Elle's five-month stats

No well-baby visit until next month, but I  wanted to post about Elle's growth and development.

 She's quite curious, see? :)

Unofficial weight estimate: 15.2 pounds.


Current developments include working on sitting up - her balance improves every day. Today she sat on her own ... for about three seconds ... before tipping backward :) She's making new noises, including a funny laugh where she looks like she has dentures (see beginning of video for example).

Elle is starting to get a bit more clingy to Tim and I. She's very talkative after baths and during diaper changes ... weirdo. In short, she's hilarious.

Current loves include the cats, "Itsy Bitsy Spider," Daddy dancing to the jumperoo music, sleeping on her tummy, "Twinkle, Twinkle," the "ABC" song and watching everything we put in to our mouths.

Current nicknames include Baby, Baby Girl, Elle Belle, Squishy, Fishy, Little One, Suspicious Peepoo.

Recent conversations of note include Tim's repeated speech to Elle that she can do "whatever she wants" when she turns one. The list of examples that follow always includes fishing, although I'm not sure why. And Tim texted me the other night to tell me "our happy baby girl was back!" When I asked where she'd been, he replied "Fussytown, USA."

The slight increase in fussiness could be attributed to a wonky sleep schedule. We had been on a really good schedule of her going to bed around 8 and waking up between 7 and 8 the next morning. Her naps were still hit and miss, but the nighttime sleep was rock solid. She's always been a good night sleeper, but that bedtime lasted for a few blissful weeks.

We're still not sure what happened - I think it might be the "four-month wakeful" or "four-month sleep regression." Her sleep is still decent, but not as good ... and it takes a lot longer to get her to sleep, and she'll often wake up 2-4 times in the beginning of the night. It is frustrating on many levels, but I think the worst for me is that I'm not there. The worst for Tim? Probably that he is there :)

 To give you an idea of how big she is, sans blocks :)

A few nights ago, she was up once an hour from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. She was fighting going to bed until 10:30 or 11, and then we've been trying to keep her on a consistent wake-up schedule of 9 a.m.-ish. After reading multiple articles, talking to many moms and thinking about it from the point of a baby, I think she just has a lot going on developmentally right now, and it is hard for her to shut her mind off. I've read that sleep can get bumpy when big developments happen, so if a baby is working on rolling, talking, etc., they might have a slight regression. I'm comforted by some words of wisdom from my mommy/baby group's nurse facilitator, however: "If you had a good sleeper, chances are she'll be a good sleeper again." And as Tim points out frequently, we're lucky we've just been dealing with this for a few weeks - it could be much worse and could have been much worse from the start.

Elle also used to fall asleep on her own for naps or nighttime (not all the time, but occasionally), and now she needs more assistance, which I've read is common. She's having trouble transitioning from sleep cycle to sleep cycle, and she's getting her legs caught in the cribs slats on a frequent basis. (We recently bought a breathable bumper, and that has ended the majority of those problems.) She tends to sleep better on her stomach, so although we might start her on her back or side, she'll soon roll to her tummy and wake up there. Her naps are getting better, and I basically spent my two days off last week analyzing her sleep habits and patterns. (Fun, huh?) But I'm just trying to figure out how to get our happy, well-rested baby back and get her on a little better bedtime schedule. Tim puts her to sleep 4-5 nights a week, and he's spent a lot of time the last few weeks putting Elle to sleep ... and back to sleep ... and back to sleep. The quality of sleep that Elle Belle is getting isn't good, and I think she just needs some help in winding down and transitioning through the first few sleep cycles, so we've been working on that. The science of it has actually been kind of fascinating, and personally, when I have success getting her past the "45-minute intruder," I feel like I've just won an Olympic medal :)

Basically, though, she's happy, and we're all sleeping more than enough to function, and we keep in perspective that our sleep "issues" are small compared to some parents. It's just frustrating. But then I realize that she's only five months old, and this won't last forever, and really, Tim is about as patient as they come. I married a saint. I wish I had a fraction of the patience he has, and when I'm with Elle and having a hard time getting her to stay asleep, I remember that he does this five nights a week, and she's only going to be this little once, so I sit back, rock her some more, and try to live in the moment.

On a related note, current habits include eating five times a day, napping 2-3 times a day (the naps are lasting anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours, so I'll take it) and shoving anything and everything in to her mouth.

I gave up after this.

In mommy life, I'm starting to experience a lovely part of postpartum life: Hair loss. It seems my hair loss is not nearly as bad as many of my friends', but it has still been noticeable to me. I don't have a bald patch, but I am shedding significantly. Someone explained it quite simply to me - during pregnancy, your body doesn't shed hair, which is why many women get thick, fuller hair during those nine months. So as the hormones are leaving, the hair starts to shed, almost making up for lost time. Whee.

I had a doctor's appointment last week, and I took Elle with me. I still have a hard time processing the fact that I went from 35 weeks of frequent visits with Dr. S to Elle's delivery to now once a year :) He smiled at her when he saw her, and I asked her if she remembered him. (She did not.) But wow. More than five months since that day ...