Clara 4 months

My baby turned four months on September 2, 2012. So so crazy. I mean really. The next thing I know she is going to be crawling, walking, talking, etc. Can we please just stop time???

Here are a few pictures of our little cutie.

Girlfriend doesn't like to smile. It's all serious business.

Or apparently we are boring her to tears. . .

Or making her so annoyed that she refuses to open her eyes . . .

And since we obviously are not getting the hint, she resorts to covering her face . . . 

I can tell family Christmas pictures are going to be REALLY fun as she gets older. :)

Anyways, heres a little bit about Clara at 4 months old:

Stats:
Weight - 12 pounds 15 oz
Height - 23. 88 inches
BMI - 15.96 kg/m2
HC (head circumference) - 15.12 inches

She's now in the 15th percentile! Moving on up from the 3rd percentile, which is where she was two months ago. :) Dr reports that while Clara is still on the small end of the spectrum, she growing well and at a good rate. No concerns there.

And as you can see from the pics, she is filling out and chunking up more. I love that she is getting some squishy things and arms. So stinking cute.

Other info:
We are keeping her on her reflux medicine for now and will try to wean her next month, once this prescription runs out. Didn't want to try weaning her the same month we started sleep training!

Got four vaccines at her four month well check up. She took it like a champ. Cried for ten seconds, maybe.

Eating: She continues to eat well. I stopped nursing and am exclusively pumping my milk and giving to her via bottles. She was putting up at fight at each nursing session and eventually that just got overwhelming and exhausting. We are a much better team this way! We put rice cereal in her bedtime bottle and some nights it seems to stretch her longer and other nights it does not seem to make a bit of difference. Dr said we can try introducing rice cereal w/ a spoon and from there determine when we want to introduce baby food.

Schedule: After some trial and error, we now have a somewhat predictible daytime schedule! So far this is working well for us. Took us a while to get there but after several days spent sleep training, and working to get some consistency, I think Clara has it mostly figured out..

Goes a little something like this. . .

• 7am - wake time
• eat & playtime 
• 8:30 or 9am - nap 1
• eat & playtime/errands if needed
• 12:30 or 1pm - nap 2
• eat & playtime/errands if needed
• 5pm (or so) - nap 3 - this is a short cat nap, maybe one hour, to get us to bedtime 
• eat & playtime/errands if needed
• 7:20 - start getting ready for bedtime (bath, book, bottle,)
• 8pm - bedtime 
• wakes for one feeding @ night, usually between 11pm-12am

I'm well aware this will change as she grows, cuts teeth, etc etc but for now I am loving our new routine. I am slowly becoming that mom who is super protective of her kids nap schedule. . . you know. . . that mom I said I would never be, ha! 

Sleeping: We transitioned Clara out of the nap nanny once she started rolling over. We no longer swaddle her at night. Clara goes to bed at 8pm, usually wakes about 11-11:30pm to eat, and then sleeps until 7am (sometimes 6-6:30am but we are working towards 7am). She puts up a fight here and there but ever since we started sleep training she is fighting/crying less mid night and sleeping longer stretches! We stopped giving her the pacifier at night so that she wouldn't become dependent on falling back asleep/self soothing w/ it. She's doing well with all these changes at once! I'm SO proud of her! She also sleeps in size 2 overnight/extra protection diapers to help prevent/limit night awakenings (thanks to many friends for this suggestion!!).

Development: She is smiling more (but still a ton. . . I'm lucky if I catch a smile with my camera) and she is now rolling over both ways all the time! She coos and babbles all day and is so much better at following our voices with her eyes. I love that now she will actually look at me and lock eyes! She is still working on her head control but it's getting better. She is in size 1 diapers (although I think they are starting to get snug) and is wearing 0-3 and 3-6 month size clothes, depending on the brand, but soon I'm sure she will be in all 3-6 months. She LOVES playing on her play mat/baby gym. It is so fun to turn on the music and watch her go crazy kicking her legs and waving her arms. She is also enjoying looking at her reflection in the mirror.

Adventures: We have a lot of travels over the next month so I will have more adventures to report at her five month update.

Clara 1 month
Clara 2 months
Clara 3 months