Four Months Old

Reed turned four months on Friday, Dec. 12. What a big boy we have!

Reed’s doctor’s appointment isn’t until this Thursday, Dec. 18 so we don’t have any stats to report. Check out the blog later this week for a full report.

I managed to miss Reed’s official 3-month studio portraits so I took him to JCPenney last week for a 4-month portrait. Boy, what a great mood he was in! I was so relieved. I had quite an ordeal with my earlier attempt for portraits at another children’s studio at the mall (long story, one I should have posted but didn’t get to). Let’s just say I spent two and a half hours and had not one picture taken!

Anyway, my friend Angie accompanied me as the baby wrangler, and we got some fabulous shots! I can’t wait to get them back.

It seems like Reed has grown so much this month. He is now sitting very easily on your lap without having to lean against you. In fact, if he is not sleepy he will squirm and lean forward until he can do so without you holding him. The Bumbo chair is perfect for him now, and I think he prefers that to his bouncer at this point, which is good since he is almost too long for it! He also loves to stand on your lap or the kitchen table as you hold him under his arms. He bounces up and down and strengthens those leg muscles!

He is now in 6-9 month clothes and rapidly approaching strictly 9 month sizes. I finally packed up all his 0-3 and 3-6 month clothing, and it made me so sad to look at all the outfits he never got to wear or only wore once. In a panic the other day, I looked in the closet and saw so many 6-9 month outfits! I’m now trying to get him to wear every outfit at least once, but this is quite a challenge.

We get a ton of smiles now and even some giggles and chuckles. He will belly laugh when he is in a good mood (which is most of the time) and you kiss him on his neck. How funny!

He has fully discovered his hands and now reaches for objects and pulls them to his mouth. He loves to taste everything he touches, but nothing taste as good as his hands. Yum yum! He just can’t get enough—sticking one or two fingers in his mouth and usually his whole fist. Sometimes this is accompanied with VERY LOUD gurgling or humming (see video below). In fact, we can usually hear him now when he wakes up in the morning because he begins “talking” to himself

with this extended gurgling.

In addition to his fist infatuation, he is drooling A LOT. Yes, he is probably getting prepared for teething though we haven’t seen any yet. He generally wears a bib all day long so that he doesn’t soak his outfit.

Reed has done a great job adjusting to daycare. He has taken a real shine to Lindsay, the daycare worker who greeted him on his very first day. When he sees her, he just lights up. Lindsay joking refers to him as her “boyfriend,” and greets him with a “Hey, boyfriend!” when she sees him. Today, Lindsay told me that he was being a real flirt and smiling and grinning at her every time she walked by his crib or passed his line of sight. What a charmer we have! I can’t blame her, he’s adorable…

We have had a few rough patches in that Reed caught a tummy bug at daycare which left him with the runs for about two weeks around Thanksgiving. It was not fun, to say the least. The virus also had him spitting up after and during feedings which is abnormal for him. We were worried about him, but he never ran a fever, had an appetite and was still a happy fun-loving baby; therefore, the doctor told us to let the bug run its course. It looks like we are over it. Ah, the joys of daycare.

We have tried rice cereal a handful of times during bottle feedings. Originally, Reed seemed to like it even if it created a mess. The last few times however he hasn’t seemed interested. We’ll see what the doctor has to say Thursday. There is no rush to have him on solids other than if he is still hungry after a full day of bottles, which the daycare say he often is.

Finally, Reed is doing great through the night. He has taken to 8-9 hours of sleep a night, and sometimes even 10 or 11. We are having a little trouble in the 3-4 a.m. period where he is waking up and needing help going back to sleep – no bottle, just reswaddling and his pacifier. He is more and more becoming aware of our presence so we are starting to let him cry more often in the hopes that he will learn to soothe himself back to sleep. We also are going to have to start getting him to sleep without the pacifier because running in every 5-10 minutes to give it back to him is no fun.

All in all, Reed is doing wonderfully, and we feel so blessed to have him.