Ellie Grace: 5 months

Our little Ellie girl turned 5 months old this month and it has been so fun to see her learn and grow in various ways. Giggles are more common now, and she is still talking up a storm. Her nicknames have become Ell Bell, Ellie Girl, Little Nug (short for nugget), and Elbert (Jake started calling her this awhile ago when her bozo strip reminded her of an old man). She loves to grab her feet, grab toys and suck on them, suck on her fist, drool, smile, sit in her bumbo, and snuggle. I had been trying a couple times a day to get her to take a bottle only to have her turn her head and keep her mouth absolutely shut. However, on March 2nd I had a wedding and left Jake to try to give her one and he had success! She held it herself and downed it (and looked super cute doing it). She has officially grown out of the 0-3 month size and is just about through 3 month clothing as well. We are so thankful for each moment we get with her!

Tickety Tock

Time is passing so quickly these days. I wanted to start documenting Ellie's "schedule" so that when (Lord willing) we have more kiddos I can look back at what worked and what didn't before. Here's a quick recap and our current schedule as well.

Birth- 1 Month:
-Feeding about every 3 hours
-After two weeks, trying to start establishing a little wake time after feeding

2 Months - 3 Months: 
-Feeding every 3 - 3 1/2 hours, 6 feedings a day
-Established a first feeding time (7 am (give or take a 1/2 hour))
-Get into routine of Feed, Wake Time, Sleep
-Put right to bed after last feeding (10 pm) of the day and let her sleep as long as she would go. Started sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks and continued to do so for about a month
-At about 3 months started to wake up for a 4:30 am feeding we kept it as long as she still woke up for her 7 am feeding. But once I started waking her up for the 7 am feeding, we dropped the 4:30 feeding again)

4 Months:
-Feeding every 3 1/2-4 hours
-First feeding starting at 7 am
-Started moving back the last feeding time to 9-9:30
-Increased wake time to 1 1/2-2 hours

Tomorrow Ellie will be 5 months old. This is currently Ellie's (rough) schedule for the day:

6 am feed, goes right back to sleep
9 am feed, awake until 10:30, nap until 1
1 pm feed, awake until 3, nap until 5
5 pm feed, awake until 7, nap until 9
9 pm feed, put down to sleep for the night


Other current tidbits:
-She has started waking up at 3 am, but most nights will sqwak a little and put herself back to sleep (sometimes only after we give her her binky)
-Lately she has been waking up a little after 5 and we tide her over (plug her binky, let her sqwak...) until close to 6, wondering if she is going through another growth spurt and maybe I will start feeding her at 3 again.
-Ellie has been breaking out of her swaddle for a couple months. I gathered it was time to stop swaddling her and started the transition by leaving one arm out of the swaddle (with the intention to transition to leaving both out), but she didn't nap as well when I did this (woke up more often). So as of now we still swaddle her  before we put her down to sleep (even though she always gets both hands out shortly after). Still trying to figure this out.

This Christmas

Our Christmas Card:

For Christmas this year, we stuck with our usual routine of spending Christmas Eve with the Peterson's and Christmas day with the Hayes'. Christmas eve we hosted Jake's family (his parents, sister and brother in law, and aunt sue) all day for dinner, gifts, dessert, church service, and christmas light show at one of the houses in our neighborhood. We got up early Christmas morning and celebrated just the three of us, and then drove on to Eugene and hung out with my family for a few days. Ellie was completely unaware of all the gifts and hoopla, but enjoyed the extra snuggle time with gramma and grampa, nonna and poppa, and aunts and uncles.