Hadley's 5-month update

Hadley turned 5 months old about a week ago (I hate that I missed blogging about it right away, but things have been SO busy here!)! She is growing, growing, growing - up to about 14lb, 9oz now, with a head circumference of about 16 inches & a height of 24 inches! She is also gaining such a personality & is really a lot of fun to hang out with all day. Her favorite new toy is her Elmo's Super Boom Box from Aunt Jenna; Cookie Monster says, "Play it again!" - Daddy loves that, too! Hadley also makes "raspberries" with her lips from time to time & she laughed out loud this month when my family was up visiting from central PA.

Hadley has grown so much that she moved up ANOTHER size in diapers (up to size 3 now!) and her car seat is also on its biggest setting (we adjusted the waist and shoulder straps). We're hoping to get a few more months out of the infant seat, though she is getting too heavy to actually carry her in the seat when we go anywhere.

Hadley consistently uses her pacifier for naps now & she sleeps (at bedtime) with a little lovey blankie in her crib & her new crib aquarium. She is still in the swing for naps, which we're working on eliminating, but we also still have to swaddle her & bounce her to sleep for naps, so those ones might be tough to break!

Hadley also laughed this month when my family was visiting for her baptism!

Hadley had a lot of big events going on this month! She had her baptism on the 17th, which went very well. She looked like a little princess & didn't cry when she got the water sprinkled on her head. We had a nice brunch with all of our family and friends at Grammy & Granddad's house - we had a lot of visitors at our house that weekend since some of Mommy's family came in to visit: MumMum & Pops, Aunt Jenna, Aunt MaryAnne, Uncle Frank, Aunt Sandy & Tim.

The following weekend was Hadley's first Easter - she did GREAT on the trip up to MumMum & Pops's house, sleeping almost the entire way! While we were there, we got Hadley's picture taken to redeem a gift certificate that we received for her shower - the pics came out really cute, too. The trip home after Easter was not quite so smooth, as Hadley screamed for 45 minutes simply because she didn't want to be sitting in her car seat; fun times!

We also started Hadley on solids this month! It took her a couple weeks to get the hang of it, but now she eats like a champ - her favorites seem to be pears, bananas & carrots, though she seems to like everything we've given her so far (also squash & sweet potatoes). We started out with diluted rice cereal & she hasn't seemed to be a fan of that, but she does like it mixed in with her other solids.

Hadley's not a fan of rice cereal!

But she does seem to like it mixed with sweet potatoes!

Hadley also had two big events right after her 5-month-birthday, so I'll blog about them now otherwise I'll forget by the time the next (6 month???? REALLY?) update rolls around. First of all, a few days after her 5-month-birthday (right around Mommy's birthday), we started sleep training - she was still up EVERY THREE HOURS (or less) EVERY NIGHT and it was getting REALLY old for sleep-deprived Mommy. We knew that she didn't need to be eating, but we couldn't figure out why she was always up, as her gas issues seemed to have subsided for the most part. We finally realized that she just didn't know HOW to put herself back to sleep, since when she was up with gas, I would either nurse or just hold her to fall asleep because I felt so awful that she was in pain. With the exception of one night of crying for 3 hours (night #3), Hadley has done an awesome job! While she is still waking up almost as often, she is learning various self-soothing tactics to put herself back to sleep & has gone as much as 8 hours between feedings now! During the day, Hadley will stretch to about 4 hours between feedings, which is excellent!

We also had a visit to the pediatric GI specialist (which was scheduled a month and a half ago, when her gas issues were still really bad). We loved the doctor; he praised that I had continued breast feeding even though she had the gas issues, knowing that formula would not be more easily digested (though some people had suggested adding it in) & that I was planning on BFing for a year. He was really great in that he explained everything & did a lot of talking and questioning so that he could really get an in depth history of Hadley & her issues. In the end, he said she was a beautiful little girl and he couldn't rationalize ordering invasive tests on an otherwise healthy child, so that was that! Hopefully as she continues to grow, the gas issues will continue to lessen.

Overall, we had another great month! It just keeps getting better!