5 months - CJM

This little cutie pie is 5 months old!

                                     

He loves, loves, loves his bath. Normally, he takes them with his other two brothers and he seems to enjoy their company. He just stares at Bradley the entire bath, as B demands to sit closest to Charlie.

It's been a good month for sweet Charlie. He is still such a good baby and content most of the day. It makes life with a busy toddler and preschooler who needs A LOT of stimulation just a little bit easier. He's moving out of the infant stage and becoming much more of an active baby. We've put him in his walker and the jumperoo over the past few weeks and he seems to be doing pretty well in them. His head control is definitely there, just trying to figure out what to do with himself while in them as he doesn't grasp or play with things too much, yet.

We moved him out of his crib earlier this month. He came down with bronchiolitis right after turning 4 months. That, coupled with a double ear infection, made life pretty miserable for him. He was on breathing treatments and two different antibiotics and finally was cured after about 12 days. Once he recovered, we decided it was time to move him from his bassinet. We thought about trying to transition out slowly, but learned cold turkey was much better. He really didn't seem to notice the difference and sleep habits did not change much either. Well, about a week after moving to the crib, he quickly figured out how to break out of his swaddle. So, we decided to give the Merlin Magic Sleepsuit another try. He looks like the Michelin Tire Man. He fights like heck getting in that thing, but usually only cries for about 1-2 minutes, before he just gives in and goes to sleep.

It's worked out pretty well, as it really has not affected his sleep patterns much either. I wouldn't say he is the best sleeper in the world, but it could be much worse. He pretty much consistently wakes up twice a night, sometime once, if we are lucky. One night he will get up at 12 and  5, the next night 11 and 4, or sometimes just sleep til 6. There's no guessing with this one. He does, however, usually wake up for the morning right around 7:30-8 regardless of how the night went. We are putting him to bed around 8:15-8:30 pm as well. As for naps during the day, he still is taking 3-4 naps. Usually one of them is a good long one (about 2 hours), but sometimes he does four 40 minutes throughout the day. He keeps us guessing, that's for sure.

He is pretty obsessed with his hands these days, and loooooves putting them in his mouth. I can see two big bumps on his bottom gums, so I'm assuming he will start the teething process here shortly as he tries to gnaw on just about anything.

He is still not rolling from back to tummy just yet, but he sure does like to try. I'll see him throw his legs over really hard, but he just can't seem to flip the head around.

This kid is a kicking fool! Man, those legs get going and he has the bouncer getting some major air. Still loving the bouncer, especially if he can "watch" TV in it, haha! He'll hang out in it for an hour sometimes before he gets tired of it. As long as he has his lovies or a burp cloth to occupy himself, he's good to go.

I just stopped nursing him last week, tear :( I wasn't quite ready to give up yet, but my supply quickly kind of shut things down when I had to start supplementing. So he made a quick transition to formula over the course of 4-5 days, but has seemed to do just fine on it. No complaints so far. He's in 9 months clothes and still size 2 diapers, although we should probably bump him up.

The night before we took our family pictures, I had the boys do some practice poses for me. I have to say, they were much more compliant for this than they were the picture session. I LOVE this first pic!

 This one's not so bad either :)

 Then, B got bored (love those chubby cheeks)!

This weekend, we finally started rice cereal. I've been putting it off, not sure why other than just pure laziness on my part. Now, we will have three mouths to feed and it just sounds daunting to me! Despite how it looks in the pic, he actually liked it. He would cry between bites for whatever reason, but then licked up the cereal no prob.

Here are some shots from our 5 month photo shoot. He was all smiles and big brother insisted on sneaking in as many pics as he possibly could (mainly, B just wanted the sticker for himself).

 Love this pic - looks like B is trying to tell Charlie a secret.

Chubby cheeks! The kid doesn't skip a bottle, that's for sure. I think he's eating about 32-35 oz. of formula a day! You would think he would sleep better at night.

 Love those lil feet!

You're such a sweet baby, Charlie. You just light up and smile and coo whenever someone just looks at you. You aren't scared of strangers (yet!) and will talk to anyone who will listen to your adorable voice. We love you!