Hugh - 5 Months!

I am so sorry sweet baby that I missed your four month post. Please know that you are just so wonderful that I have an impossible time giving up even one minute with you in favor of writing up a post. Seriously.

The past two months have flown by as usual and I have to catch myself from saying "three months" when a friendly stranger asks me how old you are. Five months, sigh. I know there are so many fun stages ahead of us BUT I love these baby days so much that I don't even care that I am repeating myself for the tenth time. Having a third child has certainly changed our day to day lives and I would love to say that there is a post in the works detailing my thoughts on having three kids vs two but we all know that is a lie. What I do have is a bullet list of random thoughts, quotes, and musings on my phone...and that will have to do for now. Future self don't be too mad that there isn't more substance here. You won't remember, because your brain is now almost 100% mush, but the lack of posting will not have been out of laziness...it is virtually impossible to type while snuggling a sleeping baby.


Likes: Mommy, being held, nursing, being tickled, having a fresh diaper, paci, the swing, riding in the car, tummy time, snuggles, the play mat, jingly sounds, attention from Ben and Lily, pulling hair, trying to suck his thumb, screaming from 7:01-7:30 every night.

Dislikes: Being over tired, baths, getting stuck on his belly

Nicknames: Hoo, Hughtiepie, Hoopie, HJ, Youkie (this is becoming by far the most prefered by Lily)

Milestones: Sleeping through the night, rolling back to belly, reaching for toys, being able to put paci in his own mouth (success rate 40%)

Feeding:  It could just be my fuzzy memory but I think Hugh likes nursing more than my other two babies. Lily was my most efficient nurser, wasted no time and promptly fell asleep when she was full. Ben was victim of overactive let down, poor thing, I remember a lot of choking and sputtering. By the time Ben was five months he nursed when he was hungry but the outside world was just so exciting that I had to sit alone in the dark to get more than a few minutes out of him. Hugh LOVES to nurse. He loves the milk and the snuggles, he nurses to fill his belly but he also nurses for comfort. Getting him on a schedule has proven to be an exercise in futility but the lack of a schedule works for us so it is what it is. I would say Hugh nurses anywhere from 5-7 times a day. He also takes a 6-7oz bottle from Matt before bed at 9:00.

No solids until next month. Feeding a baby is not one of my favorite activities (I know some people love it) so I will be putting it off for as long as I can ;) For now Hugh is very clearly getting everything he needs from milk.

Sleeping: So overjoyed to report that for the most part Hugh sleeps through the night. The past few nights have been a little rough, lots of two minute wake ups, but long nights like those are the exception.

The pediatrician seemed a little surprised that we were still swaddling Hugh like a mental patient. I can't remember exactly when we stopped with the other two. Definitely earlier than this with Ben because he hated everything it. I think I swaddled Lily until she could roll which was also earlier than now because she weighed about as much as a feather and a stiff breeze was all she needed to send her tumbling over. She also preferred to be on her belly, which Hugh does not. It is probably time to start weaning him off from it. I will say it would be pretty great if he could find his own paci in the night.

Right now Hugh takes his bottle from Daddy around 9pm and by 10pm is swaddled and sound asleep in his crib. Most nights he sleeps until sometime between 5 and 6am. He nurses on one side and goes back to bed until 8:30ish. There are no words for how glorious this is! Naps are becoming more regimented and I try and get him in the crib for a real nap at least twice a day, though this does not always happen for a lot of reasons. Hugh is also a cat napper and will randomly fall asleep on the playmat or in the bouncy seat for 20 minutes, neither of my other two babies ever did this, like ever.

We are a 'cry it out' family and sooner rather than later I will start putting Hugh down slightly drowsy as opposed to holding him until he is soundly sleeping. I think that he will take that better than I do! Harder for him will be those 3am chirps that go unanswered. I firmly believe in sleep training and self soothing but I also don't want to rock the boat and change a whole bunch of things that are totally working for us right now. Hugh is still sleeping in the crib in our closet and will probably stay there through the winter.

Odds and Ends: Hugh is still the biggest baby in the whole world. At his four month appointment he was in the 80-90% for height and weight but I refuse to believe that there are actually babies out there who are bigger at this age. He wears almost exclusively 9m clothes! The exception being all of the hand me down holiday jammies and outfits which are all 6m, He only cries for a minute when I cram him into those ;)

From very early on we coined the phrase "serious baby, be serious" to describe Hugh's overall disposition. He is certainly more smiley and much less stingy with the giggles these days but I would still argue that most of the time he looks like he has a lot on his mind by default. I really hope this is the face of contentment and not worry, only time will tell. He is serious but very rarely unhappy and almost always easily comforted.

I think it is finally safe to say, I got my BROWN EYED BABY! His eyes get darker by the day and easily take up half of his face. I almost can't even stand it!

Up next: Ho ho ho, solid food, and loooong winter days.