Jude, Four Months

Jude is 4 months old!

 

Weight

15 lb 10oz, hubba chubba!

Height

26.25 inches, 91st percentile!

Sleep

Just like last month, his nap time sleep has been stellar and his overnight sleep has been the pits. He tends to take a 2-ish-hour morning nap, a 2-ish-hour afternoon nap, and then 1 or 2 evening catnaps before 9pm-ish bedtime. And then the overnight has been miserable. We're talking waking every 2 hours, taking forever to be put back to sleep, not letting us put him down in his bassinet, some nights up 6 times, never more than 4 hours of sleep in a row!! 

There are so many culprits including: the 4-month sleep regression (where their sleep cycles change and so they wake way more easily and more often), teething, not swaddling anymore, and not putting him on his tummy for the overnight (which we do for daytime naps because he looovvvves tummy sleep and I can watch him during the day, but I obvi can't watch him while I sleep overnight, so on his back he goes).

Anywho, we've tried so many things to get him to sleep better. The biggest help has been putting him down drowsy instead of fully asleep. He fought this several nights, several terrible nights. But he's finally getting the hang of closing his eyes and falling asleep on his own. Another big help has been taking shifts during the night, where I'd tend to him for his first few wake-ups until 2am, and then John would take over after that. It meant we were each getting slightly longer stretches of sleep, albeit still not stellar. And most recently, we added Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit to the mix, which we borrowed from my sister-in-law, and that seems to be helping immensely. 

There's light at the end of this terrible-sleep tunnel!

Firsts this month

-Rolling over from belly to back several times.

-Hardcore giggles. They melt me.

-Reaching to grab toys and things out of reach, including our bowls/plates/cups when we're holding him during a meal, or our hair, which is super fun to yank out apparently. :P

-Having even more control of his arms/legs/hands/feet now. He found his toes recently during a diaper change and has been obsessed ever since.

-Blowing the occasional raspberry.

-Growing teeth.(SO MUCH DROOL.)

-Pulling his chest of the ground during tummy time.

-Interacting with John Paul way more. Lots of smiles for his big bro!

-Not needing to be on an incline anymore when he sleeps. Reflux seems to be a thing of the past!

Nicknames

I'm still stuck on calling him my gooey baby. Just look at all that adorable gooeyness! And he's often called by his full name: Jude Francis!

Other things to note 

-I think Jude's eyes are changing color! They're slightly brown around the pupils now.

-We're prob cloth diapering 20% of the time now. I can almost guarantee that'll be higher next month since I just invested in 12 more diapers a few days ago. Cloth diapering 2 kiddos with only 30ish diapers was making it kinda hard.

-Every single thing that makes it into Jude's hands goes directly to mouth. He's such a mouthy baby. Pretty sure teething is to blame. But no object is off limits, including my hair, John Paul's shoulder, our knuckles, anything. 

-It's definitely my favorite thing ever to watch my boys interact with each other, and this month has been the best yet for that. John Paul loves doing tummy time with Jude, or really just hanging out wherever he is. He likes helping with diaper changes, mostly by throwing away the dirty diaper when I'm all done. He also squeals whenever he thinks Jude is doing something funny, like drooling or smiling at him or trying to pull his hair. The only time things don't go so well is when I have to give Jude my undivided attention, or basically when I'm focused on putting him down for a nap. Then John Paul will do everything he possibly can to interrupt, thus waking his brother and prolonging the process. Oh well! At least they're cute together 90% of the time. ;)

^^John Paul squealing while Jude tries to latch onto his shoulder. Typical.