Lawson Update - Months 4 and 5

Lawson, aka "Dawsie" is best known for her cheeks. People can't seem to get over their size. And I get it. I mean look at those things. Don't you just want to squeeze them!

At almost exactly the 4 month mark our perfect sleeper fell off the wagon. She started getting up during the night - inconsolable - and sometimes multiple times a night. I was stressed. I was used to sleep and didn't want to go back to a place where it didn't exist. After a few nights of chaos . . . Sometimes I fed her, sometimes I tried to console her, but mostly just listening to her cry (that tired, "I can't get to sleep" cry), I messaged a sleep specialist. I had done some googling and read about a 4 month sleep regression. I guess it is a thing . . . In fact Boone likely had it as well - I just didn't google it! I knew we had a good thing going with Lawson. She was on a 4 hour schedule during the day and she had just stopped having fussy nights, so we were actually able to put her down for the night between 7 pm and 8 pm and dream feed her around 10 pm. I just needed an expert to help me get her back sleeping through the night. 

After a couple of email messages and a phone call, I opted not to pay for the service. It's not that it isn't worth the money. It was just that the company I called only offered the full meal deal. I didn't need that. Hugh and I had done a great job of creating a good napper and insuring that Lawson learned to fall asleep on her own without any props. I just needed a game plan for the middle of the night wakings. And for me that game plan was not going to resort back to feeding her to get her to fall asleep on a nightly basis (which the consultant suggested would likely be part of her plan). For two months Lawson didn't eat for 10 hours straight at night. . . Look at those cheeks. She was not suffering for it! I wasn't going to go backwards. On top of that, we were a little less than a week away from a massive road trip and I figured any sort of new routine would be hard to implement when we were holidaying and all sleeping in the same space. 

So, we did our own thing. The sleep consultant mentioned that Lawson may be struggling because she was still in our room. Moving Boone out of the crib was not an option, so we moved Lawson in with Calder in a playpen. He LOVES it! The first night we decided to let Lawson do her tired cry if she woke up during the night to see if we could get her to work it out on her own. She did wake up and so did Calder! I traded him beds and Lawson complained for about 5 minutes before falling back to sleep for the night. The following night we had the same game plan and she cried for about 3 minutes (not waking Calder) and the third night she slept right through. We then went on holidays for almost 2 weeks and she slept in a room with 4 to 5 of us (at the lake Boone has his own space). She had a couple nights where she cried out, but it was very short lived and for the last month there have only been a handful of nights where she cried hard enough that I needed to feed her to get her back down. Calder only woke up with her that first night and Boone has never been woken up by her. All-in-all, I think she is working it out quite well on her own. She is getting up a bit earlier for us these days, between 6 and 7:30, but honestly now that she isn't crying from 7 pm to 9 pm, we are quite alright with not getting the 8 am mornings!

Lawson gave me a bit of a scare at 4.5 months. She wasn't grabbing things and wasn't even reaching her arms towards them. This is a 4 month marker, so I was concerned. I actually lost some sleep over it for a couple of nights, googled the crap out of it, and finally made an appointment for when she was 5 months and resolved not to worry about it until that appointment. I likely would have worried like crazy so it was really helpful that she reached for her first item the day after I made the appointment! 

Lawson can sit by herself for about 3 seconds. Sometimes. She is a bit of a wobbly pop. This is so different from Boone. I think the first time we let him sit on his own he managed for about 15 seconds and a week after he started, I wasn't even putting pillows around him anymore he was so good! Lawson has been "practicing" sitting for about 3 weeks and hasn't made much progress! LOL

Lawson loves her jolly jumper. She does more "dancing" in it than jumping, but she is content enough most days to be left in there on Grandma and Grandpa's deck for an hour or more at a time!

She is beginning to be fascinated with food. At 5.5 months we gave her some frozen banana in one of those mesh soothers. She LOVED it! We will wait to officially give her her first food until she is 6 months, but until then she will be be happy to enjoy more banana-sicles. 

Nursing continues to be a go on my right side. There were a few times just before she was 4 months that I would have to supplement Lawson in the evening with the milk I had pumped in the morning (When she dropped the night feed I started pumping first thing to save some for when I go back to work), but my milk production seems to be keeping up these days, so our freezer is getting full. Nursing can still be painful at times. Lawson's latch didn't get better from her tongue tie being released, but we battle it. She still does lots of clicking, but as long as she isn't suffering for it, I will continue to plug away. I am nothing if not stubborn.

We are getting way more smiles these days which we love. She does do a bit of babbling, but isn't really a chatty Cathy.

We just love her!