H: 4 Months

1 Month____________________________4 Month

How in the world is my girl 4 months already.....when they say you'll miss it if you blink, they aren't joking.



H is the sweetest and happiest babe. She is always laughing and smiling. She is wanting to be on the move so badly, every time you lay her on the floor she starts rolling and attempting to start scooting. She can somewhat stand on her own for a few seconds. (probably thanks to all those jumps she's doing in the bouncer) H loves being held and played with. She's not a fan of being alone or playing when we leave the room. (Although sometimes Pepper is good company for her)

Weighing in at 14lbs and 2oz and 26 inches long. She loves being outside, although too much rain has really put a damper on things like that.

She had her first overnight stay with her Aunt Casey. This was suppose to be a fun weekend away for Austin and I, but turned into an emergency room visit and surgery for a kidney stone for me! (UGHHH)
 

H celebrated her first Easter & got lots of stuff from the Easter Bunny & Her Grandparents. She got her first car & an adorable mermaid outfit.

 
We had our first family pictures taken since her newborn pictures. She didn't want to smile too much, it was just about nap time.

 

She loves going to Coffee Dates on Saturday mornings with her Momma & visiting with Taylor, T, S, Karena & H!   They don't know it yet, but H, H, & S are going to be besties.




H also celebrated her Nana Kathy's 50th birthday with her!




She makes all our lives so much fun & exciting. Everyday we are so blessed to see how much she grows & learns.


Until the next dash,

Momma Spice*

Our Bedtime Routine: How we got H to sleep through the night.

H loves her sleep. The first week she was at home, I was frantically worrying that she was sleeping too much. 

In the beginning, we were making sure to wake up her every 2-3 hours to eat. She hated it and always wanted her sleep. Her schedule started to become a little more flexible as she was getting older. Around 4-5 weeks is when we started to get on a regular sleep schedule. 

We started with her bed time being around 11pm and she would sleep until around 5am-6am. We slowly started working her bedtime back, little by little. If we noticed she wasn't sleeping as well, we would take a break and go a little later. It was really a trial and error to figure out what would work best for her. We focused on making sure she was getting enough to eat and enough sleep. (which sometimes meant we didn't get enough sleep or enough to eat lol #parenthood) 

Eventually around 7-8 weeks old, She was going to bed around 9pm and waking up around 6am. She is now 4 and a half months and goes to bed between 8pm-9pm and typically will wake up between 6:30am-7:30am.

We try to keep to a very strict bedtime routine to help her sleep better. We started this routine around 7 weeks and it has really been working for our girl.

Around 8pm we will give H a warm bath. Sometimes its just a warm bubble bath & other days we actually wash her hair & everything. We are a believer of the Johnson Lavender bubble bath & soaps. ** We have had no issues with her skin drying out or any other issues with her having a short warm bath each night.

After her bath, we get her dressed in her pj's and we always spend about 10-15 minutes just playing and talking to her, some nights we will read books also. (This helps to make sure she is tired and not going to be wide awake)

After a little play and interaction time, we rock her & give her a bottle. The bottle is the formula with added rice or we add the rice to her normal formula. (She is now at the point where we are adding rice to all of her bottles, before her 4 month appointment, the only bottle with rice was her night time bottle.)

++I know..I know..We are "spoiling" her by rocking her to sleep every night...but someday she will be too big or she won't want to be rocked to sleep by her Momma..so until those days come, I'm going to enjoy all the moments.

 After her bottle she is typically asleep. We don't force her to drink the entire bottle, but normally she has no issues with that. (she's a little chunk!) We can usually put her in her crib and she is down for the night. We also use a sound machine & black out curtains. For about 2 weeks now, she does sleep with her Unicorn blankie. Some nights it's hard to even get her to sleep without it.

    

We have the most success with her sleeping through the night, when we make sure and stick to our routine and schedule as much as we can. Obviously there are some nights that are impossible or that she just isn't having bed time...but for the most part we have good nights.


Be sure to check out my Instagram for a small Giveaway! @mommacspice

Until The Next Dash, 

Momma Spice