Audrey - 4 Months Old

I can't believe our little peanut is 4 months old today!

She not a big fan of being on her tummy. Maybe she'll roll over soon because of that. In fact, she almost did while I was taking these pictures today!

You can see Audrey is definitely getting some baby fat on her legs. I love it! She was so skinny when she was born, it's nice to see some chubby baby rolls:)

I knit this snugly for Audrey and finally finished it before Christmas. It even has little flaps that fold over her hands to keep them warm. I've never had problems with gauge before, but this clearly ended up bigger than it was supposed to! Hopefully Audrey will fit in it while it's still cold...maybe this spring?

It is extremely easy to make Audrey smile and laugh! She always sticks her tongue out a little when she smiles, which I think is adorable:)

This is Audrey's favorite pastime since before Christmas...chewing on her hands. She is also drooling a ton. She is getting her first tooth in and although I won't officially say it's in, I can see it and sort of feel the bottom right one coming. It should be any day I think. Lily also got her teeth very early (4 and 1/2 months) so I'm not surprised.

Peek, I caught you!

Audrey in her new dress and boots. She looks pretty cool, huh?

So, the biggest battle/update with Audrey has been her sleep. She was finally falling into a nap pattern and taking nice long naps in her swing. She was sleeping fairly well at night in her Pack N' Play, getting up once to eat. Then...the swing broke. I was going to move her to her bed for naps sometime soon anyway, but I was forced to earlier than I had anticipated. I was hoping her naps would have been a little more regular first. She did okay the first few days and then got progressively worse and was only able to sleep for 40-45 minutes in a row. One afternoon she got up 6 times during her nap before I finally gave up and got her up. This lead to stressful days, an over-tired baby, and a frustrated mom. I used to pick her up to rock her every time she woke up from a nap and needed to go back to sleep. Then it became clear this wasn't the answer. So, I decided to try a little tough love sleep training. I waited about 5 minutes before going in to comfort her and instead of picking her up, I just patted her tummy, sang, and sometimes gave her the pacifier. She did a little better that day. That night when she woke at 5:30, I decided to wait a little too and she put herself back to sleep! Since then, she has been sleeping through the night for about a week. She sometimes still wakes up, but usually just babbles a little and goes back to sleep. It's been wonderful! The naps were getting better too and she finally can sleep over an hour at a time. However, it's still a battle sometimes (especially in the afternoon). I hope she figures it out soon. She has put herself back to sleep many times during the day, but I wish it didn't have to be such a loud process:) All in all, I'm not complaining since she has been a tougher baby in the sleep department for a long time. She's now sleeping from around 9:30pm until 8:00am at night and takes three naps during the day. The afternoon one overlaps with Lily's so that has been wonderful to get a little break (and sometimes even a shower!).

Besides sleep and the new tooth, Audrey is a much happier baby now that she's older. She loves to reach for and grab (and chew) toys. What I find interesting is that sometimes she really needs her alone play time. She lets you know if she needs a break from you:) She laughs and smiles a ton and likes to practice her standing. I've even put her in the exersaucer a few times, although she needs to be a little stronger to really enjoy it. She really likes watching her sister and sometimes this can result in a very distracted nurser:) I love it though, because it's the beginning of many interactions between the two of them. Audrey seems very interested in watching us eat so I think we will try some rice cereal in the next couple of weeks. She still sort of takes the bottle, but clearly is not liking it as much. I've been trying to give it to her more, but I think she's just at the point where she'll take it if she has to, but she's not going to like it. Hopefully, she'll keep it up so Dave and I can have a date every now and then.

A few brown flecks have shown up in Audrey's eyes. I think she might be a brown-eyed girl like me, but it's possible she'll be like Lily and end up with gray eyes with brown flecks (sort of hazel I guess). I gave her first haircut a few days ago. I just trimmed the hair that kept hanging over her ears. She still has crazy hair, but I think cutting anymore would make it even more so.

Audrey has her 4 month doctor's appointment next Tuesday so we will find out how much she weighs etc. I tried to measure her myself a while back and she already measured 25 inches! She's very long. So long, that she even is wearing some 9 month-sized clothes. What happened to my little peanut? She's still pretty slim and I think she's still under 15 lbs. We'll get the true numbers on Tuesday though.