Matthew: Five Months!

All smiles at five months old!

Height/Weight: Per our scale at home, Matthew has packed on roughly a pound and a half since four months, putting him over 16 pounds. If that's accurate, it would certainly put him on pace to "catch up" to where his brothers were at six months. And I honestly wouldn't be terribly surprised if he ended up passing his brothers because he seems to be packing on some rolls in ways I don't remember any of his brothers doing. I suppose it could just be that he is putting on weight and not length, but we've already raised his exersaucer up from the lowest setting so he's at least getting somewhat taller. I guess we'll find out for sure in a few weeks!

Wearing: Still wearing 3-6 month clothes (and 6-9 month clothes that have shrunk down to fit like 3-6 month clothes). Every once in a while I'll find a shirt that is getting a little snug, but I'm not rushing to pull down the 6-9 month tote just yet. He's still wearing size two diapers, and I honestly haven't noticed them being small, but his brothers all moved up to size three right after or before five months, so maybe he isn't going to end up catching up to his brothers by six months? Who knows.

Eating: Still just breast milk, but he gets suuuuuper interested in what we are eating. To the point where his brothers have picked up on it and are pretty much counting down to his being six months old so they can start feeding him real (mashed) food. And honestly, I'm pretty ready for it too--he can have some terrible days of bad naps paired with poor nursings (or maybe it's the other way around), so I'm kind of hoping that working some consistent table food into his routine will help the other elements settle in to place.

Sleeping: Ugh. Why must baby sleep be so difficult? Whoever coined the expression "sleep like a baby" clearly has no idea how babies actually sleep. I've tried to stay really positive with Matthew's sleep habits because I have three older boys that are proof that it could be worse, but man, I've finally got to say it--his sleeping habits blow. I guess I let myself believe that since I had a six-week old who was only waking once at night (without any effort or "training" from us) that every thing else would fall into place just as easily, but that is proving to not be the case. In the past month he's actually been waking more at night than he did when he was younger, AND he's needing to eat during those wakings in order to settle back to sleep (aka I have to go in there and can't just send Darrell). And then I also made the mistake of letting myself believe that since he wasn't sleeping as well at night that he might start napping better during the day to "catch up" on sleep, but that definitely hasn't happened either. Cat naps are still his M.O., and while they are usually closer to 45 minutes instead of the (super irritating and annoying) 20 minutes he had been doing, I'm still done with them. Now that he's getting more squirmy and grabby I pretty much have to have eyes on him constantly, so his naps are really the only breaks I get from being "on", and it's just not enough time--especially when I've usually pushed off needs of his brothers until his nap time, so most of my break from Matthew is spent filling the needs of his brothers. (And yes, I know I technically signed up for this when I chose to have four kids relatively close together, but I didn't sign up to be raising them during a pandemic. Being pretty much stuck at home for the past 3.5 months is wearing thin for all of us.)

New Stuff: Well, Matthew's biggest first wasn't just monumental for him, but also for his brothers. Because despite not really leaving the house since mid-March, we decided (after lots and lots of research, planning, and monitoring trends/data) to go ahead with our annual beach trip with Darrell's family. It was about as drastic of a way as possible for us to "break" quarantine--the boys hadn't so much as been to a grocery store with me since all this began and all of the sudden we were masking them up and loading them on an airplane to stay in a house with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins for a week. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any anxiety and doubts about the whole thing, but we've been home for two weeks now and no one appears to have gotten sick, so that's a huge relief. And honestly, it was really good to feel "normal" for a little bit. Matthew did pretty well on the plane, although since airlines are hurting for travelers our original direct flights were cancelled and we had layovers on both legs of our trip, and the second flight on each day was definitely a little rough. Silver lining, I suppose, is that since the planes were flying at only 60% capacity we weren't as close to other people and there weren't as many others on the flight for him to annoy with his crying. I was a little nervous about how he would do in a house of essentially strangers after being with no one but us for the majority of his life, but he did really well being passed around, which was a huge relief (and actually allowed me to have a few breaks now and then!).

Developmentally, he's started to show progress toward sitting; I'd say he's about 50% of the way there and obviously, because it's new it's his favorite thing to do, so I end up spending a fair amount of time on the floor with him sitting between my legs. He still enjoys his exersaucer, and using it has definitely whet his appetite for standing, so he loves to work that skill whenever he can (aka whenever he isn't sitting. He's a busy boy for sure--but with three big brothers we expected as much). Rolling back to front has been more than mastered, and part of the sleeping issue as well because he doesn't roll front to back quite as readily and he hasn't exactly gotten comfortable sleeping on his tummy. Spending more time on his tummy, though, is definitely laying the groundwork for crawling, and while he certainly isn't fully mobile, he can wiggle himself a decent bit so we have to make sure a pretty wide radius is clear around him when we put him down.

The biggest personality thing I can think of (at least that I haven't previously mentioned) is that he seems to have gotten pretty sensitive to being wet, whether it's his diaper or his clothes. If he's fussy but it isn't really time for a nap or a feeding, a surefire way to calm him down is to strip him down and change his diaper. Naked time is fun time for this kid. Of course, between the spitting up and All.The.Drool we're going through constant outfit changes, but whatever. Happy baby happy Mama!