Carter - Four Months

**Can we just stop the post for a minute and talk about how ADOARBLE my baby is?!?!  I’m biased, I know, but he is so happy and sweet!!**

Carter at Month 4

Diapers

We started out the month with Size 1 diapers, but eventually moved to 2’s towards the end of the month.  The size 1 diapers are for weight from 8-14lbs.  Carter reached 14lbs when he was 3 months 1 week old.  Size 2’s are for 12-18lbs. 

Clothes

Still wearing 3-6 months, although we’ve had to put up several of the 3-6 month clothes that ran too small.  I’ve started trying to shop for non-onesie outfits.  I really like Carter in overalls or cute little plaid shorts with a shirt.  Anything he could wear to church or out and about.

Nursing

Carter still loves to nurse.  He prefers it over a bottle any day of the week.  I’ve noticed this month that when I have him all day (weekends or days that I have off work) and I nurse at every feeding, he can go longer between feedings.  He usually goes 3 hours when he’s bottlefed.  But when I nurse, he goes 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  With this timeframe, he ends up dropping the last nap of the day, which he should be doing around this age anyway.  Also, I absolutely 100% DESPISE pumping at work.

Sleep

At 10 weeks, Carter was sleeping through the night, no less than 7 hours a night.  But right when I went back to work, he stopped.  Justin and I tried everything under the sun to make him sleep through again.   Finally, on the night of April 17th I decided to drop the dreamfeed (the feeding between 10pm-11pm).  Babywise says to do a dreamfeed because a lot of times, “tanking them up” before you go to bed helps them sleep longer.  It totally worked for Carter for a while, but all of a sudden he was waking up again.  I remember reading that after a while, the dreamfeed should be dropped because waking them up for them to feed can be disruptive to their sleeping.  I finally decided that I would try to drop that feeding and see what happened.  Usually, I feed Carter around 6ish, playtime and bath and down for the night by 8pm.  That night, I fed him at 6:15, played and bath (doing everything I could to keep him awake) and then fed him again at 8:45pm and put him down after.  By feeding him at 8:45, I wouldn’t have to wake him up at 10 to feed him.  I was so sure he would wake up around 1 or 2am starving.  Nope.  He slept from 9pm-6am.  9 Hours!!!  Turns out that waking him up was hurting his sleep more than helping.  He did it again the next night too.  I put him down at 8:30pm and he woke up at 6 again.  Ever since then, he’s gotten anywhere from 9-11 hours of sleep every night.  This morning, for example, I had to wake him up at 7:30 when he was at 11.5 hours of sleep!!

Feedings

Carter eats 6 times a day on average.  On a good day when he goes longer between feedings (see “Nursing” above), he’ll eat 5 times a day.  When he gets a bottle from daddy or from Nana, the bottle is about 5 3/4oz. 

Naps

Carter’s best nap of the day is by FAR the morning nap.  Which is actually interesting.  I wouldn’t think he would want to take such a long nap right after sleeping 9-11 hours.  According to Debbie (and myself on the weekends), Carter’s first nap is rarely less than 2 hours and will sometimes go as much as 2 1/2 hours.  His shortest naps are 30-45 minutes, but for the most part, he averages from 1-1.5 hours.  He’s still taking 4 naps a day unless he eats 5 times instead of 6, in which case he’ll take 3 naps. 

Statistics

Carter’s 4 month appointment was today, April 30th.  He had his second round of shots (which still hurt me more than him) and he got weighed and measured.  He weighed 14lbs 14oz which is the 55th percentile.  He measured 26 inches which is the 85th percentile and his head circumference was 16 1/2 inches which is the 50th percentile.  I decided to work from home today so that he can have me here on his traumatic day.  Between getting 4 shots and teething, my poor sweet boy is very unhappy. 

Abilities

He still reaches for toys all the time and he’s been sitting in his bumbo seat with the tray for longer periods of time.  He can even sit up for a brief period of time without support from me, but he has to be leaning forward in between his legs to do it.  He can’t fully sit upright with a straight back just yet.  Also, if we make him try to sit up too soon after he’s eaten, he’ll spit up a TON.  He’s also rolling from his back to his tummy now.  It’s estimated that they do this between 4 and 5 months.  He started it at 3 1/2.  He was just 2 months old when he rolled from his tummy to his back (which is the easier of the two).   Momma found out this skill the hard way.  He woke up at 6am and started grunting and making all kinds of noise so when I looked at the monitor, he was on his stomach.  I had a freak out.  He did it probably a million times that day.  I’ve heard that once babies learn that they can do a new skill, they do it ALL the time.  This is such a true statement.  Due to this, we’ve started unbuttoning the woombie to have his arms out so that when he rolls over, he can roll back over if he gets in a position where he can’t breathe.  Here’s the hands out version:

In the next month or so, we’ll probably start using sleep sacks instead of the woombie.  I’ve also started to notice that when he’s on his tummy and I put a toy in front of him, he tries SO HARD (to the point that his face is blood red due to concentration) to crawl to get it.  He just can’t figure out how to make his legs and arms do what he wants them to do.  I think it’ll be a few more months before we get to the crawling.

Other Notable Things

Easter weekend was ROUGH.  On Saturday we drove to Tuscaloosa for a bunny breakfast with our family and then we went to our church on Sunday and to Justin’s parents house after.  It was two straight days of Carter being off his schedule and not getting enough naps.  This really hurt us the following days when it came to nighttime sleep.  We will no longer be getting him off his schedule like that again.  I don’t mind adjusting schedules, because let’s face it, babies can’t be on constant schedules with no deviation.  But I highly doubt we’ll be doing a two day event like that any time soon.

Carter got baptized yesterday, April 29th.  It was such a special occasion.  See my post on  his baptism here.  Poor baby had such a long day.  His nap after everyone left our house was close to three hours.  After I had to wake him up from that nap, we tried to take him on a walk, but he was NOT having it, so we came back home, gave him a bath and put him to bed at 8:30.  He’s been sleeping ever since.  I’m writing this post at 7:40am the next day.  If I let him, I know he’ll sleep for 12 hours, but I’m about to have to wake him up to take him to his pediatrician appointment to get his second round of shots.  Boo.

Hello TEETHING!  Carter has been drooling like crazy lately, but I thought it was too early for him to be cutting teeth.  Apparently not.  He hasn’t cut one yet, but he is DEFINITELY teething.  He drools all the time, his fists are constantly in his mouth, he’s slightly fussier and I can tell it’s because he’s in pain.  We’ve just now started using Orajel and will begin using Tylenol if need be, depending on what the pediatrician tells us today.

Likes

Carter still loves to watch TV, staring at mirrors, lights and ceiling fans and is still kicking like crazy in the bathtub.  He LOVES bathtime.  He even knows that when it’s night time and I take off his diaper AND his clothes that it’s bathtime.  The second he sees the bath towel that I usually wrap around him to take him to the tub, he smiles the biggest smile I have ever seen.  He knows what being wrapped in a bath towel means and he can’t wait.  He also is still a big fan of going for walks.  I’ve noticed he prefers them around sunset where the sun isn’t in his eyes and he can see things without squinting.  His new favorite position is holding onto his feet while laying on his back.  Carter does this ALL.THE.TIME.  See this post.  He even stretches out his legs so far that he’s doing a baby toe touch!!  And apparently, he like sleeping on his stomach, which made me a nervous wreck to begin with, but I’m used to it now.  He also loves when I go to pick him up from Nana’s when I get off work.  I love seeing the smile on his face when I get there.

Dislikes

He still doesn’t love the sun, but he LOVES being outside in the shade where he can see trees and cars and things he doesn’t normally see inside.  He REALLY doesn’t like having his bottle taken away. When bottle feeding, we usually stop every ounce or two to try to get a burp out. He HATES when we do that. He starts screaming…and I mean SCREAMING. Eyes closed, mouth open, holding his breath screaming. The bad kind. Side note - he still gets mostly breastmilk even though I’m back at work. I pump and I have enough of a supply stored up that he always has breastmilk.  We very rarely give him formula.  Finally, he HATES the period of time between the end of his bath and when we put him down for the night.  He screams bloody murder.  He knows he’s about to go to bed and REALLY doesn’t want to.

Another Milestone Reached

Carter has reached yet another milestone ahead of schedule…

Carter was able to roll from tummy to back when he just 7 weeks old.  See that post here.  Now he can roll from back to tummy (the harder of the two) and started doing it when he was 3 1/2 months old.  He’s done both of these things ahead of schedule so naturally I am one PROUD mama.  The downside of babies being able to roll from back to tummy is that you have to ditch the swaddle because if his hands are all swaddled up and he turns over in his sleep, you run into a SIDS issue.  Carter was never swaddled, he uses the woombie.  The GREAT thing about the woombie, is that there’s a type of woombie called the “convertible woombie” that has buttons where the arms go that can be unbuttoned so that his hands are free for him to use in case he turns over in the middle of the night and needs to turn back over.

Once Carter learned how to roll from back to tummy, he literally did it NONSTOP!!!  During naps, during bedtime…all the time.  I’ve heard that when a baby learns a new skill they wear it out.  True statement for my Carter.  Anyway, this new skill scared me because now that he can roll onto his tummy, baby boy has decided that this new position is where he’d like to sleep.  Since he’s been able to do this, all of his naps and night time sleep are on his stomach.  It made me super nervous to begin with, but I feel better now.  He would be able to move if he couldn’t breathe, I’m confident of it.  And for some reason, he’s just more comfy on his tummy.  It’s caused him to sleep longer, in fact.  Usually, Carter wakes up for the day around 6am, but since sleeping on his tummy, Justin and I have had to wake him in the mornings to eat around 7am or even 8am.

Baby boy has a couple of things coming up!!!  He turns 4 months old on Saturday.  Which is awesome because we’ll share a birthday!  I’ll be 29 and he’ll be four months.  After a year, you pretty much stop counting their “mini-birthdays” (or at least I am going to) so this will be the only time we share a day together.  On Sunday, he’s getting baptized at church with his cousins Cynthia and Celia.  We’re having a pretty large gathering at our house afterwards…so large that I’m kind of wondering where everyone that’s planning on coming is going to stand/sit to have lunch.  On Monday, he’ll go to the pediatrician for his 4 month appointment.  He’ll have to get another round of shots (I really MUST hold it together during this) and we’ll find out his weight and height stats at 4 months, which I’m excited about.  I weighed him yesterday and he was 14lbs, 12oz, which according to a book with some charts in it, puts him around the 50th-60th percentile.  I tried to measure him and I think he’s slightly above 25 inches which puts him in the 75th percentile.  We’ll see if the books percentiles line up with the pediatricians!

Baby Top 5

I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while, just haven’t gotten around to it.  When I was pregnant, I absolutely LOVED reading pregnant women's blogs.  I loved it even more when I saw “Baby Must Haves” or “Baby Top 5” listing all the things that the author found necessary for having a little one.  Me being a first time mom, I was willing to hear anything about the things I “should have” to help me prepare.  So here I am now, mother to a 3 1/2 month old, and now I am making my own Baby Top 5 List.  I am putting this list out there for any first time mothers, or even second or third time mothers that aren’t aware of some of these products.  These are the 10 items that I/Carter can’t live without:

1. The Woombie

I’ve blogged about the Woombie a ton.  Carter’s sleep improved drastically as soon as we put him in the woombie for the first time.  I was scared because I thought it was choking him (they’re meant to be REALLY tight) but he loves it and I honestly dread the day we have to convert him out of it.  There are several different versions of the woombie.  You can go to their website here and go through them all.  Carter had the original newborn one (5-13lbs) for about 2 1/2 months and then we moved to the convertible woombie (14-19lbs) that has buttoned sleeves so that when you’re ready to transition a baby to not be swaddled, you start by letting their hands out first, but the woombie is still tight on their body.  Basically, a woombie replaces a swaddle.  Babies bust out of swaddles ALL THE TIME.  The velcro ones are much better, but I hated washing those because they stuck to EVERYTHING in the dryer.  The woombie is the answer.  It zips up and buttons at the top.  Completely baby proof!

2.  Video Monitor

We absolutely love our video monitor.  It wasn’t the cheapest and it wasn’t the most expensive, it’s right in the middle.  For anyone that plans to have their baby sleep in another room than where they will be, I suggest this.  Carter’s room is upstairs so it would be a pain to trek upstairs every time I wanted to check on him.  The video monitor makes it easy.  We have the Summer Infant Best View monitor and we got it from our registry at BuyBuyBaby.  The reason I love this monitor is because it zooms and rotates.  The four buttons around the center button on the remote move the camera.  This is VERY helpful when you have a mover on your hands.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in the morning and looked at the monitor and Carter wasn’t there because he had moved to the bottom of the crib directly under the monitor which blocks the view of him because of the wood on the crib.  Picture below is from BBB’s website:

3.  Baby Einstein DVD’s

Boy does Carter love him some Baby Einstein!  These DVD’s are incredible.   I don’t even know how many there are, but there’s tons.  I inherited some from my sisters from when their kids watched them and I’ve bought some of the more recent ones too.  Each DVD is roughly 30 minutes (newborn babies won’t be able to make it that long anyway) but on the menu, there’s a “repeat play” button that will just repeat the show over and over.  This comes in handy when you need to do the laundry :)  I don’t even know what all DVD’s there are, but I’ll list some of the ones I have to give you an idea:

• Backyard Animals
• Ocean Animals
• Baby Mozart (centered around music)
• Baby DaVinci (centered around art)
• Around the World Music (music on each of the continents)
• Baby Sign Language

I have more than that, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  Along with Baby Einstein DVD’s, I’d also say Praise Baby DVD’s.  It’s the same thing, but plays Christian music the whole time.  Carter likes them both.  See their website here.  Again, BuyBuyBaby has numerous of the Baby Einstein DVD’s as does Target and Walmart.

4.  Noise Machine

Boy is a noise machine a must!!!  Carter is out the second he hears the rain!  Rain is his personal favorite.  A lot of noise machines come with various sounds.  The most common I’ve seen are ocean, rain, heartbeat, waterfall and rainforest.  The heartbeat one is freaky.  I can’t fall asleep listening to that, I feel like a someone is going to bust up in my house and kill us all.  The rain machine we have is really thin and easy to fit into the diaper bag to carry anywhere that Carter may need to fall asleep. 

This is a SoundSpa Sound Machine.  It’s $20 at BuyBuyBaby.  You can plug it into the wall and it will go all night long, or if you only don’t have a plug near you, you can put batteries in it and by the press of a button can decide if you want it to go 15, 30 or 60 minutes.  I honestly don’t know that Carter would be able to stay asleep for long without this playing in the background.  We also live relatively close to a railroad and trains come through CONSTANTLY between 3-5am and he can’t hear them because of the machine.

5.  Babywise

This should be number 1 on the list.  Because of this book, my son slept 11 hours last night (with a 15 minute break in there where I woke him up to feed him around 10pm).  This book is all about how to put your child on a schedule so that he/she will learn sleep habits.  It’s based around a feed/wake/sleep schedule.  Instead of feeding a baby and then putting it to sleep, which is tempting to do since after eating is when they’re the most tired, you should let your baby play and then go to sleep.  Putting them to bed awake is key in getting your child to learn how to fall asleep on their own.  Otherwise, you baby will always need to be fed in order to fall asleep.  That’s just the main tip.  There’s so many other things in this book like what a baby’s sleep habits should be at what age, how many feedings they should have, when to drop feedings, etc.  LIFESAVER.

And there’s my top 5, in no particular order.  I hope other will find this as helpful as I have found other people’s top 5 posts!!

Reflection

I’m writing this post in reflection of the past year.  It was a year ago today, April 16th, that I found out that I was pregnant with Carter.  I already went back and read the post of how I found out (see here and see here for where I announced it on the blog).  I loved reliving those emotions and remembering how excited yet scared out of my mind I was.  I remember Justin’s reaction, which was rather hysterical.  I remember that April 16th was also the day that we purchased our lot at James Hill to start building the home we live in now.  The home we brought Carter to when we left the hospital.  I remember how thankful I was and how much I prayed thanking God for this blessing and hoping for a healthy baby.  I started immediately going out of my mind trying to figure out when my first doctor’s appointment would be, when we’d make it public, who we would tell first, how we would tell our families, if it was a boy or girl, what the name would be if it was a boy or girl, etc.  My mind was in overdrive.  We were entering a new stage of our lives.  We were preparing to become a family of three.
The pregnancy had its ups and downs, but overall I had a great pregnancy.  I remember seeing that first picture of him on the ultrasound (of course we didn’t know it was a “him” yet).  Most everyone by now knows that I knew Carter was a boy all along.  This is partly due to the motherly instinct, but mainly it’s due to my faith.  I’ve never mentioned this before, but I want to share it now so that I’ll never forget it.  Our first ultrasound was on May 20th.  I was already beginning planning for a nursery and couldn’t stop thinking about whether it was a girl or a boy.  Justin and I wanted a boy so badly, but we obviously were going to be appreciative of whichever sex God gave us.  On my work email, I get a daily Bible verse in the mornings.  On May 19th, the day before the ultrasound, as I was constantly wondering if we’d have a boy or girl, I got this email:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” - Isaiah 9:6.
No, I don’t think my son is a God or the Everlasting Father or Prince of Peace.  My main focus was on the first part.  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given”.  After that, I just knew that we were having a boy.  Can’t really explain it, but I think God was telling me to chillax and that he was providing us with what we wanted.
I remember finding out it was a boy and I am one of the lucky few that was able to get that moment on video (excuse the 13 minute long video…you can fast forward to 5:40 which is where I cut into the cake and find out that Carter was a boy):

I remember telling Justin’s dad, Gordon, that Carter’s middle name would be Gordon.  He cried and hugged me.  I’m so upset we didn’t get that part on video.
I remember the end of the pregnancy, feeling absolutely miserable to the point of tears as I got closer and closer to my due date and Carter didn’t show any sign of making an entrance.  I remember how devastated I was when I wasn’t holding him in my arms on Christmas Day like I wanted to. 
But I also remember my last doctor’s appointment the morning of December 27th, my actual due date, and my doctor telling me that I would be admitted that night and induced.  I remember the joy I felt to know that our son would be here in less than 48 hours.
I remember the night I got induced.  I remember the next morning when all of our family showed up to watch Carter enter the world.  I remember the very easy labor, but very painful delivery.  And I remember his first cry.  The moment when I knew he was ok and that I had given birth to a son.  Nothing else mattered.  My drastic drop in blood pressure, the fact that I was freezing and shaking uncontrollably from the epidural and the massive amounts of blood I supposedly lost.  None of it mattered.  All that mattered was that cry.
I remember our nurse giving him to me with his hand reached out touching my face and his eyes WIDE open looking at me and at that exact moment, he stopped crying.

Carter,
You are such a joy to mommy and daddy.  Your smile lights up a room and your precious laugh brings me to tears.  I can’t believe we created something so beautiful and perfect.  God chose us to be your parents and I only hope I can raise you to glorify God the way we did that day.  You will never know the depth of my love for you.  I would die for you my son.  I can’t wait to see the person you will turn into.
With more love than you’ll ever know,
Mom
My life didn’t change on December 28, 2011.  It changed on April 16, 2011.

Our New Thing

Carter has figured out how to bring his feet to his hands…and his mouth :)

Easter Highlights

We did SO much for Easter this year.  I’ll be glad when Carter is older next year and it won’t affect him as much.  He essentially didn’t even have a schedule the past two days.  On Saturday morning, we drove to Tuscaloosa to go to the Bunny Breakfast at the North River Yacht Club with my side of the family.  Here’s some pictures of that:

I despise scary looking Easter Bunnies!!! Why can’t they look normal?!?

This was literally seconds before Cooper (my nephew) poured over a cup of steaming hot coffee onto my dad’s lap.

Carter thinks Gigi is hilarious!

And Aunt Jen too!

Love my sweet boy :)

I love both of my boys!!

Cooper and Carter having baby conversations

Mom with her girls and their kids

On Sunday, we went to our church with the Morris side of the family.  Aunt Jen and Uncle Jeff came with us to church that morning.  I was so glad to see her twice.  The Cowley’s are leaving to head back to Tampa on Wednesday and since I work now, I won’t see her again till next time she’s in town :(

Not much you can put in the Easter basket of a 3 month old.  So I went with toy that made noise and some 9 month outfits.

Love love love this sweet baby

One of my favorite family pictures thus far

Carter and his two cousins, Celia and Cynthia

Carter looking at Mommy and Daddy’s brick in the church courtyard

Love this picture with my sis and her little one

Morris family photo

Love these babies!

Celia had a great time in her basket

Cynthia and Carter played with the same toys.  I must say, he looks so good in blue since his eyes are blue :)

No One Can Make Him Laugh Like Daddy

LOVE HIM!!!