Charlie at 5 Months

Well another month has passed us by, and Charlie is five months old now.  We've had some big developments this month.  Most importantly, he's eating solid food.  I mentioned last week that he started cereal in the mornings.  We decided he's also ready for vegetables, so I started making food for him like I did with Jack.  On Monday night, he tried his first veggie: sweet potatoes.  He loved them!  I gave him one cube (about one ounce) and it seemed like he would have eaten more if I'd have let him.  So Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I thawed out two cubes and he ate almost the full two ounces each night.

A wonderful side effect of this new evening meal has been glorious, full nights of sleep!!  I mentioned recently that we've been struggling with Charlie waking up early.  More specifically, the entire month of January, he started waking up at 4:00 nearly every morning.  We were able to get him back to sleep quickly by giving him his pacifier, but he often woke every 15-30 minutes until it was time to get up at 6:30 or so.  Since Monday night, Charlie has been going down without a problem after I nurse him around 8:00pm and doesn't make a peep until he wakes up at 6:00am or 6:30am.  Happy times at the Clayton house!!  I do feel guilty because that suggests to me that I should have been feeding him more for weeks now, but I'm just happy we've found the problem!

We've also completely ditched the swaddle this month, and Charlie is sleeping at night and during naps in a sleep sack.  He keeps a lovey and sometimes when I check on him it's in a different spot, but he doesn't seem to hold onto it for dear life like Jack did at the beginning.  Now that Charlie's arms are free, he almost always sleeps in the muscle man pose, with both hands in fists on either side of his head.  Surprisingly, he hasn't started rolling in bed yet although he still rolls from back to tummy when he's playing on the floor.

Another breakthrough this month has been (dare I say it??) a significant decrease in spitting up.  Don't get me wrong, the little guy still has his moments.  I still don't get dressed for work until after he's eaten, but he is definitely spitting less now than he used to.  Yay! 

Charlie loves making noise, as demonstrated in this video:

He's still constantly gnawing on his fingers and drooling like crazy.  No teeth yet though!!  He's also started sucking on his bottom lip, which of course is adorable, but it made his 5-month photo shoot a little difficult because he basically wanted to make this face the whole time:

Jack wanted in on the photo shoot yet again.  Such a loving big brother.

Just another little video of play time at our house and Jack being a silly guy...