Ally is now 4 months old and she has truly become a Daddy’s girl and her Mommy’s princess.  Life is still chaotic but I am doing better at taking it one day at a time. After all, it’s okay to order takeout on a random week day if there isn’t enough time to make dinner, or maybe bedtime is 830p instead of 8p a few nights a week for Bode, or the laundry basket is a mile high and no one has the time or energy to fold the clothes.  If you know me well you know that I am a perfectionist so these are not easy things for me to let go of but I have to remind myself amongst all this craziness, this is our life today and it’s only going to be temporary, and soon enough these kids are going to be grown and won’t need us to take care of them.  This month we were able to get on a little bit better of a ‘schedule’, nothing permanent day to day but it’s better than last month…

Sleeping/Feeding

I’m so proud to say Ally still gets 100% breast milk.  From here on out this is longer than I was able to provide Bode with breast milk.  While we did give Bode organic formula (the best we could provide him), there was always a small guilt I felt not being able to provide him breast milk his entire first year.  But they say every pregnancy and baby is different so I’ll take what I can get! We still have a little one that spits up a lot but I was reading that it should start to get better around 4 months and go away completely around 12 months so that’s very promising.  If you remember last month I got mastitis for the 2^nd time this pregnancy and I was so worried about my supply and thankfully I didn’t lose anything.  Once I started taking the antibiotics I increased my daily water consumption and also took a few fenugreek pills to hopefully counterbalance the antibiotics. Either way, I still have my milk supply and we are still breastfeeding daily.  I also started doing more bottles a few days a week since eventually I’m going to go back to work and I’ll need Ally to be able to take a bottle when she is at daycare.  We had a few rough days where she refused the bottle but would nurse so we’ll continue giving her bottles when we can so she has a smooth transition.  I also started to notice her really noticing me anytime I’m eating food.  I’ll be feeding her while I’m eating (which happens pretty often) and she’ll stop what she’s doing just to watch me put food in my mouth.  While I would love to feed her solids early, the pediatrician is recommending I wait till 6 months because she is exclusively breastfed and the longer I can hold out the less likely it is she will get any food allergies or asthma if I wait till 6 months.  Oh and something new I learned that rice cereal is not recommended anymore because they have found arsenic in it so they would prefer the first grain be oatmeal or a mixed cereal, however I may actually start her on avocado because I’ve also heard that is a good ‘first food’ option.  I can’t believe we are already at that point in this first year of her life!

Sleeping this month has been so unpredictable.  Ally has gotten up anywhere from 1-3x/night over the past month.  I was so confused when this started happening because she at least had some 7-8 hour sleeps last month.  Then I went on the KellyMom website and found an article about 4-month olds. This is the age where babies start to be alert and curious about the world and will often be more distracted when eating.  Therefore they might eat less frequently during the day and then get up more in the evening to compensate for the poor eating patterns during the day.  And that is exactly what Ally is doing because she is completely distracted unless we are in a dark room and there isn’t any ‘big brother’ or lights (T.V. or ipad) to distract her.  Plus she seems to be doing more catnaps rather than real naps so I had to try and change that up by paying more attention to her feedings and get her sleeping in her crib during naps more often.  Additionally, we started CIO (cry-it-out) to get Ally to fall asleep for both naps and at nighttime.  I do still occasionally rock her to sleep but for the most part if I know she isn’t hungry and no gas, I will just let her CIO.  So far the longest CIO was 20 minutes but the majority of them are less than 10 minutes so she is getting good at putting herself to sleep.  I also got the ‘go ahead’ to start CIO at night, we are going to continue our 7pm bedtime and then a dream feed around 10pm (my bedtime) and then I am going to try to enforce CIO if she wakes up any time after the dream feed till 530am.  Wish me good luck!

Naptime has been getting much harder because she only wants to sleep in her bed (swaddled with white noise) or in the car seat after we’ve been driving around for a while (rocking her to sleep).  It’s getting hard to take her out places because she won’t necessarily sleep during dinnertime or when we are visiting friends or family.  She’s just so curious about her new surroundings that unless it’s a familiar sleeping place she refuses to sleep.  And she will fight it with lots of screaming and crankiness, my beautiful little stubborn princess!

Miscellaneous

At the wellness check-up everything looked good; she’s 12^th percentile for weight at 12lb 6 ounces and 45^th percentile for height at 24 ¼ inches.  The doctor was impressed with how active and alert she was at the appointment and she only cried during the actual shots but was fine afterwards.  We go back at 6-months for her next wellness check and I plan to get her ears pierced too as long as everything looks good!

I’m predicting now that Ally is going to be an early talker.  She just loves having chats with me and just lights up when I repeat the sounds she makes.  Bode even joins in on the conversations sometimes and it’s the cutest thing!  She still loves to chew on her hand so I think that we still have an early teether but no teeth yet.

I have forgotten to mention how much this little girl hates riding in the car.  If it’s not me putting her in the car seat it’s once I shut the door and we get on the road.  I have things for her to look at facing backwards but I think she feels like she is missing out on the action.  I feel awful for it but plan to keep her in her car seat facing backwards till she’s at least 2 years old so she’s got a long time to wait till she faces forward.

I feel like I’ve written a lot about all the things Ally dislikes so I figured I needed to mention something she loves – bath time.  It’s amazing how she can be in the worst mood, screaming hysterically, and you get her undressed and put her in the bath and she instantly calms down.  This makes me such a happy mommy because I always loved bath time with Bode when he was a baby and I can now do the same with Ally.  She loves looking at herself in the reflection and smiling at me too.  But the bath also makes her super hungry so as soon as I take her out it’s a race to get her dressed so we can feed right afterwards.

I’ve also had the opportunity to see her roll a few times now from her tummy to her back, and even once from her back to her tummy.  I finally got a video of it to show Matt so we are going to continue with the tummy time so she can get stronger and stronger.  This is very bittersweet because that means no more swaddling, but I guess its good timing with sleep training because we can do both transitions at the same time (hopefully).  Next physical milestone is sitting up on her own!

Wow I guess this was a pretty eventful month, I’ve also noticed how good she’s gotten at grasping things.  I have a few toys I bring with us whenever we leave the house and she loves to grab them and of course put them in her mouth.  She especially loves this little book that has crackle paper in it and makes noises.  I was always told girls are usually better at fine motor skills than boys but I can’t seem to remember what Bode was like with holding onto objects at this age.

Funny Moments

This little girl is a chatterbox; I get so many squeals, coos, and babbles all day long.  I think its way more than I remember from Bode and I guess I’m just going to have to get used to it because I hear girls are typically more talkative than boys.  The best part are the facial expressions that come along with all the talking, is as if she is really telling me a story about her day.  Bode talks A LOT now too so between the two of them there is a lot of noise going on in this house!

Diaper size – size 2

Clothing size – some 0-3 months, and 3-6 month clothes

Nicknames – Al, Ally, Squishy, Ally-Boo, Ally-Bear, babygirl

4-Month Hair color – brown

4-Month eye color –blue

4-Month Weight – 12lb 6 ounces

4-Month Height – 24 ¼ inches

What’s up with Bode?

Bode has started pre-school and so far he seems to be doing well. He only just started last week so I’ll have more to say next month.  There’s a lot more stimulation going on day to day than when he was in daycare and most of the kids are older than him vs. most of the kids being a lot younger than him at daycare.  I think his overall communication is going to get better and he is going to use his words more often vs. just pointing at something and getting frustrated.  After week 1 I’m already realizing I need to feed him dinner right when he gets home or he gets to be really cranky.  Overall school has really adjusted our nightly routine but we seem to be handling it pretty well.  Like I said before, its only week 1 so we’ll see how the next month turns out.

Bode’s 3^rd birthday is around the corner and I am so far loving this age, he still has his difficult times but for the most part he is so much fun.  I love hearing all of the new words and phrases that come out of his mouth.  I need to start writing down some of the things he says or maybe video him if he lets me!