Zavier at Five Months!

Another month with stats! I'm surprising myself! (also, five months is in January 2014)

Weighs 20 lbs
Length 27 3/4"

Eats
He still eats a lot. Every three hours on average. Sometimes more than three sometimes less. I feed him whenever he wants so I don't really keep close track. Only close enough track that when the dr asks I can say the average. He's become very distracted though so our sessions can last anywhere from 5 mins to 30 mins. He's packing on the pounds that's for sure. Good thing he's long too or else he'd be a real chubb-a-lubb. He likes watching us eat so I'm sure if I introduced some cereal to him he would go for it but I really want to wait until 5 or 5.5 months. We'll see what happens.

Sleeps
This month was really wonky bc he had a stuffy nose a lot. So that interrupted his sleep a lot. Then he had croup which definitely made sleep difficult for a couple of nights. But we're over that now and one night he slept for a nice 6 hour stretch! So that was lovely. His average is 3 hour stretches at night and 20-40 min naps during the day. He takes a nap about every three hours. His average is three for everything it seems.

Activity
He loves his bouncer and has mastered rolling and all that. He's now into grabbing his legs and feet while laying down. He's so intentional with his grabs in general. He appears to know what he wants and he grabs for it. He really loves holding hands with us too. So he's really handsy. We have been practicing sitting alone and he does okay with the boppy behind him. He definitely wants to lean forward a lot so hopefully he gets the concept of keeping his hands out in front of himself. He also inch worms across the floor. I feel like between now and actual crawling so much is happening with him!

This month he's replaced the pacifier with his thumb. This is fine with us now after some initial worry about it. After our research we determined its fine for him to do and that most kids wean themselves from it by age 2. This has actually been helpful with self-soothing, especially at night.

Let's talk about croup. First, Scarlett was not sick at all as a baby. She's only recently had a cold with an accompanying cough. It was only a matter of time after all the sickness in November and December and I'm just glad she didn't have the stomach bug that was circulating. Zavier got a stuffy nose when Scarlett had one and we thought that was that. But Alex had the flu and some other people we know had the flu around the holidays. Zavier started on Friday with some super long naps. He usually falls asleep in the car but these naps extended for hours which wasn't like him at all. The same thing occurred Saturday, long naps. Sunday morning he had a fever and was coughing a little but we just thought it was draining mucus, as that's how Scarlett's cold was ending. So we treated his fever all day/night which didn't subside at all. He slept terribly that night. He was up about every hour or so and his cough was getting worse. By the morning it was definitely sounding like a bark and his breathing in between coughs didn't sound the best. So when the dr opened I called immediately and they had an appt for him an hour later. He got an oral steroid and more Tylenol. She said it would get worse before it got better. I never really thought the steroid helped. But it only got better from then on so that was a relief. We did a lot of steams in the bathroom at Scarlett's nap time and when she went to bed at night. In between that we sat in front of the humidifier. Day two he was still lethargic but his fever had broken. By day three he was feeling better, smiling more and wanting to bounce and play. He still had a cough for the next several days and definitely mucus that needed draining but just to be over the fever and coughing was a huge relief. I honestly don't know how parents with sick children deal with it all the time. It's so sad.

Speaking of sickness though, I got a nose frida thing bc the bulb syringe is basically terrible at doing anything at all. And while he hates the nose frida and the saline drops in general, they both have been working really well through all of this.

We're so lucky to have such a happy little guy. He's such a pleasure to have around.