5 months

Gray continues to grow and change so fast. It seems like he is still doing something new almost every single day. He is finally being able to stay awake a little longer at a time and sometimes he can stretch it out to three hours in between naps. I know me staying at home with him has a lot to do with it, but he is extremely scheduled/routine oriented. I think some of that is just his personality and that part he definitely would have gotten from his mama! We've been gone a lot over the past week and a half visiting my grandfather in the hospital and then over the weekend at his funeral service and it has just taken a toll on our poor little guy. Either dragging him with us or dropping him off at someone's house has done a number on his sleep. Until yesterday, he hadn't napped longer than 30 minutes in the last week. I want him to be more flexible but at the same time I know how much he wants and needs his bed and his normal nap schedule. We both might as well get over it though because as soon as we get him back to normal, we'll be heading out of town for Thanksgiving and he'll be re-introduced to the dreadful pack-n-play and his not-so-perfect nap schedule.

Anywho, let's talk more about Gray at 5 months...

He started playing in his exersaucer. At first he didn't know what to think and he just sat there taking it all in. Within just a week, he is already turning himself around and grabbing at and playing with some of the toys on it.

He discovered how to put his feet in his mouth and they have now become his new favorite chew toy. Sometimes when I go to get him in the mornings or from nap, the feet of his pajamas are soaking wet.

 He started eating baby food about two weeks ago. As I mentioned in his 4 month post, our pediatrician told me I could wait until 6 months or I could go ahead and start and we felt like he was ready. So far he's had bananas, peas, apple sauce and sweet potatoes. He wasn't a huge fan of the peas or apple sauce but the sweet potatoes were a huge hit! We are just feeding it to him once a day for now and will move to twice soon and then by 6 months, three times a day.

He's finally reaching for things and can hold something with both hands now and have more control over it. The first few weeks we gave him teething beads, he would get so frustrated because he couldn't hold it and keep it in his mouth for very long. Now he loves to have something at all times that he can hold in both hands. I can't wait to see what stuffed animal and/or lovey he chooses to get attached to. He is also starting to take his paci out and put it back in more.

When he is laying on his back, he can pull up if you hold his hands. He seems strong enough to sit up but just doesn't quite have the balance yet.

His laugh has become more of a chuckle, like a real laugh. He doesn't just do it all the time yet so we get so excited when we're able to get a good laugh from him. It's one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard.

He is back to enjoying tummy time again and when he's on his tummy he can move around A LOT! It's amazing how he can scoot and turn. It seems like he could just start crawling at any point, though I am sure it will be several more months until he does. This is my favorite picture of him on his tummy.

He is wearing some 9 month clothes already, especially pajamas because he is so long. He continues to grow out of clothes left and right and it's hard not to shed tears when I pack yet another outfit away. Not that we are thinking about another baby any time soon, but I'd love to have another boy to be able to wear his brother's sweet clothes so I can enjoy and remember them one more time. I know I've said this before but about 90% of Gray's clothes are hand me downs and I just love knowing what good use all of those clothes have gotten. If we don't have another boy, I sure hope we can pass them down to someone else's little guy and they will be blessed by them like we have.

Sleep is still going great (unless he's off his schedule of course). He usually still takes 2-3 naps a day, ranging from 2-3.5 hours. He sleeps 12-13 hours a night with one feeding during that time. We still haven't weaned him from his one middle of the night feeding. We were waiting for soccer season to be over because Paul is going to help and he needed all the rest he could get while he was coaching. Last weekend was his first weekend off but with everything that happened with my granddaddy, the last two weekends didn't go as planned. Our weaning plan is going to go something like this-we plan on using a bottle for the middle of the night feeding and Paul will get up and give it to him. Our pediatrician recommended this for two reasons. One being that it won't be mommy and Gray won't have the comfort of nursing, which is a lot of what he wants at that time. Another reason being that we can tell exactly how much he is eating and we can decrease the amount of milk each night. We'll start with his usual 6 ounces the first night and eventually get down to only one ounce. Gray's doctor and also the book on sleep that I read, both say that the baby will think it's not too worth getting up for just one ounce of milk, especially if it's not straight from mama. Now we have decided to wait until after Thanksgiving to start it because as great as the plan sounds, I have a feeling it's going to take some crying it out too and we want to be able to be consistent until he is completely weaned. I plan on still waking up once during the night to pump and hopefully get some milk saved up in the freezer. One of these days I look forward to knowing what it's like to sleep through the night again. It's been since I was about 4 months pregnant. That's a long time y'all.

We just retired the car seat adapter on Gray's stroller. He looks so tiny sitting in that big 'ol thing but I think he will like it much better now that he can see everything. I will sure miss looking at him on our walks though.

Here's our chunky monkey at 5 months...

 

I can't believe in less than a month now, we'll be headed to Gray's 6 month check up. And I don't really love to go there, but I can't deny that that means our boy will be half of a year old. Still trying to soak up and treasure every single second with our sweet boy.