Ellie- 4 months

The many faces of Ellie....

Wait, gotta watch the TV. 

How time flies....and I'm ashamed to say I don't mind.  I know I'm not supposed to which babies bigger and I'm supposed to enjoy the moment but it's really hard for me to not think about the near future....when things should be a bit easier (at least I think they will be).

Ellie is now 4 months.  At her wellness check-up, we confirmed that she is a big girl.  We kind of thought this because we've been around a couple of 4 month old baby girls and Ellie is definitely the biggest one.  Ellie is still at the 95th percentile for height (I think she was 25.5 inches) but her weight has almost caught up with her height.  Last doc visit, her weight was at the 25th percentile and now she's at the 88th percentile- 15 lbs.
Other than that, no major changes.  Common questions at this stage:

1. Does she sleep through the night?  Sorta. Kinda. Not really.  I mean, by definition I think she does since sleeping 5 hours straight is sleeping through the night in baby world.  However, these 5 hours start around 7pm which means that she's up again around midnight.  I try to go to bed by 11pm (sometimes I just wait for her)....feed her, and then she's up again anytime between 2 or 3am depending on the night and then this is when it gets bad on most nights.  She typically will wake up every hour/1.5 hours after that.  She has been known to open up her eyes wide at 3am and smile at me--sorry, girlie but that's not cute at that time of night.  If she gets a long awake stretch at 3am, I find it hard to go back to sleep. I don't get a lot of sleep.  We may be moving her out of our room when we get back from Atlanta next week to see if that helps her sleep longer (if she doesn't smell me).  

2.  Is she still breastfeeding?  Yes.  For now.  We'll see.  Maybe not for long.  See the above response!  I feel INCREDIBLY guilty* over thinking of weaning her so early but the lack of uninterrupted sleep may get me to my breaking point.  I really wanted to bf until she is 6 months and I'm still hoping to reach that goal.  But I can't be this tired all the time if I'm going to be a good mom to all three kiddos.  I'm hoping that by introducing a little formula, perhaps she'll sleep a little better at night even though I've read it's a myth. We tried formula today while I went to teach for a couple of hours because my freezer supply is down to 2 bags of 3oz each...eek!  She drank 5oz of formula fine.  I have been awful about pumping b/c it's hard to do it while taking care of the kids.  If I don't do it right when I get up when Nick is here, I can't do it at all.  Liam is determined to unplug my pump so it's impossible to pump around him.  So, I don't have much of a back-up and why we felt we needed to try formula just in case.  Ellie has been AWFUL for Nick while I'm away.  She cries and cries and won't go to sleep until I get home pretty much.  So, he's also hoping that perhaps formula will break the bond a little and she'll be better behaved when it's just him.

3.  Does she roll over? No, not yet.  She doesn't like tummy time.  Perhaps because her tummy time is VERY limited.  It's one of the drawbacks of having other little ones around.  The same thing happened when I had Liam.  There just aren't as many safe spaces for babies when there is a toddler (that loves the baby and wants to "help" her all the time) and a preschooler running around crazy.  So, I think it'll be a while before she rolls over.  She does pull herself up well and stays head up for a while.

I know I may sound a little negative here with the sleep/feed thing but I can't complain. Ellie really is a good baby.  She's super happy during the day. When we visit people, they're always amazed at how chill she is.  She rarely cries during the day (with me that is).  And all these "issues" will resolve themselves in due time.  It will be better in a couple of weeks when the semester is over and I'm done teaching (until August!!!).  But I am really looking forward to July when I'm back in Florida with family.  It's always nice to have family around- another set of hands and eyes for the kids.  

*It's hard to pinpoint where the guilt comes from.  With Gavin I had no remorse over choosing formula but I struggled weaning Liam when I did and I feel even worse with Ellie because I haven't even hit the 6 month mark yet.  With Liam, I justified it because he was about 9.5 months when I stopped and he was close enough to the one year mark where I would switch to cow's milk (something I also struggle with in my mind b/c it doesn't make sense to me to wean off mom to offer another animal's milk--but that's another story).  I've thought it related to my "real food" obsession and how I read the ingredients and see "corn syrup solids" and think how can that really be good for baby.  And of course I know that babies thrive with modern day formula but I feel wasteful...wasting a good source of food that I'm able to produce myself (for free) just so I can have convenience (although I wouldn't say formula is "convenient", it's only convenient IF I get more sleep out of the deal!).  Anyhow...I don't plan to wean completely at this point but I know that there's really no such thing as "supplementing" b/c once there's formula in the house, it's a slippery slope.  We'll see.