The Journey of Parenthood…

Britt’s Summary of Month 4

This is Britt’s first officially monthly summary! While I didn’t really have enough stuff to cover weekly posts anymore…it sure is a hassle to have SO much to write for a monthly one. Oh well, she’s worth it 😉

This summary is of Brittlynn’s 4th month of life (March 6th-April 5th) so she was actually 3 months old. Here’s what she was up to:

Feet: I was taking these pictures of Britt with her raspberry teether when she totally found her feet for the first time!!! (this was on March 19th). She was in awe of them.

Here’s a video of when she discovered her feet!

After she found them for the first time, this became her most fond position. She constantly worked at getting those toes to her mouth!

Let the Baldness Begin! I knew it was bound to happen. I’m so hardcore about back-to-sleep that it’s inevitable. But Britt started to lose her hair in the back. She lays on her back and moves her head side to side a lot so that makes the hair break off in that area because it’s constantly rubbing against the sheets. Thankfully she has kept all her hair in the front. It’s like a backwards mullet – business in the back and party in the front 😉 I try to carry her facing out so it’s not as noticeable haha.

March 8th

March 21st

April 3rd

With the baldness, I do my best to not have her on her back during awake times. During times where she has to be on her back I started using this new boppy product I got at a baby shower. It is a little cushion for her head that has a hole in it so her head isn’t completely flat. I would put her on it for independent playtime and when she was in her bouncer.

Hand Coordination: I’m not sure how quickly Kye had eye hand coordination, but I’m pretty sure he was young. I figured Brittlynn, being a girl, would take longer to get it down. I was wrong. This child can look at something and grab it on the first try. She’s great at holding things and loves to work at grabbing stuff that is just out of reach (although she’s quickly frustrated by it)

She took these down during independent playtime and would not let them go!!!

Chew Crazy: Britt is at that age where everything goes in her mouth. I think it’s neat that she uses her mouth to feel textures and learn about different objects. She really reminds me of a little puppy the way she’s so quick to lick and chew on stuff. She’s not a huge fan of our fingers (at least not yet!) and prefers soft objects to hard. Those hard “teether” type things aren’t really something she enjoys. But she LOVES to chew on clothes!!!! I have to constantly remove her clothing from her mouth!

Teething: Three months old and, yup, she’s teething. Up until this point in her life she had seriously never been fussy. I’m not going to be dramatic about it…because (so far…) she is WAY happier about teething than Kye was, but she’s still crankier than she used to be. I used to be all about the Hyland’s Teething Tablets with Kye and gave them to him on the reg. Then they had that huge recall because they had small amounts of poison in them. Guilty feeling? Um DUH. So, even though they are “safe” now, I try not to give anything to Brittlynn. Even tylenol (when I do use it I use the Little Remedies brand). I try all other routes and use the teething tablets and tylenol only as a last resort. She loves the raspberry teether, she likes frozen wash clothes okay, and I even used the paci decently often this month. It seemed to help calm her down and worked the best out of all the teething options I tried (I have sense found other methods but I’ll get to that in another post)

Here’s a video of her with her raspberry teether

She loves it 😉

Trying the cold wash cloth

Tummy Time: It’s still going great! She does about 10 min of it each awake time. I just put her on her tummy with a burp rag under her and I usually set up her mirror for her. I know it’s so good for babies to look in a mirror (it helps them learn body parts and such I think I read?!?! It probably helps foster positive self-esteem too if you think about it!) and she enjoys laughing and cooing at herself. I will pick her up as soon as she gets upset, but typically she goes for the full 10 min or longer. I really focus on this as I worry about that flat head issue since she’s losing that hair!!! Here’s a video of her in tummy time.

Look what a pro she is!!!

“look mom…one arm”

If I’m getting ready I’ll often stick her in the middle of our bed…with some random object as entertainment!

I still also will use this time to let her little tushy air out if she’s got any diaper rash

Swaddle: Pretty much every single time I’d go in Britt’s room I’d find her unswaddled in someway. She’s be happy as can be about it though so I didn’t make a big deal about it. Zach would have to typically get up once in the night to reswaddle her (she’s now weaned from the swaddle and a post will be coming about that!). Often after about 45 min of sleep during her nap she’d wake up and work and work and work to get her arms out of the swaddle. It did affect her sleep only because she was trying so hard to escape from it!!!  I tried to wean her from it on 3/26 but it didn’t go well so I went back to swaddling her for awhile.

Here’s a video of how I typically find her 😉

Who can complain when this is the smile that greets you everyday????

Sling: I never used a sling with Kye but I occasionally do use one with her. It’s nice to have both of my hands freed up and to be able to move around the house without leaving her in a bouncer in another room where I can’t see her. I’d most often use the sling while fixing Kye his lunch after her 11:00 feeding. It would be pretty crazy and it was nice that she was able to be part of the action! She only liked this one position and would only last in the thing for about 10 min or so until she’d fuss and want out. But those were a productive 10 minutes 😉 (and I got this sling free from Seven Slings…you can ALWAYS find a free coupon code!)

Chunk: I LOVE how chubby babies look right after they eat. It cracks me up and they look like totally different children!!! This is Britt during her bath, right before getting to eat.

And this is her right after she got done eating. Look at those full cheeks!!!

She loves mama’s milk 🙂

First Play Date: This month Brittlynn had her first official play date. We went over to Seth and Crissy’s to play on March 8th and she got to hang out with Olive for a few minutes! Olive is 2 months younger than Britt which is a HUGE age difference at this point. Isn’t that funny how just a couple months makes them so different during the first year or so?!?! I’m excited to see them together as they get older. I love that they are both girls and think they will be such good friends like their mamas are!

Visits: I’m SO thankful we built our house! It’s great having so much space and having a great place for people to gather. With two kids, and two schedules, everyone has been wonderful about understanding that we’d rather host things at our house than go somewhere. I know it’s seems opposite but to me I’d rather have more work cleaning and cooking than messing up schedules!!! One weekend Pepe and Brenda were in town (Mrs. Charlotte’s parents) and Zach and I wanted them to meet Brittlynn and to spend some quality time together. We had them over for breakfast and it worked out perfectly! I fixed some cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole and we all talked and enjoyed Kye’s entertaining 😉

Britt with G-Mama

Meeting Pepe!!!

Other Stuff Britt was Up to this Month:

  • On March 6th she took 30 min to eat instead of her typical hour…by the end of the month she was averaging 30-45 min per feeding. HUGE improvement!
  • She had her first real independent playtime in the pack and play on 3/8 (post to come on that)
  • The time changed during this month to daylight savings time. It was the EASIEST time change transition EVER. Since it was Spring Forward she had to be woken up an hour early (we lost an hour of sleep) but she woke up on her own at the “new” 7:15 so I didn’t even have to wake her early and the day went super smoothly!
  • She started talking in her crib for 15-30 min before falling asleep at each nap so I knew she was ready for longer awake times and for the 4 hour schedule
  • Britt FINALLY has a sleepy cue!!! I swear forever I just had to guess when she was tired but she now rubs her eyes 😉 Yay!
  • She has started making this high pitched squeeling sound a lot (here’s a video)…getting vocal already. She also says “gah” a lot and makes a hiss/growl sound. Here’s another video of her talking away!
  • Not only is the breast getting quicker, but so is bottle feeding. During this month she took about 30 min to drink a bottle which was much faster than it took her to fully nurse.
  • I had to clean out her nose with saline almost daily during this time. She always had snot in it, and often it would be green but she never had a fever so I tried not to worry about it. It eventually stopped! By the end of the month she was MUCH less stuffy
  • She doesn’t need any support at all for holding her head up and she just leans against me for support to sit. She will also pull her head and neck up and try to “sit up” on her own, especially when in the bouncer
  • I took out the head support in her car seat
  • My favorite “Britt” thing is the little adorable beads of sweat she gets across the bridge of her nose when she’s nursing. I love it and wish I had a picture of it but it’s one of those things I hope I never forget 🙂
  • She will get a little rash look to her cheeks some and it usually happens when she chews on her clothes, I think she’s a little more sensitive to materials than Kye was. 
  • She’s SOOOO close to rolling over from her back to her stomach. She can roll both ways when on her stomach (and loves doing it during tummy time). On 3/25 she rolled over the “other way” while on her stomach (and I happened to catch it on video! You can see it here!). Whenever she’s on her back she’s constantly grabbing her feet and trying to roll (here’s a video). One night Zach found her completely unswaddled rolled onto her side against the crib. If she hadn’t been against the crib, she would have rolled completely over! She was cracking up when he found her…
  • I feel like she’s not a HUGE breastfeeding fan. She gets distracted MEGA easy and really prefers the right breast more than the left. I have to do the football hold a lot with her to get her to eat off the left side. She’s more interested in being social than she is in eating. With Kye he was ALL about eating and would get upset if I didn’t feed him right away. I swear Britt could probably skip a feeding and not even notice!!! 
  • Britt still LOVES the bath and even kicks and splashes now! Here’s a video. Here’s another video of her in her bath (and Kye trying to get my attention in the back ground haha)
  • Brittlynn has a constant look of surprise because her mouth is ALWAYS open. So much so that it worried me some and I did a little researching about it on the Baby Center website. It said that babies who are always stuffy and have their mouths open could have some indoor allergy issues. Thankfully she started to close it more and had less of a stuffy nose by the end of the month.
  • I’ve noticed that one of her eyes is slightly larger than the other one. I know no one else notices this and I think I only noticed it because mine are the same way! 
  • She will drink 7-9 oz from a bottle
  • She is a mama’s girl. Kye, from birth, would light up whenever Daddy entered the room (and still does) so I’m thankful that Brittlynn prefers me. It’s a nice change 😉 However, I am also mega self-conscious about it and annoy the crap out of Zach because I try to make sure he spends a lot of quality time with her. I want them to be close too! He does have some special things he does with her…like rapping…here’s a video.
  • Both of my kids have always liked when I sing…not that I’m any good haha. I used to do Itsy Bitsy Spider with Kye a lot at this age and Britt enjoys it too (as you can see in this video!)
  • We took Brittlynn to Wednesday night Bible Study for the first time on April 4th. Our Wed night stuff at church is at 7…which is when she eats. So up until this point Zach would take Kye to class on Wed and I would stay home with her. We decided to try it and took a bottle with us to feed her while we were in class. She’s SO easily distracted and SO loud that it didn’t go so great. We have tried it a couple of times but it just doesn’t make sense for us all to go only for one of us to miss everything because we have to take her out to feed her. And we can’t take her to the nursery because they have several babies in there already and I KNOW they wouldn’t force her to eat. And, she needs to be forced haha. So we’ve decided, for now, that we’re just going to alternate Wednesdays. I’ll go one with Kye and Z will stay back with Britt at the house then he’ll go the next week with Kye. I can’t come up with any other solution???

Random Pics: Here’s a few last pictures to enjoy from Britt during her 4th month!!!

This little outfit was a gift…I hope it’s true 😉

My (almost) CONSTANTLY happy child!!!

She has the sweetest little face

There is NOTHING better than some chubby cheeks and a gummy smile!

Me: I had a legit stomach bug this month and it allowed me to get down to my goal weight…but I didn’t stay that way! I was around 2 lb over my pre-pregnancy weight all month. I feel like it’s taking me LONGER to have my body back this time…even though I didn’t gain nearly as much weight. The scale may be looking great, but the body isn’t! I’ve heard it’s tougher after each baby to get your body back to how you want it, and I agree with that for sure! I def feel like this was the month where things started clicking for me as a mom of two and I got the hang of it all. It’s my life now…I’m totally used to it all and have a great routine down!

I LOVE looking back at Kye’s old posts…here is the one I wrote about his summary of month four. Is it not hilarious that I also posted a video of him with the Itsy Bitsy Spider song?!?! It’s so neat to me that they do SO many of the same things around the same time (She is a WAY better sleeper than he was, thanks to not having the paci!!!). Re-watching his videos made me really happy. It’s crazy how quickly you forget all the little things they did as babies. I can’t even tell a difference between him squealing and Britt squealing!

Emily Parker
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