4 Months

Well, almost four and a half months now.  We still aren't sure who she looks like.  The past few weeks most people have been telling us she looks more like her daddy- although she definitely has a Leck chin. This past month 3-4 has probably been my favorite so far because she's getting to be more interactive and starting to play with things a little bit.  She has started gnawing on everything she can get in the general vicinity of her mouth and drooling a lot.  And she blows raspberries ALL the time!  I love it!

We really think she is going to be left-handed.  She has always been more active reaching and batting with her left hand, and now she primarily grabs and holds things with her left hand.

19 Week Stats from the doctor yesterday:
11lbs 6oz 10th percentile (She was in the 25th percentile at 2 months)
23.5in 25th percentile (She was in the 50th percentile at 2 months)

I was a little bummed that she's still so small.  I was hoping she would be 12 lbs and maintain her weight in the 25th percentile to stay on that curve.  But no.  The doctor says she's healthy and strong and doing everything she should be doing- she's just petite.  We just started putting her in some 6 months clothes a few days ago, but she still fits into most of her 3 month clothes just fine.

Sleeping:
Phoebe still sleeps great at night going to bed at 8:30pm and waking up around 8am (between 7:30 and 8:30).  Her naps still are not regular, but I think that is more my fault than anything.  When I have stayed home with her during the day she will take a morning nap and an afternoon nap anywhere between an hour and two hours and then 2 short cat naps.  But the majority of time she's out with me during all or part of a nap time.  We still swaddle her at night to sleep.  How long are you supposed to do this?  She sleeps so well in the swaddle I'm afraid to stop...

Eating:
I am still pumping to feed her as much as I can.  The beginning of her third month I was keeping up pretty good, but now that she's taking more and I'm not waking up in the middle of the night to pump anymore, I just can't keep up.  Because I could not get her to eat more I had decided to try to increase the protein in my diet to see if I could increase the quality of my milk for her.  So for the past month I've been eating a high(er) protein diet and drinking protein shakes...  I honestly can't tell if it has made a difference or not.

She eats a good five ounces at each feeding, which is every 3 hours (5 times per day).  She won't go much longer than 3 1/2 hours without eating during the day.  I wish I could make her eat more to gain weight, but I can't.  My original plan was to wait till six months to introduce solid foods. Yesterday, the doctor said that she really doesn't need solids until six months; however, if I wanted to start giving her solids now that would be fine- my choice.  So I think we are going to start with the rice cereal in a few days and go from there.  I figure the more calories the better...

Diapering:
Cloth.  Nothing new and exciting here except I only have to wash every other day now because she fits into all the diapers now.  And someone had asked me about how much it costs me to do the extra laundry.  Its hard to say for sure, but looking at trends in our water bill over the last year compared to the last 3 months, I would say we spend about $7-10 more a month on our water bill with the extra washes.  Now part of that is just the extra laundry I'm doing with baby clothes too, but its a rough estimate.  And I honestly have no idea how to figure out how much more its costing with the dryer.

Well I had really thought that she would have rolled over by now.  Several weeks ago she was so close! But then she stopped trying.  The doctor said not to worry she would probably roll over in the next month.  Although I will say that a couple days ago Chris left her on the guest bed on her back while he ran into her changing room (the closet) to get something and when he came back out she was on her belly...  Not sure how she did that, but its the only time and no one saw her so that must have been some sort of miracle.

Trying...

4 months