Food!

About a week ago, we started solids with Preston. I had fully intended to wait until 6 months but I tried giving him a nice cool cucumber spear to chomp on for his teething gums and he was obsessed! So we started a bit early and so far, it's going really well. We are doing Baby Led Weaning (BLW) which basically allows the baby to feed themselves from the start and lets them decide what and how much to eat. You start giving them actual food (instead of purees) and they nom on it for a few weeks and then eventually start actually eating and swallowing.

Since Pres was 5.5 months when we started, I figured we have a little bit of a learning curve before he figured out the stuff on his tray was food and he was supposed to put it in his mouth. Umm no - he totally dove in and started stuffing everything we offered in his mouth. He's not actually swallowing too much right now, but that's totally fine. He's exploring textures and tastes so he learns about food and decides what he likes.

We are also doing a little bit of purees in the form of a "loaded spoon" (which is one of the concepts of BLW). We put a little bit of puree on a spoon and hand it to him and he puts it in his mouth - no more of us playing "airplane" or trying to shove a mush into his mouth for him. He is VERY into the spoon and feeding himself. It's pretty hilarious to see him feeding himself and of course, it's super messy! But I'm really loving this stage!

Pictures of my messy boy!

More cucumbers

Sweet potatoes, Broccoli and cucumbers

5 Months!

I'm a slacker mom this month because we're almost 2 weeks away from Preston's 6 month birthday, but I do want to make sure I do his monthly posts (even if they are super late!) so I can look back on these when I'm sending him off to kindergarten and crying my eyes out.

The 5th month was a little challenging for all of us, as my previously super wonderful sleeper continued his "sleep strike" so we're all feeling the effects. (Spoiler Alert - I will be doing a post about sleep training soon, as I finally bit the bullet and we "trained" the little man to work on developing better sleep habits)

Anyways, back to month 5...

Likes: Sitting up on his own (he can sit up unassisted for about 20 minutes at a time now!), trying to crawl, watching the kids in his daycare class, putting every.single.thing. he can find in his mouth, when I sing crazy songs when he's laying on his changing table, holding his bottle by himself, gnawing on a piece of ice in his mesh feeder, his exersaucer

Dislikes: Sleeping (especially naps at daycare), Teething, when a bottle is finished, burping (seriously, will he EVER like to be burped? When he's 14 and burping up a storm at the dinner table, I will remind him of how he used to flip out when we would burp him as a baby)

Biggest Achievements: Sitting up on his own! Little boy is obsessed with sitting - he is only happy when he's on his belly or sitting. It's crazy how fast he seemed to get strong enough to keep himself up.

Challenges: SLEEP! So the 4 month wakeful period has lasted into 5 months. My sweet boy who used to sleep 12-13 hours at a time is still waking up 5-8 times a night. Putting him down at night is fine - he goes down easily typically around 7:00pm. Then he has nights where he wakes up at 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am and he likes to start his day at 5am. Umm yeah. It doesn't happen every night like that but it's making us all sleep deprived.

I know it's a combination of teething and development but it still sucks. We don't go into soothe him when he wakes up unless he really starts crying/screaming. But I always wake up as soon as I hear his little noises over the monitor and then I lay there watching on the monitor while he talks to himself and rolls around his crib. He typically does this for up to 45 minutes and then is usually able to get himself back to sleep.

However, the whole cycle starts over 10-15 minutes later! So basically from 2am on, none of us sleep. There are a few times he does actually start to cry, so then we go in and soothe him, give him a paci and help him get back to sleep. I know it could be a lot worse, but the lack of sleep is making us a bit crabby over here!

The Good Stuff: Even though we aren't feeling super rested, Preston is SO MUCH FUN during the day that it makes me forget about all that night owl stuff. He is such a curious little guy - he wants to be in the middle of everything...grabbing, staring, observing everything around him. He loves to play in his exersaucer and can now easily spin all the way around to play with every toy. He loves tummy time and scooting on his belly - he can get all the way across the room with his army crawl/scooting. It's just so crazy to watch him figure things out - you can literally see his brain working pretty much 24/7. I love it!

Stats: We went to the doctor on his 5 month birthday for a formula issue and he's weighing in at 15lbs 4oz and he's 27" long. Still looooooong and skinny just like his dad! He's also wearing 6 month clothes, but we may need to move up to 9 months for footy pj's because he's so long.

He's started with a really cute laugh and giggle when we do certain things. He loves to play "airplane" with Jake or stand up on one of our laps and bounce up and down. He also loves to touch our faces and stick his hands in our mouth. I really cannot believe he will be 6 months in about 2 weeks. I'm so excited for the holidays with baby boy!!