The Barrons: Sterling at 5 months

Our sweet S is 5 months old! We have gone through a lot of changes this month! Here is what our girl is doing at 5 months:

*Sterling found her feet and loves to grab and play with them! Just today she figured out that she can also put them in her mouth and suck!!!

*Just a couple of days into her fourth month Sterling started rolling over from her back to her stomach. She now rolls, scoots, and pushes herself all over the floor and we never find her in the same place we left her!

*No kidding it is only going to be a matter of time before this squirmy girl gets to crawling! She is already planking and getting up on her hands and knees rocking! Doesn't she know she is supposed to learn to sit up first?! She will lay on her stomach or sit there on her knees and make so much noise. It is like she is frustrated that she can't get anywhere! Hopefully once she starts crawling this will make her a little happier because she is no longer content just laying there on the floor.

*Sterling has gotten good at grasping toys and of course most of them go straight to her mouth. I had forgotten about this stage and I am starting to have to keep my hair in a ponytail because she will grab and pull huge handfuls of hair!!! We think she must be cutting a tooth because she is also drooling like crazy!

*Sterling is still sucking her pointer and middle finger on her left hand. When she gets tired or when we put her down for her nap she will put her fingers in her mouth and her right arm over eyes, it seems so dramatic and so so cute!

She loves this Elmo of Brayden's!

*She spends a little bit of time in the bouncer and seems to enjoy playing with all of the toys that are attached but she doesn't bounce like crazy like Brayden did at this age

*S likes to sit in the bumbo and look at herself in the mirror

*I think it is so funny the way Sterling grabs at your face and pulls you towards her and just attacks you with her mouth, it is so sweet and funny and almost like she is trying to give you kisses!
*Since Sterling started rolling over from her back to tummy we decided to unswaddle her so she didn't get stuck! We had about a week of rough nights when Sterling would roll on to her stomach and cry during the middle of the night. Since then, Sterling will now roll on to her stomach almost immediately and stay that way all night long. We also decided to go ahead and put Sterling up in her crib in her room finally because we thought we would all have better sleep! We were right! Since she has been sleeping upstairs in her room she has been going much longer stretches and I have been feeding her sometime between 4:00-5:30 in the morning.(this morning she slept until 5:45) We also had to go ahead and leave her legs swaddled because she was getting her little legs and feet stuck between the crib slats!!!
*I had been having an incredibly hard time nursing Sterling. She would latch on for just a few minutes, pull off, cry (like red face screaming crying) and want nothing to do with eating. Nursing sessions were taking close to an hour when I would finally give up and think she was just finished. At first I thought, well maybe she is either just more efficient or not as hungry...Then I decided to go ahead and pump to see if there was any milk left and there was. I tried giving Sterling the expressed milk in a bottle and she downed the whole thing right away... I had a really tough time at first realizing that S is just one of those babies who is not interested in nursing :( . So now she is getting pumped breastmilk in bottles throughout the day. She will still nurse first thing in the morning when it is pitch dark and she is still half asleep but I am no longer trying during the rest of the day and just giving her a bottle right away. I have also started giving her some formula at bedtime in her last bottle of the day. This was so, so disappointing to me because I had such a different experience with Brayden! He was such a great nurser and went all the way up till his first birthday! I am just glad that Sterling is at least able to still get all of the benefits of breast milk even if it is coming out of a bottle instead. And yes, pumping is so annoying and having to prepare and clean bottles isn't much fun either! But, even with all of that, I am spending less time than I was trying to force Sterling to nurse when she clearly did not want to!
*Sterling still gets a catnap on the go in the morning and then has a good 11/2-2 hour nap at 12:30 and another 11/2 hour nap at around 4:00. She is also still taking about an hour nap in the evening before her bath and final bottle of the day. We are still bathing her in the kitchen sink and she is definitely about to outgrow it! I can't wait until she is big enough to bathe with Brayden!!