4 Month Update

4 months, say it ain’t so! Sorry it took me so long to get this posted. All the photos were actually taken on his 4 month birthday, it just took me awhile to upload, edit and write the post. Now that I’m working from home anytime I have free time away from Parker I feel like it should be spent working, so writing longer blog posts hasn’t been in the stars lately!

This has been a fun month for milestones, especially with the laughing! It’s still hard to get him going, but once someone does it’s music to your ears. I caught a video I’ll have to upload at a later time. It’s very squealy and adorable. He is also so so close to rolling over. He has rolled once from back to stomach and a couple times from stomach to back, but both appeared to be completely unintentional so I’m not going to count it as a milestone yet. He does, however, roll onto his side all the time! His play mat is his favorite pastime. Now that his arms can reach the hanging toys and his hand/eye coordination is advanced enough to actually grab and try to put them in his mouth he is obsessed. He will spend an hour just kicking, grabbing and talking to himself. Which is nice for me since I’ll set my laptop on the floor and do some work while he entertains himself.

As you can see many of his likes revolve around playing. Tickling him is one way I’ve figured out how to make him laugh! Over Memorial weekend he experienced Eric’s parents hammock for the first time and swayed for 2 hours (nap included). Kid just loves the outdoors! I’ve introduced you all to Burgie before and you can see the monkey feet in action in his milestone photo above. Busts out that move constantly!

I’m sad the “dislike” photo is a little blurry, but I love the pout so I had to use it. Most of his dislikes are pretty self-explanatory. “Foul ball” is a reminder of an event earlier in May when we were at one of Eric’s games and someone was standing in front of us (P was on my lap) talking and so I couldn’t see the game and before I could do anything when people yelled “heads up!” a foul ball came down and knocked my sunglasses clear off my face and smashed into the bleachers. Besides the bridge of my nose hurting from where my glasses were pushed, I was fine. And while the ball didn’t hit Parker all the commotion really freaked him out and he started crying uncontrollably for what seemed like a lifetime but was probably only 5 minutes. It wasn’t until offering a bottle didn’t make him stop crying that I started to worry that maybe he did somehow get hit, but we looked him over and he was fine and once he finally stopped crying he was back to being smiley per usual. I think he was just worried about his mama! But needless to say, next season when he can walk I’m buying the kid a helmet!

The “foul ball incident” is also one example of him not liking an overabundance of attention. But there have been other times too when there is a big group of people all fawning over him at once (which, I mean, I can’t blame them!) and he starts in on the lip pout and gets a a scared look and starts to cry. But after about 10 seconds of worry, he is a happy camper and lets anyone hold him – which is a plus for me! Unfortunately, I have been finding hairs in the bath and in his bassinet and in his little hairbrush 😦 I hope it doesn’t thin out too much, but little guy is going through a bit of a balding phase. His hair is also getting so much lighter…might have a blonde baby afterall!

This Month’s Stats:

Weight: 13lb, 8oz, 20th percentile (last month: 12lb, 6oz – although remember last months weight was taken at home on my scale since no doc app’t & this month is the doctors)

Height: 26.25″, 85th percentile (last month: 25.75″)

Head: 16.75″, 60th percentile (last month: 16″)

Doctor was happy on all counts with his growth. I will admit the heighth measurement is what I measured him at and not the doctor. I swear they measure him so fast they don’t really get an accurate length. They measured him at 25″, which is what they measured him at his last 2 month appointment too! Now I know this kid has grown in 2 months. Plus, when I did it on my own at 3 months I measured 25.75″. I mean I realize scales can be different, but a tape measure is a tape measure and I do the same thing they do at home. I rip off a piece of wax paper, put him on it and mark with a pen the top of his head and then stretch out his leg and make a mark at his heel, take him off and then measure. I think the difference is just me taking my time and them hurrying to write something down. Anyways, thats why I’m going by my measurement and not theirs.

Feeding: Boy is still exclusively eating breastmilk. I pump everything and bottle feed and that seems to be working out fine. Also in case anyone is interested, we use Dr. Brown’s bottles and they are AMAZING! Yes, you have to wash more parts than normal bottles & yes, they are a little more expensive but he rarely has any issues with gas and doesn’t spit up that much – and if he does it’s hardly anything so it’s totally worth it. And if he does need to burp, its not until the bottle is empty. When we tried a different bottle first I felt like I had to stop feeding him multiple times to burp before he would continue eating.

Clothing: I feel like he outgrew everything this past month! He now wears mainly 6-9 month onesies, sleepers and pants. However, he is still narrow so if its not a one-piece or pants then he fits really well into 3 month shirts and shorts.

Sleeping: Thankfully he is still improving on his sleep every month. We are now consistently sleeping from about 10pm-8am. I always try to start his bedtime routine (bath, book, bottle, bed) around 9pm no matter when he ate last and that seems to be working. I also swaddle him even if he is still alert and just put him in his crib and from there I’ll usually rub his head or put my hand on his tummy to rock him until he is pretty much passed out before I leave the room. I’m hoping this is a good transition for sleep training. Honestly he has always kind of slept better on his own than in someones arms so I’m hoping to keep it up! Although the Ped did tell us that while swaddling him now is completely fine, if we start seeing that he is rolling himself over while swaddling then we are going to have to move to sleepsacks or something with his arms out. So I hope when that happens we don’t start in with sleep issues. Time will tell!

Our monthly diaper count!

No outtakes this month, however I did catch a series of shots of him rolling over from his tummy to back. Again, this is not an intentional roll over. This is Parker’s big head leaning too far over and being too heavy to keep him balanced, haha. He was pretty surprised when it happened. He’s like, “What was that!?”

Also the video is a little long, but I did catch another accidental roll over on video:

;

Thanks for sticking it out on a long post!

Past months can be found here: 3 mo, 2 mo, 1 mo