It’s official, Maple is no longer my tiny little newborn. Long gone are the days of snuggles and naps on my chest, replaced by a tiny little alert human who wants to giggle and laugh and play all day. The other night she fell asleep in my arms, and I sat that way for another hour because it was so rare.
Speaking of sleep, here’s an update on that: Maple sleeps in the bassinet next to our bed, and wakes up sometimes 2 times during the night to eat. I just pull her out of the bassinet and into bed and feed her, and I usually sleep through the feeding, albeit restlessly. Sometimes she sleeps 8 hours, but her 8 hours start when she goes to bed at 8 pm . . . and my bedtime doesn’t start until midnight. I’ve had weeks of being more tired lately, so I’m trying to work my body back to going to sleep earlier.
She’s still taking several naps a day, and I can tell when it’s time because she rubs her ears so hard and starts gurgling a yell like a wookie. Most of the time when we set her in her crib for a nap, or in the bassinet for the night, she falls asleep peacefully.
So, what other activities and habits are new?
Sometime in the 4th month I tried holding Maple over the toilet when I realized she was ready to go. It worked! She makes dramatic faces before hand, and so it’s become routine for us to have her poop on the potty. Maple is comfortable on her little padded training seat, and we just sit on a stool and hold her. It’s certainly convenient for us since she’s in cloth diapers, and it keeps the mess down.
Maple’s funniest habit in her 5th month was learning to blow bubbles. She sticks her tongue between her lips and basically blows raspberries, which results in a really funny sound . . . and spit/drool flying out of her mouth. Here she is in action:
I’ve also been fortunate to have a babysitter for a few hours two days a week. Those are my working days. In July my day job work finally finished, so I’m officially all Janery all the time now. Maple has a great time with the babysitter, although she eats less during that time and then makes up for it by eating more once she’s back with me.
The best part of having a babysitter is that it helps me feel more relaxed during the other week days. I know I’ve done work during “work hours” and so I am able to focus on just being a fun mom for Maple on the other days.
We’ve been spending a lot of time outside thanks to the surprisingly tolerable summer weather, and Maple is really noticing things now. The leaves, the birds, the dogs. . . oh, does she love the dogs. Especially Amber, who loves to lick her tiny baby feet.
Maple and I traveled a bit, starting with a train ride from Delaware to DC. She was a total doll! She sat next to me and just played with her toy while I read. I couldn’t believe it.
The beach was a little less easy. The weekend we went, it was so hot that Maple was fairly miserable on the beach, though she didn’t mind having her feet in the ocean. We did have a cabana for sun shade, but Maple just couldn’t nap under it. It was really hot that weekend. So it was a nice but not amazing trip, because we only spent one hour on the beach all weekend. She did love the pool at the hotel, so that was good!
Fortunately she slept really well in the hotel, seemingly unphased by being away from home.
We started offering Maple food when she hit the 6 month mark! I’ll tell you about that in the next month’s update.
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