outfits this month.  Several outfits that he wore at the beginning of the month had to be put away by the end of the month as he outgrew them.

Health
As I mentioned, Holden has his first cold this month. It was more of a chest cold and it hung around for a little over two weeks.  I felt so bad for him as he seemed pretty miserable at night.  He didn't seem to be so bothered by it during the day, but everything must have settled in his chest at night and it made the nights pretty long.  Once he kicked the cold, he was healthy for the rest of the month.

This isn't really a health thing, but since it's skin related I'm going to throw it in here.  Holden's stork bite (red birth mark) on the back of his neck faded quite a bit over the month.  I wish I had a picture of it from when he was smaller but this is what is left of it.

Likes
-Holden really got into playing with his toys this month.  He has a little car shaped toy that has 3 sound buttons on it that he loves to play with and push the buttons on.
-He loves to jump in his jumperoo.
-He likes bathtime and loves to splash around in the water.
-He likes to listen to music and really loves songs with lots of bass.
-Holden likes to lie on his changing pad.  I'm not sure why but he has always like to lie there.  He smiles, laughs, and coos whenever he's there which makes changing his diaper a pretty easy task (well, easier than if he hated it, that is).
-He likes to grab at my phone whenever we Facetime my mom or take selfies.  He likes to pull it really close to his face and look into it.
-He really likes to roll around on the floor.
-Putting everything and anything into his mouth has also become a big hit with him this month.  His toes and fingers are probably his favorite things to put in his mouth.

Dislikes
-At the beginning of month 4, Holden didn't like when his momma didn't have her glasses on or had a towel on her head.  He just stared at her until she put her glasses on or took the towel off.  Closer to month 5 he would start to smile when she looked different.
-Holden started to notice if he was in the room alone playing (if we'd go to the bathroom or kitchen quick) and would start to fuss until we came back into view.

Firsts/Milestones
-Holden got his two bottom teeth this month.  His first tooth popped through about 4 months 3 weeks and the other cut through the day before he turned 5 months old.  He loves to run his tongue and bottom lip over them.
-Holden moved into a big boy car seat this month.

-He found his private parts this month and, in true male fashion, has to grab at them every chance he gets.
-Holden did his first painting craft this month.  He painted hearts to send to both sets of grandparents.

-Holden started holding his arms up a bit when he wants to be picked up, which is ridiculously cute.
-He has been working on sitting unassisted but whenever he laughs and/or smiles, he throws his head back and falls over.
-He has also been working really hard on getting his legs up under him to crawl.  He did get up on his knees and scoot forward a bit this month so I suppose it won't be long until he's on the go.
-He hung out for his first Superbowl. ;o)

-Holden celebrated his first Valentine's Day.

4 months

I'm starting to confuse myself here.  I feel like this should actually he his 3 month post since everything I'm writing about happened during his third month, leading up to his 4 month birthday.  Guess I'll just go with it.

It's so hard to believe Holden turned 4 months old today.  Time is flying by so fast that I feel like tomorrow I'm going to be watching him graduate high school. I love watching him grow, I just wish time would slow down a wee bit.

Sleep
Oh boy, it seemed like we took one step forward, two steps back in this category for the first part of the month.  Holden started to stretch out sleep between bottles at night, then all of a sudden he was waking up three times a night.  We hit the mecca on January 14, when he slept 11 hours from 7 pm to 6 am.  He hasn't pulled off another night like that, but he is consistently sleeping until at least 4:30 am now, which is so much better than where we were for awhile there.

We had a very scary episode on the night of January 1st.  For whatever reason, I woke up and noticed that Holden was in distress.  He was completely silent but his little arms were flailing around like crazy.  I scooped him up quick and gave him a couple quick whacks on his back. He started gagging really hard and then started to breathe regularly again.  My best guess is that he was basically drowning in his spit-up.  I definitely feel like we had a guardian angel watching over us that night because if I wouldn't have woken up right then, I hate to think what would have happened.  After that night, we bought a Levana monitor for him to wear at night.  It will alert us if he does not have any movement for 15 seconds.  I have slept much better since he started wearing it and thankfully we have not had any more scares.

Eating
This is another area that things were a little wonky in this month.  When he was having his worst sleep, he was also wanting to eat 5 ounces every 2 hours during the day.  We decided to give rice cereal a try, as he was obviously not staying full enough, especially at night.  On January 14 (3 months, 3 weeks old), we tired rice cereal for the first time.  He did really well, but he wasn't quite sure what to think of what he getting.

We also tried a couple different formulas this month.  Early in the month, we tried soy formula to see if it would help clear up some of his stuffiness.  Holden was only on it for about a week though, as it seemed to give him acid reflux.  He would fuss every time just before he spit up so we put him back on his regular formula.  Just this past week we tried a formula that is made to reduce spit up.  He had been spitting up so much that we gave up on burp rags and just started using dish towels.  This formula didn't really help either, so Holden's doctor recommended that we try adding rice cereal to his formula to thicken it up a bit with the hopes he could keep it down.  So, tomorrow we'll be going back to his regular formula and start adding rice formula.

We tried putting bigger nipples on his bottle too to help the spit up (Dave read that this could help) and it helped for a day or two and then he was right back at it.

We were lucky with all the formula changes as Holden handled all of them like a champ.  We didn't have to do any mixing of old and new, he would just take a whole bottle of the new stuff without any trouble.

Clothes
I've already had to pack away some of Holden's 3-6 month outfits.  He has a lot of 6-9 month outfits that he's been wearing.  He has received several 12 month winter outfits as gifts that I'm hoping he'll be able to wear yet this winter because he's not going to fit into them next winter at this rate.  He's still wearing a size 2 diaper.

Last summer I went to some rummage sales to stock up on baby clothes.  I didn't buy much past 6-9 months thinking that that would get me through until garage sales started again the following summer,  He's definitely going to outgrow everything I have before the garage sales start again though so I guess he's going to have a brand new wardrobe to wear for 9-12 month clothing.  He's happiest when he's naked though so maybe I won't have to buy too much.  ;o)

Health
Well, other than having a stuffy nose most of the time, Holden has been very healthy (knock on wood).  I'm terrified he's going to get the flu or the measles now that they are going around our area.

He did develop a bit of a rash on the trunk of his body early this month.  We narrowed that down to a new sleep sack we'd been using (that was 100% polyester) and as soon as we quit using it the rash went away.

We went in for Holden's 4 month check up yesterday (January 23).  He weighed 17 lbs 12 oz (95th percentile), was 26 inches long (86th percentile), and his head was 17 inches around [76th percentile, which the nurse told us means he's so very smart ;o)].  He got another round of an oral vaccine and 3 shots.  He sure chewed us out when the shots were over but he's handled them much better than last time.  It took about 48 hours after his 2 month shots to get over being crabby but this time he's hardly been crabby at all in the first 24 hours after.

Likes
-Holden likes to suck on his thumb.  He's always been a little bit of a thumb sucker but he's been doing it even more over the past month.  Sometimes he sucks on his thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger all at the same time.

-He loves to splash in the bathtub.  We removed the sling from his tub this month and he has been so excited to sit in the water and splash around.

Yes, someday he will probably ask us why he had a hot pink bathtub.  The simple answer is that it was $10 cheaper than the blue one and I wasn't going to pay that big of a difference for a color. :o)
-Holden is finally interested in books.  I had tried to read to him several times prior to this month and he never had the patience to sit and look at/listen to the book.  This month he has taken quite an interest in books and his favorite book is Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss.

-He is so vocal now and likes to shriek and squeal when he's happy or really getting into telling us a story.  He also makes a funny noise that we call his elephant noise when he's getting into his stories - he takes a big breath and then blows it through his nose.
-Holden also likes to stick his tongue out and play with it by moving it around in all directions.  He likes to suck on his lips too; mostly his bottom lip but he will sometimes suck on the top too.
-Holden really likes to lie on his changing pad and tell stories, kick his legs, and squeal. This isn't new this month but I don't think I've written about it before.
-He likes to hang onto the dish towels that we use as burp clothes.  He whips them around and buries his face into them and squeals.  He likes them so much that we call them his friends. ;o)
-Holden has really taken an interest in toys this month too.  He loves his playmat and grabbing onto the various toys that dangle down.  He really likes to play with the activity cube we got him for Christmas, the huge stuffed puppy my brother gave him for Christmas, and his Sophie teether.

Dislikes
-Holden doesn't like to sit in his car seat for more than an hour.  This make trips to my parent's house not so fun as it's a two hour drive from our place to theirs.
- He doesn't like waking up from a nap in someone's arms.  He's usually pretty cranky if he wakes up and hasn't been put in his cradle.

Firsts/Milestones
-Holden hit another big milestone just two days before his 4 month birthday.  He figured out how to roll from his back to his tummy.  Last month he started rolling from his tummy to his back, and exactly a month later he started rolling the other way.  I was pretty excited when I saw him roll to his tummy.  As I cheered him on, he just looked at me like "What? I do this everyday." ;o)
-He got control of his head early on this month.  He's just so darn cute sitting in his Bumbo.

-He is starting to get ticklish in his thigh crease, armpits, and neck.  Sometimes you barely have to touch the area before he starts to squirm and laugh and other times he looks at you're crazy and is wondering what the heck you're doing to him.
-His first little dimples started to show this month.  He has a little dimple in his left cheek and one near his chin on the left side.  Oh, how I love his dimples!
-Holden has his first Christmases this month.  He got to celebrate with his Smith relatives on the 25th, Lannings on the 26, and we had our Christmas on the 27th.

gosh, I love his eyebrows :o)

3 months

Sleep
Holden had a slight improvement in this category over last month.  A few times we only had one wake up per night but most nights we still get up twice.  He still likes to be rocked to sleep at home (yay!) but he doesn't night like it at daycare.  Joy (our daycare provider) said that when she tries to rock him, he just arches his back and gets fussy.  So, she swaddles him and lays him down in the Rock N Play and he puts himself to sleep.  I was worried that he might start pulling this at home too but thankfully he still lets me rock him.

(a little blurry but I actually captured a smile!)

Eating
Holden eats 5 ounces every 2 1/2 to 3 hours.  We tried to cut back to 4 ounces to see if that would improve his spitting up (which started to get pretty yucky this month) but he wasn't having any of that.  So, we stuck with 5 ounces.

Clothes
Well, I put the 0-3 month clothing away this month and pulled out the 3-6.  I think I may have waited a little too long to move up a size as several of the 3-6 month outfits are a little snug.  It was a little sad to put all those clothes away!  Holden also started wearing size 2 diapers this month.

(so happy at daycare)

Crying
This may be the last month that this is a category here.  Holden pretty much only cries when he's hungry and/or tired.

Health
Well, that cold that we thought he had last month wasn't really a cold.  He's been congested ever since.  We went to see the doctor on December 12 and he said that sometimes babies are just congested.  Since it's not affecting his sleep or weight gain (had gained 2 pounds - 15 lbs 12 oz - since his check-up two weeks prior), he said it's nothing to worry about.  Otherwise, he's been healthy (knock on wood).

Likes
-Holden likes to lie on the ottoman and push with his feet until his head hangs off the end.  He's already becoming a little daredevil.

-He likes to blow raspberries and spit bubbles with his mouth.
-He really likes to watch the ceiling fan and looks for it when we are sitting in the rocking chair.
-He like to experiment with his voice and is making louder sounds.

Dislikes
-He doesn't like to smile when the camera is on him.  He'd, for the most part, just rather stare at it.  He's the same way when he's around more than just a couple people.

Firsts/Milestones
-Well the big milestone this month was rolling from his tummy to his back just two days before his 3 month birthday (December 22).
-The big "first" this month was his first time at daycare.  He spent two hours at daycare on December 1st, and then spent his first whole day there on December 8th.  He has transitioned to daycare very well, which has made it a lot easier on me.  Don't get me wrong...walking away from that daycare without him that first day tore my heart out.  I asked my co-workers why they didn't tell me that the first days at daycare were harder than labor & delivery. ;o)
-First Thanksgiving was spent at my parent's house

-Holden's first visit with Santa was December 5th.

-Holden attended his first church service on his 3 month birthday.  We attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at the church in my hometown. He did such a good job of hanging out during the service, and actually slept through most of it.