Avonlea: 5 Months

Avonlea is 5 months old!

March 30, 2019

Avonlea was 12 lbs 10oz and 24 inches long. She wears 3 month clothes and wears size 1 diapers during the day and size 2 at night. She still has blue eyes. 

Avonlea’s little personality is coming out these days. She is often very smiley. And she smiles with her whole body. She enjoys watching her brother and sisters play and have them come and talk to her. She likes to stand up on her feet as we hold her and look around. She just likes to see what is going on around her in general. We often catch her watching us and smiling when we are talking to someone else. She likes to play with her burp clothes. She likes baths. She still giggles when we change her clothes- I think it tickles her arms when we pull them through the sleeves. She is a very ticklish little girl - from head to toe. She continues to be better in the car seat. She still plays with her tongue a lot. She likes to play with her hands a lot and sucks on her thumb often. She rolls over to her belly often and just lays there. She doesn’t put her feet to the ground very well yet, so she spits up a lot because she is literally resting on her belly. She is starting to play with toys in front of her while on her belly. She still will play with the toys on her play mat for a little while before she flips over. She has rolled back over from tummy to back a number of times, but then she also went to this stand still and stopped doing it. She sits in the bumbo seat fairly well and likes to watch me in the kitchen. 

Some things she doesn’t like is being scared or not being able to see what is making the noise around her. She can be very jumpy in that aspect. She doesn’t like her booger’s cleared off her nose. 

She continues to be a good eater. She takes the bottle well and seems to enjoy eating. She eats before naps and then once she wakes up if it is a 2 hour nap. She eats 4-5.5oz most times. She has lots of good burps. We have started giving her half and half bottles of breastmilk and formula to get her use to the taste as she will be eating formula more regularly here soon. She has done pretty well with that, but not quite taking a bottle of full formula. 

I continue to pump for 30 minutes every 3 hours during the day (8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm and once more before I go to bed) and then once during the middle of the night at 4am. I have been able to freeze several bags a week and we hope to use them later. 

Avonlea has remained a good sleeper. She puts herself to sleep very nicely once I do the nap routine. I feed her, swaddle her body with both arms out, turn noise maker on, bounce her while I hum Psalm 23 and then tell her it’s time to go night night, mommy loves you, and sleep good. I lay her in the crib and leave. She loves her thumb and does so good with sucking on it to smooth herself. She often naps 2 hours ( with waking up 45-1hr and putting herself back to sleep). She naps 3 times a day with her 3rd nap being very short-just to get her to bedtime. She goes to bed after we get the big kids in bed. I put her a long sleeve sleep sack for the night and she giggles every time I zip it up and snap it under her chin. So anywhere between 9-9:30pm. She will wake up once every now and then, but most nights she sleeps the whole way through to wake up anywhere from 7:30am-9:00am. We continue to be thankful for her good sleeping habits.

She is a joy to our family and we are so thankful for her addition and the many ways the Lord has grown and sanctified us through the process!