I love this picture of her with her Aunt Mallory and Uncle James because her sweet little baby face is just so deliciously chubby. I kid you not... I can't resist just nibbling on her! That little chin, those squashy cheeks, that tiny little button nose. She is my little lump of sugar! I love this picture because her eyes look so round and blue.
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So as we round the final corner of her 5th month and head into the last stretch, here's an update of all the fun things she's been learning and doing.
She sits up on her own quite well now! I feel like it happened in a flash! One day she was able to wobble and stay upright a few seconds before toppling over, and then every time we tried it after that she stayed upright longer and longer. Now she can stay that way more than five minutes! She still topples over if she loses focus, so we can't just set her down and walk away. (Mommy learned that lesson today... sat her on the kitchen floor and went to find my shoes... next thing I knew she was hysterically crying because she fell and hit her face on the tile. So sad!) But yeah, just like that, we have a sitter!
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Still no crawling. Ever since Elsa learned to roll over onto her back, tummy time is a thing of the past. She has always hated it and now she has a method to fight it... just roll over. So methinks she will either skip crawling and go straight for walking OR she will learn to crawl from her seated position rather than from her tummy.
One thing she loves to do is lock those knees and STAND. Of course she can't balance, but she can definitely support her weight. Dad likes to play this game with her where her stands her on his hand and helps her balance for as long as possible.
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She is very "verbal", meaning she loves to squawk and make noise and babble at us. She's not showing any signs of learning the sign language we're practicing though. Specifically, I'm working on teaching her a sign for "potty" which I show her every time I hear her doing her business in her diaper. My hope is we can knock potty training out early by using the potty sign. But like I said, thus far when I do the potty sign to her, she just looks at me and smiles. No interest in signing back to me yet. Here she is on her cute little potty. I sit her on here for practice.
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Elsa is one happy little girl! I'm not surprised by this because how could she be anything but happy? She is absolutely the apple of her mommy and daddy's eye. We both can't get enough of her. She definitely has her moody moments... pre-nap time she's pretty grouchy and screechy. But for the most part, she adores being adored and that makes for a pretty pleasing little existence.
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As far as downsides go... more recently she has begun waking up in the night again. There was a blessed stretch of time where she didn't wake up at ALL between bedtime and 7 or 8am. It was wonderful! But lately not so much. I'd say we have at least 1 or 2 night wakings about 70% of the time. I have no idea why it has started back up... growing, teething, hunger, boredom, no idea. Generally I watch the monitor and let her fuss for a few minutes (anywhere from 5 to 15) and if it worsens, I go in and rock her back to sleep. But if she absolutely refuses to be calmed by that, I breastfeed for about a minute, then sneak the paci into her mouth and lay her back down. This usually does the trick, which makes me think it can't be hunger waking her or that tiny amount of milk wouldn't be satisfying.
There are two diametrically opposed schools of thought on this issue. Those who think you must let your kid "cry it out" alone at times like this or else they will learn that their nighttime crying brings about the desired response from you and therefore learn to keep up the behavior... and those who say it is cruel and fruitless to sit idly by while your child becomes more and more hysterical alone in their room. Where do I fall on the issue? That's a great question. And I feel like it depends on the day. Both sides supposedly have science backing their viewpoint, so who's right? Generally, here's how I see it. Elsa is my baby and she'll only be my baby for a short while. I'm her mom and God gave her a mommy and daddy to respond to her needs when she cries. There will come a time when I will have to make a tough call to distinguish between cries of need and cries of want... but for now, she can't express her needs and wants to me in words. So I'm playing a tricky role if I assume she's crying for no legitimate reason. Who am I to say she isn't hungry, or hurting, or scared? Can I read babies' minds? No. Put simply, I'd rather take advantage of the precious time I have with my baby than win the award for Most Determined Sleep Training Coach. If I can soothe her and make her feel better when she is sad... why would I refuse to do that just on principle because "She should learn to tough it out."? Letting your baby cry til they are blue in the face and drenched in sweat may make sense to you... but to me it just seems dumb. Sorry. So I'm going to err on the side of nurture. She'll get plenty of tough love from me in the years to come, no worries about that!
That's about it for the 5 month report! We shall see what 6 months has in store :) Hopefully some progress on the potty training and some "MaMa" and "DaDa."
1 comment:
Great post! Love seeing you as a mommy :)
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