Five months old!

I've been saying that Lila is 5 months old for a couple weeks now, but she is just now turning 5 months old today. She's such a big girl now and has changed so much! She is so much fun and watching her develop is a joy! I can see so much of my husband and I in her but she is definitely developing a fun little personality all her own.

We don't go in for a well baby checkup until 6 months but since she's been a bit sniffly and stuffy the last few days we took her to the pediatrician this morning. She just has a little cold. No fever, nothing icky in her chest or ears, so she should be okay in a few days. She's just very snotty and snorty and isn't sleeping as well. Anyway they did weigh her today and she's almost 16 lbs, my big girl.

Weight 15 lb, 15 oz, Last month: 14 lb, 14 oz
Length 26.5 inches, Last month: 25.5 inches
Head circumference 16.5 inches,Last month: 16 in

Lila's biggest milestone this month was starting daycare. I'm happy to report that other than short crappy naps, Lila is adjusting beautifully! The girls at the daycare seem to really love her and a couple of them have said she's their "favorite" even though they are not supposed to have favorites! I loved to hear that. She is a happy little girl and I'm so thankful she is enjoying daycare. It's still pretty tough on me to be away from her. I miss her a lot during the day and I hate that I don't get to spend as much time with her anymore. But it is what it is.

Diapers: Just bought size 3s. Her size 2s still fit but she keeps pooping up the back of them. I'm tired of stain-treating and sometimes throwing out cute onesies because of blowouts.

Clothes: 3-6 month onesies and tops/dresses, 6-9 month sleepers and some 9-12 month pants

Eating: Lila nurses in the morning, after I pick her up from daycare and about a half hour before bed. She still wakes up occasionally in the middle of the night and I often feed her in bed. Pumping is going okay, although I kind of hate it. It's uncomfortable and awkward and I hate washing pump parts and bottles. I can pump anywhere from 3-5 oz a session and I try to pump 3 times a day. I'm scared that I'm not able to keep up with Lila's eating though. If she is away from me for 3 feedings she usually eats 5 oz each time. We occasionally supplement with formula at daycare if I didn't pump enough the day before. Also, work is slow now, but as the semester picks up I don't know if 3 sessions a day is doable or not.

Still no solid food/baby food for Miss Lila. She doesn't seem that interested yet and I feel like I want to wait a bit. I did let her lick on a piece of melon the other day and she kept grabbing for it! I've let her play with a sippy cup and "practiced" a bit with a spoon. I'm getting more and more intrigued by Baby Led Weaning (BLW) or more accurately Baby Led Solids or Feeding.

Fellow blogger Tracy from Sharp Moments has shed some more light on this for me and has definitely piqued my interest! The basic idea is you forgo spoon feeding and purees (which kinda gross me out) for baby directed feedings. You give them large chunks of food to try and they explore the new tastes and textures on their own. I plan on doing another post about this sometime soon. But for now, we are delaying solids but may start this month. If we do I will definitely post about it!

Sleep: Lila is still sleeping swaddled (sometimes with one or both arms out), in a bassinet next to our bed. We are all ready for her to move to her crib, but her nursery is upstairs and our bedroom is downstairs. The upstairs level of our house gets pretty warm, so I don't want her to be upstairs swaddled.

So, yeah. At some point we need to just bite the bullet and try an unswaddled night in the crib upstairs and see what happens. Her bedtime is around 8:30 or 9 and she sleeps until 7 or 7:30 usually waking up once to eat around 4. Sometimes she'll sleep the whole night maybe a couple times a week.

She is napping unswaddled during the day and tends to take 2 or 3 half hour to 45 minute naps. I really want her to get better naps at daycare but I don't really know what the solution is to that. It's loud and bright there and they like the little babies to sleep in the baby room instead of upstairs in the pack in plays as a SIDS precaution. I'm hoping she just gets used to the daycare atmosphere soon and starts napping better. On the weekends with me she usually will take a 1-2 hour nap in the morning and two 1-hour naps in the afternoon.

Developmental milestones:

- Lila just started sitting on her own yesterday! She can sit for about a minute on her own before she starts leaning and tips over. Sometimes she can catch herself, sometimes not so much. If she has a toy in front of her she can kind of lean forward and will sit for a while. She's still wobbly, but definitely a sitter!

- Rolls from front to back and back to front with no problems at all!

- Is trying so hard to crawl!! She has got the motion down but is not quite coordinated enough to actually move much. But she reaches for toys out of her reach and kind of scoots to get them

- Still loves standing and can hold on to furniture and stand for a few seconds

- Loves playing with toys so much more this month! She especially loves her play piano and music toys, baby games on the iPad, stacking toys, mirrors and anything with lights

- She reaches out for toys and other objects now, hasn't reached out to me when I pick her up yet

- She's so rough with her toys. She bangs the keys on her piano, whips around any rattle or doll and kicks any hanging toy. It makes me laugh.

- No teeth yet, but definitely teething. Sometimes the drool just pours out!

Lila loves:

- The jumperoo! It's by far her favorite thing.

- Grabbing my hair! Might be considering a shorter haircut...

- Laughing and smiling. She's the happiest baby! She even smiles when she's crying sometimes! Crazy girl.

- Her teether that vibrates. She says "mmm" when she bites down on it!

Lila doesn't like:

- There is not much this girl doesn't like... I'm sure she'll have more opinions when we start feeding her real food.

Firsts, Funnies and Memories:

- Biggest first was not being with me all day and going to daycare! She's done remarkably well.

- Lila somehow picked up "growling" this month. She's kind of stopped doing it now, but it was quite funny while it lasted. We think grandma did it. ;)

- First bedtime away from mommy and/or daddy. Neil's parents successfully put her to bed when we went to Louisville for a concert one evening. We were back around midnight.

- Lila went to two outdoor concerts

- Hung out with her buddy Emmett again this month. They were only awake and happy at the same time for like 15 minutes!

Next month should be a fun one for little Lila. My mom and dad are visiting next weekend and then on the first weekend in August we are going to Cedar Point. It will be her first time on the beach! It's a lake beach, but still, there is sand! Neil and I are excited to ride some rides at Cedar Point. I was pregnant last summer and even though we had season passes to Kings Island I couldn't ride anything except the lazy river!

Anyway, hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!