At this point Ellis can:
- Hold and shake toys (He loves rattles - especially the one Pops made for him)
- Gurgle, coo, and use inflection in those sounds
- Stands with support (We hold his hands and help with the balancing but he does all of the leg support)
- Semi-sits with support (He usually ends up face planting between his legs if we don't use our legs to hold him up) (Also, the Bumbo is a great invention!)
- Rolls from front to back, though this is inconsistent (He hates tummy time at home)
- Wiggles around in his crib at night, often making 180 degree turns
When we went home (MS/LA) for Christmas, he got completely thrown off his schedule, so we started from scratch again once we got back to GA. I think he was also going through a growth spurt at the same time which means he was hungry all the time. This meant waking up every 2-3 hours to eat when he had previously been going up to 7 hours at a time. I think we have finally gotten back on track this week (despite Snowpocalypse!)
Here's what his schedule looks like:
- 6:00 I wake, feed, and dress him
- 6:45 we head to school and he usually catches a 15 minute snooze
- 7:15 - 4:00 he is at school (with some of the best teachers)
- 8:30ish - 6oz bottle
- 9:30ish - nap
- 11:45ish - 6oz bottle
- 1:30ish - nap
- 3:00ish - 6oz bottle
- 4:00 we head home and he catches another 30 minute snooze in the car
- 5:00 I feed him and we play until bath time
- 6:45 bath time (our favorite!)
- 7:15 he has a 4oz bottle of formula and goes to bed
- 1:30 he wakes up to eat/snuggle and goes right back to sleep
His schedule at school is my best guess based on the daily reports from his teachers. I haven't been able to get him on a napping schedule here at home because he is so resistant to naps. He doesn't seem to want to sleep anywhere except on my chest, but I don't want that to become a habit (as much as I enjoy it as well!)
We were having a lot of trouble getting him to sleep at night for any more than 2-3 hours at a stretch so we decided to do a mixed bottle with breast milk and formula. We also tried rice cereal until I did some research on it and found that it doesn't actually help a baby sleep longer or provide any particular benefits. Then Davis accidentally gave him a bottle of just formula one night and he slept for almost 7 hours, so I figured that might be just the trick we needed. Now he gets a bottle of formula before bed and only wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat!
Here are some pictures from the past month!
This is a 90 degree turn from how he was originally laying.
The lamb was in the corner where the ball is, and the ball was at the bottom of the crib.
Steak and Shake fun with Daddy!
Yes, I have resorted to extraordinary measures in an effort to get him to fall asleep. Now he talks to himself in the mirror, tugs on the monkey, and falls asleep. It's a pretty great system at the moment.
He wore himself out from being in his jumper and fell asleep while he was still in it.
Playing with his rattle phone during bath time
