Hattie is 4 months old!

 

Sweet Hattie Jeanne turned 4 months old on May 30th. Just look at those chunky little legs.. she is really growing!

• At her 4 month appointment Hattie weighed in at 17 lbs 10oz (>97%) and was 27.5 inches long (>97%). Her head circumference was 42cm (82%). Overall she is staying in or near the same percentiles that she has been in since birth so that is great.. She is a very big girl all around which is not a bad thing - someone has to be at the top!
• She recently began to sleep through the night consistently, YAY! Since her birth, I have said that at 4 months we would try "sleep training" (which is when most sources say it is safe to start). She slept through the night on her own 3 times in the first week of May. Since then she has mostly gotten up once per night. However, about a week ago I decided I was not going to feed her at night anymore. If she wakes up before 5am we would soothe her back to sleep but not offer to nurse. Well, two nights of rocking her back to sleep and she has decided it wasn't worth getting up if no one was going to feed her! She has slept until after 5am every night since. Smart girl. :)
• Hattie goes to bed somewhere around 8:30pm every night. I typically put her to bed a little after we get Emmett to sleep. She nurses for quite a while before bed and then lays down quietly only to wake up a few minutes after crying. However, I have discovered that if I let her cry a few minutes she settles back down and goes to sleep on her own. She still takes about 3 naps per day and is tired about 2 hours or so after waking up from her last nap.
• She typically nurses 6 times a day. At daycare she takes 3 4oz bottles but I am going to change things up on Monday and send 2 6oz bottles instead. We'll see how that goes. She is drinking out of level 3 nipples now and still loves her Dr. Brown's bottles. Daddy gave her one today that he reported she sucked right down! She was actually still hungry only 1.5 hours later which is why I think she may want to take more than 4oz per feeding.
• Hattie has moved up to size 3 diapers and is wearing 9 month clothing. She is just so long!
• She is getting close to rolling over. She kicks her legs all over the place and is actually happiest laying on the floor on her back. We are getting better at tummy time too though. :) She needs some more practice. She gets over onto her side from both her tummy and her back but has not gotten completely rolled over either way, to our knowledge.
• She now really enjoys sitting in her bumbo chair. Give her a few toys and she is happy there for at least 15 minutes. She also uses her exersaucer at times as well which we tried for the first time on May 4th.
• She is also exploring making more new sounds lately. Yesterday while giving Emmett breakfast Hattie was making noises in her exersaucer and Emmett reported - "Hattie talking!" That's right buddy.:)  I'm sure she'll be saying Dada soon.. Although I would love to hear Mama too!
• One of her favorite toys is her O-ball. It is so easy to grab. She likes to bring it to her mouth and stick her tongue through it. She'll grab just about anything though. It is fun to see her starting to enjoy some toys. She's also getting more interested in reading books with us.
• Hattie loves to hear Mommy Daddy and Emmett sing. It is actually the only thing (so far) that makes her laugh. She has laughed a handful of times now.. and each time it has been when one of us was singing. The first time was last week when Daddy sang "Brass Monkey" to her. :) He was lovingly referring to her chunkiness while singing that song. Ha. She thought it was hilarious. Today she got a kick out of Emmett and Mommy singing "Old Mcdonald". E-I-E-I-O!
• We are taking a different approach with food this time and offered Hattie her first serving of rice cereal yesterday, May 31st. It went pretty well. She really didn't push it out of her mouth too much with her tongue and she didn't make a face at all.. so we'll try it again soon, possibly once a day going forward if we are able to squeeze it in to our schedule! :)

Hattie always has a smile for Mommy and Daddy. She is a sweet and patient little girl (almost always). She is very content. Hattie doesn't like to be handled too much but would rather just do her own thing in her swing, bouncy seat or just hanging out on the floor. When she is tired she needs a little help getting to sleep and would prefer to be rocked by her Momma... but we are trying to get away from that a little so she is not so dependent on being rocked. So far she has still been pretty good at napping on the go as well. She will snooze in her carseat quite easily. Her morning nap is her best and it is usually a solid 2 hours. However, she did take a pretty good afternoon nap today as well of about 2 hours and then just a short snooze around 5. She has enjoyed having a lot of one on one time with Mommy since birth. We still have a lovely time being together on our Wednesdays and Fridays since Mom is still working part-time. There always seem to be 1 or 2 errands to run but that's ok. Our time together will be coming to an end shortly as Mommy goes back to work full time as of June 17th. I think Hattie and I will both be ready to focus more on our day jobs at that point. She does really well at Dragon Tots and will be learning so much - just like her big brother! We love our big girl and are really enjoying this stage. She's a sweetie and we are very lucky that she is ours!