5 Months!

Ethan is 5 months old today!!  I  know I say this just about every month but I can't believe how much he's changed in just one month.

You didn't have to go to the doctor this month so we don't know how much you weigh or how tall you are.  You'll go back for your 6 month visit in May.

You continue to sleep through the night and tend to fall asleep around 7:00.  While Mommy was on spring break you even extended your bed time to 8:00-8:30 a few times.  We're trying to teach you how to fall asleep on your own and, for the most part, you're doing a great job.  Mommy and Daddy lay you in the crib awake and then leave the room.  You whine/and or cry for about 15 minutes but we do check on you every few minutes, give you your paci back, and rub your belly.  You're definitely getting the hang of it!  Two times this past week you fell asleep later than normal (8:00) and fell asleep with absolutely no crying!  We were so excited when this happened and hopefully it'll continue.

We do not swaddle you at all anymore because you've broken out of it and accomplished a new task that makes the swaddles dangerous (more on that later!)  I continue to wake you up for a final feeding of the night around 10:00 but I think I may begin to wean you from that.  Instead of giving you 15 minutes or so to feed, I may stop around 10 minutes.  We'll see how that works out.

You still tend to wake yourself around 6:00 in the morning, just in time for breakfast before Mommy and Daddy go to work.  We've had a few nights this month where you wake up around 4:00 in the morning but you just spend that time babbling until you fall back asleep.  We don't even have to get up because you've learned how to fall back asleep.  Since Mommy was on spring break this week, you were allowed to sleep in most days.  You woke up anywhere from 6:45-8:30!  You don't even cry when you wake up anymore.  Most of the time, we hear you talking to yourself and babbling away through the monitor.  When we go in to get you, we're always greeted with the most adorable smile.

You are eating every 3 hours for the most part but are starting to stretch that out at times to 3.5 hours or so.  Lately you've become very distracted when eating so you tend to pull away and look at what is around you.  You also love to feel the texture of everything while eating, scratching your little nails against the chair, your pant legs, Mommy's shirt, or your own hair.  When at the sitters, you eat (4) 5 oz. bottles.  You're still spitting up but it seems like it's not quite as bad as it has been.  Hopefully that will stop in the near future and we won't have to do as much laundry!

We're finally tackled the nap issue.  One weekend, Miss Dawn let us borrow the swing you sleep in when you're with her.  That weekend you took 1-2.5 hour naps and woke up such a happy baby.  Mommy immediately ordered the same swing for you to have here at the house.  However, after learning that it would take almost an entire month for the swing to show up, we decided to test out the car seat swing to see if your naps would be just as long.  Ever since your naps have been WONDERFUL!  I just place you in the swing, turn on the water noise, give you a blankie and paci, and let you swing away.  Sometimes I even just let you sleep in it without the swinging motion and you STILL do just as wonderfully.  I'm just a tad worried that you'll be swinging in there for naps until you're in college but hey, whatever works!

You now wear entirely 3-6 month clothing and some of that is getting too short for you.  You are such a tall baby that you're outgrowing clothes too fast!  Luckily Mommy's work friend gave you LOTS of clothes so we have plenty for you to choose from.  Right now you are still in size two diapers but I'm thinking we're going to have to try either 2-3 or 3's.  We've had a ton of blowouts this week and things are getting really messy.  In fact, we've bought special nighttime diapers for you because I hated having you wake up soaking wet and dirty EVERY SINGLE MORNING.

You've learned how to roll over from back to belly!!!!  This first happened at Miss Dawn's house and Mommy was very sad not to have seen it first.  But within a short amount of time, we saw it for ourselves.  This past week you woke up crying for us at 4:00 in the morning.  When we walked in to your room, you were laying on your belly!  Since we never put you to sleep this way, we knew you had accomplished your new skill.  This is another reason why we're not able to swaddle you at night.  If we did, you'd have a very hard time flipping over and you'd scream and cry for us.  While you've done an amazing job showing off your new talent, you seem to have forgotten how to roll back over from belly to back.  Once you get sick and tired of laying on your tummy, you cry in frustration until someone flips you back over.  Once we do, you just roll over again.  It's quite an amusing little game but I'm hoping you remember how to roll back over again soon.  In fact, we may have to look into buying a baby gate very soon.

You've also started to reach out for people when they hold their hands in front of you.  We practiced this quite a few times yesterday when Grandma was holding you and you kept holding your hands out for me!

We thought you had your first tooth coming in at the beginning of March but that turned out not to be the case.  Mommy's still not sure what she saw but the doctor thought it was a tooth too so I'm not completely nuts!  I'm secretly happy that it wasn't a tooth because then you won't bite me just yet!

Your favorite toys is now Sophie the Giraffe.  She's rubbery, squeaks, and is very easy for you to hold onto.  The only problem we've had is trying to keep it away from Maggie! 

This month we celebrated your very first Easter.  The Easter bunny visited you and we spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa Becker's house.  You had such a good time and were such a sweet boy.  Your family members were just so excited to see how much you've grown.

You continue to make our lives so much better than we ever thought it could be.  Thank you for being such an amazing little boy.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy