Caroline is 5 Months Old

Caroline is 5 months old today. I LOVE this age, and we are having a lot of fun with sweet baby girl. It has been an exciting month and Caroline is doing lots of new things. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Caroline started rolling over and also sleeping on her tummy. This makes for better naps and she sleeps 1-2 hours every nap most of the time. Good riddance 30 minute naps!!! She's still sleeping about 10-11 hours at night, thank goodness. This is a blessing that I thank God for everyday...really, I'm not just saying that. Every morning I wake up and give a little shout out. I just don't think I'd be able to function as well if we weren't having good nights (as evidenced by my emotional stability, or lack thereof, when I was really sleep deprived during baby girl's first 6 weeks). Caroline eats 4x/day and takes anywhere from 32-36 oz. of milk (total :-) We haven't started rice cereal yet but maybe soon. She's still sleeping well through the night and doesn't seem too interested in our food so I don't think it's necessary quite yet.

Caroline is more interested in her toys now and will also grab anything nearby that she can get her little hand around...including my hair, her new favorite toy, ouch!! She just started smiling at her toys too. I think it's really funny...she'll look at a toy that she really likes and give it a big smile. Like she knows it makes her happy. Caroline loves to listen to books and will even turn the page if I get it started. I hope she loves to read!!

Caroline has also discovered her voice this month and loves to squeal and "talk" (but mainly squeal). I'm the bad speech therapist mommy who squeals right back at her instead of modeling the correct vowel and consonant sounds. But squealing is more fun...we can have an entire conversation that way, turn taking and everything :-) However, I probably need to stop encouraging her since she is now doing it in public and it's pretty embarrassing in restaurants. We've heard a few consonant sounds (m,n,ng,g) and consonant/vowel combos but not many and not consistently. I'm looking forward to hearing more babbling!!

A few things that Caroline really dislikes at 5 months are the nasal bulb aspirator (she lets out a scream if she even sees it...I guess I wouldn't like someone shoving something up my nose), missing naps, people other than her mom and dad if she's tired or hungry (I thought stranger anxiety started later but we definitely have some of this going on), taking the bottle out of her mouth to burp her, and of course, shots. Speaking of shots, Caroline received some more immunizations yesterday in honor of her 5 month bday...what fun! She screamed/cried so hard that she didn't take a breath for a few seconds and turned purple. I did not like that!! But she recovered pretty quickly, esp. when Dr. Prestidge came in to see her. She loves him! Luckily, she's had no reaction from those shots the past 24 hours.

Sorry for the boring post but I don't want to forget anything going on at 5 months. We're definitely loving this fun, interactive stage Caroline is in and look forward to what this next month will bring.