5 Months

Nicholas is becoming such a happy kiddo, we are loving the smiles and coos that are happening more frequently each day that passes.

• Development: Nicholas loves the bouncing chair and can use his toes to build momentum and kick blankets off.  He loves to smile in the chair when we sing silly songs together during breakfast and lunch.

• He is doing a great job of holding his head up and spends some time in the Bumbo chair.  Nicholas now giggles too!  Cooper is the best at getting lots of giggles from his brother.  He loves to grab a hold of the toys on his playmat and put anything and everything in his mouth.  When holding Nicholas facing you he loves to use his toes to try to climb up your stomach.  He prefers to be held facing outwards

• Physical: His hair is a medium brown and starting to stand up on top, his eyes are a lighter blue color and he has one dimple on the left when he smiles.

• Bedtime routine: Starts at 6:30pm with a final evening feeding, reading 3 books with Cooper, final diaper change, vitamin and jammies.  We then swaddle him in bed and put a binkie in his mouth, turn on the humidifier, fan and monitor and sing him the goodnight song.
• Eating: Nicholas still eats frequently and quickly.  He enjoys eating every 2 hours once he wakes up around 5:30am.  If we are out and he is in a carrier this can stretch to 3 hours.  After most naps during the day he will wake up screaming for food, but will wake up smiling and happy after going all night long without eating.
• Sleeping: Nicholas is a good sleeper.  He goes down by 7:30 and wakes up around 5:30.  We have had success sleep training him so he is put down for bed and naps still semi awake instead of completely asleep.  We are using a binky for all sleeping periods and at night we are still getting up 2-3 times a night to put a binky back in his mouth when he wakes up crying.  This is on our list to work on, but in the middle of the night the quick fix of putting a binky in is still winning over listening to him cry over 10 minutes.  Nighttime is much easier for him to soothe himself.  Many naps he still needs some extra bouncing and holding to get him to fall asleep.  I have enjoyed some 20min and even one 2 hour dual nap with both brothers sleeping at the same time in the afternoon.  It is a fun game to guess how we will find Nicholas each morning.  Usually it is against the front railing with at least one arm out and a smile on his face.

• Crying: This has been a huge change from the beginning.  Nicholas is so much happier more of the time each day.  He is most upset when he wakes up from a nap during the day wanting to eat and when he is ready for a nap.  He typically takes 3-4 20 minute naps a day.

• Bath time: After bath Nicholas turns into this cute monkey.  Tonight we realized that washing his hair will be much easier in the future when we sit him in the small tub instead of trying to still lay/hold him in my arms which we had been doing when he couldn’t support his head.  It is a way overdue change to the bath routine we both laughed at how long it took us to realize this change was possible.  We are still bathing him about once a week.