Ella 4 Month Update

 

Stats:

• Weight: 13 lb 7.5 oz  - 35st percentile 
• Height: 26.25" - 98th percentile
• Head Circumference: 16 inches - 53rd percentile
• Diapers: Size 1 (sometimes now when I'm leaving the house I put her in a size 2 to help avoid a wardrobe change)
• Clothing: Disney 0-3 month and 3-6 month. Around the first week of April I put her in Spasilk 6 months and her body was almost too long for them at that point. She outgrew the Steelers 0-3 mo onesies for length not width. The width of the 3-6 month ones is quite wide but barely long enough.  The only pants she wore this month were both pairs of her Carters 6 month pants. I've also put her in Leveret 6-12 month onesies. They are very wide but almost too short.  She has some dresses that are Carters 6 month that she's been wearing. I still put her in a 3 month one too.  If the dress is 2 piece versus a built in onesie, the smaller sizes seem to fit better. Overall I still find that the 0-3 month Disney ones look the best.  

Sleep
She was sleeping through the night then that stopped when she started teething and when it got insanely hot. For most of the month she doesn't go to bed until 9 or 10 so then I'm getting 6 or 7 solid hours of sleep and she's sleeping around 8 when she does sleep through the night.  On March 28, she rolled over back to front in her swaddle so since then she's been sleeping with 1 arm swaddled. In the last week she started only sleeping 4 or so hours and waking up.  It has been very tiring. No matter when she wakes up in the night she always wakes up for the day at 6:30 AM.

Eating
She eats for between 2 and 4 hours a day but most closer to 2. She spends more time eating than she did last month.  Now there are times that she will actually nurse on both sides at the same nursing session. Before this only happened at the nursing session right before bed.  I tend to pump 2 oz every morning because I produce more overnight than she eats in the morning. We took a break with trying to give her bottles and only started again in the past week or so. She is much better now. She drank a full oz twice. She actually drank a decent amount a few times when she started teething. She started grabbing the nipple on the bottle to sort of squeeze the milk into her mouth. She's a character.

Sample Schedule:
She doesn't have a specific nap time or food time yet.  Basically she sleeps for a long period of time starting at 8 or 9 PM. She might sleep 7 hours or 10 hours or 5 the second half the month. She always wakes up at 6:30 AM even if she was up at 5:30.  Well sometimes she's up at 6 but never later than 6:30 then she says away for 1-2 hour splaying and chilling with Dave. Then she goes to sleep for maybe an hour if I'm lucky.
She then will be awake and play for about an hour and a half. This time has been getting longer throughout the month. She eats after she wakes up and before she goes to sleep again. Throughout the day her naps range from 20 minutes to 2 hours but usually on the shorter side.  She is up for more than an hour and a half at a time pretty much every time she is awake. Sometimes she plays and is pleasant when awake. Other times she's so fussy and won't let me put her down to play. She might also seem tired but she sure won't go to sleep. 

Special Moments:

She was able to stand for a few seconds holding onto Dave for balance and not weight earlier this month. 
On March 23, she said the M sound. Then later that day started saying "mom" with emphasis on both m's. Then she started crying out mom when she wanted something or wanted to eat. This seems crazy.  She rolled over for Dave back to front on the same day. This was the first time he saw it.  On March 24, she used my iphone to type some messages (of nonsense).  She held onto me and pulled herself up from sitting. 
On March 25, she tried "talking" to me for a few minutes. Then she cried when I didn't understand her. I had said "What" at one point and she started repeating her nonsense. She was saying a lot of letters though. It was quite shocking.  She played on her piano mat for 25 minutes while I was able to do stuff. That was a new long for her.  Dave continued to work on her standing without support.  She also turns on her side a lot when playing.  
On March 30, she wanted to hold my  hand. She fell asleep holding it. It was so cute. I stayed there for a good 15 extra minutes just enjoying how precious it was.  
On March 31, she started to make the "wh" sound.  
On April 1, she rolled over front to back for someone not in the family and without being prompted.  She was supposed to be working on tummy time and I ran to the other room to put laundry in.  
On April 2, she rolled over back to front unprompted with a burp cloth and blanket in her way. 
On April 3, we went to our first mommy meetup. It was a disaster. We went to Shoreline to walk and it didn't go so well.  
On April 4, she said the d sound then said "dad" and "dada" but has only said the d sound a couple times since. She clearly likes to say m more than d. 
On April 4 she seemed to start teething. She was miserable. Luckily a week earlier we bought a teething ring. She liked it. (We bought her the frozen kind the next day. She liked them better.)  I've been working on waving bye to Dave when he leaves to see how long until Ella can do it. Well she waved with her foot on April 5.  
On April 7, she grabbed her bird that spins on the play mat. She only ever watched it before.  
On April 9, I was waving bye to Dave and Ella waved. I was in complete shock. I figured it was just a fluke. Then later that day the landlord said bye to her and waved then commented that she was waving bye. I was looking at him not her so I almost missed it. So she waved twice in one day so maybe it wasn't a fluke but then she hasn't waved since. 

On April 9, I had an interesting conversation with Ella that was probably all in my head. But she was saying sounds that made sense. 
me: Can you say dada?
Ella shakes head
me: Can you say anything?
Ella: anything (but in a baby way so no th sound  probably more like an-ting)
me: did you just say "anything?"
Ella: yea
me: Can you say anything again?
Ella had 4 syllables but not the right ones.
Then she won't talk at all. 
I ask her to say mom. Then dada. She shakes her head. 
me: Will you say anything to me?
Ella shakes her head
a few seconds later
me: Why are you trying to eat your fingers?
Ella makes sounds sort of like "hungry" but without the g. 
me: Are you hungry?
Ella nods
me: Do you want more food? (see I was trying to trick her up and thought she'd shake her head)
Ella nods.
So then I start feeding her and she sure eats.
This is probably all in my head. Also I have a post for 4/9 but I only wrote the first half the day and it's still in my drafts so I put this here.  So Dave didn't believe me. He gets home. Ella is sitting on the bed. He says "Can you say alright?" and just as I'm trying to tell him she won't say that since she wasn't already talking, she said something that sounded so clearly like alright that Dave and I were shocked. He dropped the shorts he was holding and I basically fell over. After some discussion Dave said he asked her to say alright since that's what I asked her earlier. She said anything not alright to me though.  She barely talked after this. Dave claims it's because I fell over and she didn't like that. 
On April 13, she rolled over back to front twice. Both times were when I started ignoring her and she rolled over while I was looking up at the TV. I didn't the roll but looked back down and she was on her stomach. 
On April 16, she inched forward like a makeshift crawl about 10 inches. 
On April 18, she sat unassisted for a couple seconds a couple times. 
On April 20, she sat with only 1 arm with slight support. This was more upright. The unassisted sits from earlier were more at a 45 degree angle.  She threw up for the first time. I think she got so excited. This was during our 4 month pictures. Even though I had the tripod there, I did not get a picture of her throwing up and I cleaned up the tiny mess without snapping any pictures. She rolled over back to front but only after we started ignoring her. Twice she said "hi" in response to Dave saying hi. It's funny to see her work on getting the h sound before she says hi.

Development:
She recognizes us and will follow either of us when we walk around the room. 
She sits against stuff now and can stay seated for a good while unless she is too distracted looking around or playing. She has started practicing sitting on her own. At first she was leaning way forward and now it's about 45 degrees. She likes to hold something with 1 arm for support.
She has made a few more new sounds but I don't think there are that many.  She will say something then doesn't say it again.   
She self soothes by sucking on her fingers or hands. She still gets startled while sleeping so needs to be swaddled.
She has rolled over front to back and back to front more but she rolls back to front a lot more. She will move to her side a lot but not fully roll over. 
She laughs. She squeals with delight. She likes to "talk" while playing too.
She grabs toys on her play mats and grabs and holds separate toys now.
She's getting better at rotating. She rotates in the crib sometimes and often rotates on her play mats.
She still has her startle reflex.
(There's probably more to say here. She is changing daily and it's so hard to even remember it all at the end of the month.)

In some of these I was flailing around trying to get Ella to laugh. It worked on Dave and Ella.

Other Tidbits:
Likes
She still likes to play a lot! 
She loves it when she's swaddled (even if it is the 1 arm swaddle now).
She likes to stand with support.
She likes to sit. (She even sits at her piano and supports herself with the piano)
She likes to be held.
She likes to talk and smile at us. She especially likes to try to say "hi." 
She likes to look at herself in the mirror and likes to look at Dave. She gets so much more excited this month doing this. 
She likes to watch TV. She seems to especially like American Idol. We won't actually have her there watching it but she'll turn her head just to see. She also likes to watch Dave play WoW or Diablo. She loves the colors.
She likes to look in a mirror. She loves her toys with mirrors. She became much better in a car once she realized she could look in the mirror. She enjoys tummy time more since we got a mirror.
She likes to shimmy herself along her back to move up. 
She loves to squeal with delight. These squeals have been getting louder too.
This month she started grabbing her foot and now that's one of her favorite things to do. She mainly grabs her left foot with left hand but will occasionally do the right. 
She seems to love to grab our finger and jam it in her mouth. Her arm can be outstretched and she hits her mouth with our figure every time. 
Ella LOVES when Dave gets home from work or in the morning when she sees him. Her face lights up. She doesn't get that excited for me EVER. (But on the 20th, I gave Dave a haircut. She didn't recognize him for hours!)

Dislikes
She doesn't like it bright or the sun. She also doesn't like her sunglasses and doesn't like to be covered with the cover on the stroller.
She hates the pacifier.
She doesn't seem to like to have her fingernails trimmed because she moves so much when I try to do it. 
She doesn't like to have a wet diaper. But sometimes if she's playing she will continue to play before she complains about it.
She doesn't want to be held like a baby (and hasn't for quite some time).

Fun Facts
Longest time sleeping: 9 hours 5 minutes  (last month 11 hours and 2 minutes) (All of the longest days were still in March)
Days with a sleep greater than 5 hours: 27 (all 4 days were in April that she did not 4, 7, 8, 15)
Diapers used (from April 1-19): 12.3 per day (increase from last month)
Time spent nursing (from April 1-19): 167 minutes (2:47) per day (increase from last month)
Time spent sleeping (from April 1-19): 14.8 hours per day  (decrease  from last month)

Ella is so happy in these because she is looking at Dave

My recovery
Each time I run further I feel my abs a little past the previous longest run. But I keep not running longer because I'm always in a hurry.  I'm consistently still up 10 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I still have a pretty big belly. I think ever since I upped my walks I've lost about a half lb a week until I hit 10 lbs to lose then it fluctuates between 9 10 and 11 lbs to lose but at 9 the least. I'm getting used to being heavier that I almost forget that this isn't how I normally look.
I got a blocked milk duct this month. That really hurt and sucked!
I'm doing the plank challenge in April and it is really tough.   I'm going to do a made up squat challenge in May. I'll post about it but I want to Squat Away May and will do 25 squats every other day for the month. We'll see how that goes.

Ella's hat!

I took pictures with all her Easter stuff but didn't even narrow those ones down. There were just too many pictures. I'll put Easter pics in another post I guess.

Ella climbing up Dave