Noah in December 2014

Noah turned 5 months old during December.  He had a busy and full month.  He was pretty fussy most of the month, whether from visitors or teething or illness, it is hard to say.  He has gotten back to being not so fussy now.

Noah also went from being more of a little baby who mostly laid down or was held to taking a much greater interest in the world.  He sits pretty independently now, though it helps to be right close by because he will still eventually fall over, although not usually for 10 or 20 minutes.  When you carry him, he is always tilting downwards so that he can look around see if there is anything interesting to grab.  He likes to spend part of the day sitting down, part of the day holding on to your fingers so he can stand up, and part of the day being held.  He also has started sitting in his highchair while we are eating.  He likes being part of the family.  Sometimes we will feed him little bits of food, but mostly he is there for sociality.

Noah had a rough month in terms of sleep, but is still a pretty good sleeper.  He is awesome about going to sleep on his own during the day.  He gets fussy or yawns or starts sucking his thumb or stares lovingly at his crib (no, really) and then you know it's time for a nap.  You wrap him up in a swaddle blanket - one hand out to suck on, he pops his thumb in, and then he goes to sleep.  Occasionally he will be fussy for a bit, but he'll go to sleep within a few minutes.  Unless he is really not tired, but that will be clear very quickly.  Sometimes he will rouse a bit during sleep and then will put himself back to sleep.  But at night time, he still wakes usually once but sometimes twice to eat at night.  I tried getting him to put himself to sleep (not a chance) or not feeding him (also not a chance ... he will eventually go to sleep after a long struggle, but then he'll wake right back up like 15 minutes later).  So, he's not ready to sleep all the way through (i.e., 12 hours) yet.  He usually has a good 6-8 hour stretch though from around 7pm-2am.  And he is still pretty much a 3 nap boy, though sometimes it's just 2 and he goes down for sleep really early.  Sometimes he is up early, but he usually sleeps until 8 something in the morning.

Noah has been talking a lot more.  He still loves to blow raspberries and say things like ga and gi.  But now he will say "ba ba ba" and "ma ma ma".  He does seem to reserve "ma" for me a lot of the time; the kids are convinced it is his first word, but I am not so convinced.

Breastfeeding has been tough this month for me (I keep getting clogged ducts and such until I got flow blown mastitis on Sunday), but he seems to still enjoy it.  He takes a bottle on Friday mornings at the preschool and apparently is very demanding about it.  No matter how much I pump, it is never enough and they resort to giving him water on top of it.  Next time, I think I am going to pack formula.  He has tried various little bits of table food - maybe we will try real baby food on him soon.  Maybe.  None of the other boys were very interested and I'm not super interested either.  Table food is so much easier.  He still seems to have a bit of a hard time eating, but is interested in being spoon food.  He doesn't really seem interested in picking up cheerios or puffs or anything yet.

Tummy time is officially over.  He will roll over almost first thing and refuses to stay on his tummy.  And he will put up a big fuss until he is all the way rolled over as well.  He rolls over with his head / torso first, before finally bringing his leg around to complete the roll.  I think I have seen him roll the other way around, but his interest in that is 0.

Well, nap time is done.  Noah is a sweet fun boy and another fun month.