4 months

I'm pretty sure someone went through a big growth spurt over the past month!  I cannot believe how big he looks to me lately.  We won't know his weight/height stats until our doctor appointment on Tuesday, but I'd say he's grown quite a bit.

We've had some interesting sleep struggles this month.  First, Isaac revisited the 30 minute naps he took last month. We struggled with that for a couple of weeks until I got sick of it and swaddled him again for naps (something I haven't done since he was one month old).  After a week of success with that, I got scared of having to wean him from the swaddle for naps and nighttime, and stopped swaddling for naps.  He took 4 great naps, then reverted back to 30 minutes each.  Naps are a daily struggle.

sleeping peacefully in the swing, the only place he will take a GOOD nap

We made the big transition to the crib this month.  We first had to transition him from his rock n play to his pack n play, which we did right when he turned 3 months.  After about 10 nights in the pack n play, Rodney and I decided it was time to move him to the crib.  We couldn't talk in bed or watch tv.  We had to brush our teeth quietly.  Sometimes just tossing and turning in bed at night would cause him to stir and cry out.  I liked having him within arm's reach so I could easily replace his paci or just soothe him with a hand on his chest, but we knew it was time.  The final straw was a night where he cried and groaned in his sleep all night (or so it seemed), and even though he slept through it all, Rodney and I did not.  One of the last mornings, Cash sneezed and Isaac "woke up" and cried.  It was time.  Overall he has done very well in his crib.  There are some nights that he cries out several times and one of us has to go in to put his paci back in, but some nights we don't hear from him at all.

Isaac doesn't sleep quite as long in his crib.  He went from sleeping 10.5-11.25 hours, down to 10-10.5 hours per night.  Not a big deal, but that meant we were getting up earlier than we used to.  I talked to a mommy friend who suggested it might be time to move him to an earlier bedtime, so we've been working on that.  He used to sleep from 9 until 8-ish, now he goes to bed around 8:15 and sleeps until 7:00-7:30, so we're back to 11-ish hours.  No complaints there.  Every morning I find him staring at the circles on the wall above his crib.

He is wearing size 2 diapers now.  They're still a bit big, but the size 1's were getting a little small, and we ran out of those, so instead of buying more we just moved on to size 2.

He is just starting to wear 3-6 month in some brands (like Old Navy and Gymboree), but is still in some 0-3, and pretty much all 3 months in Carter's stuff.

He drinks 5 bottles a day, a 7 ounce when he wakes up, and 6 ounces for the other four.

I've really been encouraging Isaac to grasp and hold simple toys, and a couple of weeks ago he got it.  It's like it just clicked in his brain one day and now he can do it.  Everything that he gets a good grip on goes to his mouth, then he drops it, and puts his hand in his mouth instead.

One day, probably over a month ago, he rolled front to back 5 times.  I pretty much knew it was a fluke that day, just a balance issue.  He kept leaning too far to one side and rolling over, and I was confident it wouldn't happen again for a while.  I was right.  He has no interest in rolling whatsoever.  I try to "practice" with him, but he's just not into it yet, which is fine.  He'll do it in his own time.

We also practice sitting a lot now, and he can tripod sit fairly well, using his hands to hold him up, balancing either on his legs or the floor.  I know the real sitting won't come for a while, but it's exciting to see some progress.

His daddy is his favorite person in the whole world.  When Rodney gets home from work, Isaac can't take his eyes off of him.  All Rodney has to do is look at him, and Isaac can't stop grinning.  

smiling at daddy

The biggest and most recent development is the sweet sound of baby laughter.  His first real laugh came last Thursday, and we try so hard to get him to laugh every day.  Again, Rodney is the best at getting a laugh out of him, but I can occasionally make him laugh during the day.  Monday night before his bath Rodney was getting some good laughs.  I grabbed the video camera which was right beside me, and by the time I got it on the laughs weren't as good, but you can get a small glimpse of the laughter.


Untitled from Simply Me on Vimeo.

We go back to the pediatrician on Tuesday for another round of vaccines.  I've got so many questions for the pedi this time.  Two months between appointments is way too long!