Six Months Old

Growing Boy: 

Trent is SIX months old today-- half a year! As for weight, Trent weighs about 16lbs, 13oz according to our baby scale at home. He will be having his six month check up on August 1st, so we will find out his official weight and height then along with what percentiles he falls into. 

Nursing: Trent is still exclusively breastfed. I am hoping to make it to a year. As I said in my last monthly update about Trent, I have a very big freezer stash (around 500 ounces.) I add to it almost every day and rarely take from it. I will most likely stop breastfeeding around 10 or 11 months and just take from the frozen milk I have been storing. By then, he will be on mostly table food anyway. 


Solids: As I said last month, Trent tried solids for the first time and he was not the biggest fan of the oatmeal or rice cereal. He does seem to like fruits and he has not had any type of bad reaction. I don't give him food very often, maybe once a week because honestly he doesn't seem all that interested yet. We are doing baby led weaning.

Sleep: Trent has been waking up anywhere from 2-3 times a night for the past month plus like he did when he was a newborn. At six months old, I really feel this is more out of habit than he actually is hungry. I really wouldn't mind just one wake up if he went right back to sleep, but it has gotten a little too exhausting for me. I am planning on talking to his doctor about it when we go for his appt next week. 

Milestones: Trent is getting sturdier by the day. He can sit up unassisted for a few minutes. Usually, he will see something he wants and lean forward for it and then roll onto his side. Trent really recognizes the faces he sees regularly. This month, I noticed he whips his head around if he hears his name. I have seen him wiggle his legs trying to reach for something, but thats about it. I don't think he will start crawling soon, but you never know... Oliver crawled around 7 months.

Personality: Trent, like his brothers, is a bit of a flirt. He beams at everyone around him, but usually if you ask to hold him, he screams! He is a giggly, cuddly, sweetheart. 

Brothers: Oliver does everything Landon does these days. He also watches how much Landon interacts with Trent. Oliver is really warming up to him, not that he was ever mean to Trent, he just didn't show the love that Landon constantly shows him. We really hope Landon never looses interest in Trent because since we brought him home, he has been the sweetest big brother-- we love it!

Side facts:

• Loves the bath, being held and walked around with, grabbing everything in front of him, his jumper, MAM paci, the swing, solly wrap, and sophie (baby toy)
• Dislikes: Carseat, anything to do with the carseat, the car, being hungry, stroller, strangers

Firsts: Trent was in his Aunts wedding, carried down the aisle by his Grandma this month. He went on his first trip to the petting zoo. Also road in the front of the cart at the grocery store for the first time! 

Trent's hair is blonde. His eyes are blue. He nows wears 9-12 month clothing.

A Day In The Life (of a mom with three boys)

I always love reading these posts on other mom blogs and I have yet to write one myself. So much changes month to month with the boys being so young. I know I will enjoy looking back and reading the little details in our everyday life that I know I will completely forget about one day.  

Tuesday July 8th, 2014 
Landon is 3 years old, 3 months
Oliver is 2 years old, 2 months
Trent is 5 months old

1:15 a.m. – Trent is moving around, I know he is starting to get hungry because he has not eaten since he went to bed at 7:30 p.m. I ask Matt to get him, I nurse Trent for 6 minutes still swaddled and he goes right back to sleep in the sling next to Matt's side of our bed.

5:10 a.m. – Trent is stirring around again. I ask Matt to get him for me and I nurse him half asleep while laying down this time. Luckily, I am able to get him back to sleep though this time in our bed. He takes over my side, so I decide just to get up and go downstairs to pump after I brush my teeth and put my hair up.

5:17 a.m.– I make myself a piece of toast with peanut butter, banana slices and chia seeds and fill my water bottle (16oz.) with my prenatal vitamin.

5:26 a.m. – I pump for about 20 minutes (burning calories while eating calories!) 

5:50 a.m.– I put the milk I made into the refrigerator in case Matt needs to feed it to Trent when I go on my run. I empty the dishes from the dishwasher and hear Landon and Oliver on the monitor. 

6:02 a.m. - I get the boys from their beds. Landon runs to the closet to get a pair of undies for the day and Oliver gets a diaper out of their nightstand for me to change him. After they are both changed, they insist on waking up Daddy and Trent. Matt changes Trent's diaper that is soaked, while I take Landon and Oliver downstairs for breakfast.

6:10 a.m.- The boys sit down at their "little table" and I ask them what they want for breakfast they both say at the same time "eggies peeeaaass" which seems to be their favorite these days. Once Matt comes downstairs, I get my sneakers on and head out for my run. 

6:50 a.m. - I get home and nurse a hungry/screaming Trent right away and fill my water bottle again. The boys are playing together nicely with their legos, so I take this opportunity to run upstairs and shower but first I make a cup of coffee.

7:40 a.m.- Trent is rubbing his eyes meaning he is ready for his nap. 

7:47-9:04 a.m.- Trent naps. I enjoy my warm coffee while Matt and I play with Landon and Oliver with an episode of The Good Wife on our TV in the background. We also change the boys into their daytime clothes at this time. I clean up from breakfast (eggs everywhere), load the dishwasher and get myself dressed for the day. I then spend time doing workbooks with the Landon and Oliver until I hear Trent on the monitor...

9:10 a.m.- Snacks for everyone!  Landon is obsessed with anything Lightening McQueen and Oliver is currently in love with Dora the Explorer so when my mom brought over fruit snacks of their favorite characters last week that is all they ask for! I quickly pick up a little more before our playdate at 10 a.m.

9:30- Daddy leaves for work! I run into the kitchen and have some Trader Joe's trail mix because I'm starving. 

9:57- Our friends arrive ...Playdate! It is pretty hot outside today so we just play in our cool basement.

11:02- Our friends leave and I nurse Trent again and he immediately falls asleep. We all then have lunch, Landon wants turkey with black olives, organic string cheese, apple slices and milk. Oliver asks for half a peanut butter sandwich with black olives, string cheese and apple slices and milk. I know it is odd but both the boys have an obsession with black olives!!! I have a yogurt, apple slices and a teaspoon of peanut butter with a few chocolate chips and I refill my water bottle. 

I love when he plays with my hair while he nurses.

11:38 a.m.- Landon goes to the bathroom before nap time and I change Oliver's diaper during his diaper change he demands to go on the potty like "Landy." Oliver surprises me and actually went potty on the potty! Landon stays in undies and Oliver goes back in a diaper. Both go right to sleep, I empty the dishes from the dishwasher and then hear Trent on the monitor (ughhh) It takes a while and he snacks but I finally got him back to sleep. 

12:30ish p.m. - 1:24 p.m.- I finish picking up, talk to Matt on the phone and work on this blog post. 

1:24 p.m.- Landons awake, I bring him downstairs and he asks for goldfish with juice (watered-down gatorade.)

1:41 p.m.- Oliver wakes up, I give him the same snack Landon had. They watch an episode of some elephant show on disney junior. 

1:54 p.m.- Trent's awake! Landon and Oliver play together, while I have a snack and Trent rolls around on the floor. 

2:31 p.m.- Grandma comes over! She holds Trent and helps me entertain the boys. 

3:18 p.m.- I nurse and change Trent then soon after we leave to have an early dinner out. 

I had a BLT with no mayo and the boys ate chicken tenders with milkshakes

5:02 p.m.- We get home (Trent screamed the whole way) and Papa then arrives! I nurse Trent again and the boys all enjoy playing around with Papa.


6:12 p.m.- Trent skipped his late afternoon nap and is exhausted also extremely fussy. I give him the bottle of the milk I had pumped this morning and he falls into a deep sleep. I fill my water bottle again. 

6:43 p.m.- Trent wakes up because of a storm going on outside. I bring him downstairs with me. He shows no signs of going back to bed anytime in the near future. 

7 p.m.- Things start calming down, I change the boys for bed and I put on an episode of Elmo on for the boys to watch before bed with a cup of milk each and Papa goes home.

7:24 p.m.- Daddy's home and he brought me dessert from his dinner meeting because he is amazing. I fill my water bottle.

Landon clearly still can't stop loving on his littlest brother 

The dessert Matt brought me home

7:27 p.m.- It is bedtime for Landon and Oliver! Matt takes them up to their room to brush their teeth and tuck them in. Oliver's newest thing is asking for Matt or I to put his "tweet tweet" (his stuffed animal owl) under his shirt on his back and he falls asleep like that until the morning! Haha! He is so silly. Landon and Oliver talk to each other while Matt and I laugh listening over the monitor. By 8 p.m. they have fallen asleep.

8:00 p.m.- Matt and I put on Pretty Little Liars. We talk about our day while Trent is clearly overly tired but that doesn't stop us from talking about how adorable and in love we are with him.

8:35 p.m.- I pump and use 3 ounces to feed to Trent and I freeze the rest. I fill my water bottle for the last time before bed.

There are three jumbo ziplock bags in each drawer stuffed with mini freezer bags  of milk. 

9:05 p.m.- I change, brush my teeth and check my UP band to see how many steps I did today then I fall asleep right away.  

Five Months Old

Growing Boy: 

Trent is officially FIVE months old-- I cannot believe it! I forgot to make a four month post, so we are just going to jump right into his fifth month. As for weight, Trent weighs about 15lbs, 10oz according to our baby scale at home. I am not sure what percentile that is, he wont have his next check up until he is six months old. One thing I do want to add is that at his four month appointment, Trent had to get two shots just like at his two month appointment. He did NOT handle them well at all. He slept so much for a few days, hardly would eat and had a fever. I really hope he doesn't have to get any more shots at his 6 month appointment.

Nursing: Trent is still exclusively breastfeeding. I am hoping to make it to a year, but at this rate I could probably stop somewhere around 10 months because I have a HUUUGE freezer stash. If I keep adding 4-5oz a day like I have been for the past few months, I will most likely stop sooner rather than later. Last month I slowly started adding dairy back into my diet and we haven't had any problems!

Trent's nursing/sleep schedule looks roughly like this:

5:30/6am-Wake up for the day and nurse (I sometimes pump depending on how he slept the night before)
7:30/8am-9am- Nap #1(sometimes nurses to sleep)
9am- Nurse
10/1030-1030/11- 30min catnap
11am- Nurse
12/1-230/3pm- Nap #2
3pm- Nurse
4/430-5/530- Nap #3 (sometimes nurses to sleep)
5pm-7pm- Cluster feed
7pm- Bedtime
9pm- Dream feed (I pump and feed him a bottle whatever he doesn't eat I freeze)
2am- Nurse 

We by no means have a set schedule for Trent. I still just feed him on demand but most days look something like this. A few days ago, I used the breastfeeding app on my phone to see how many time in a day Trent eats and it ended up being NINE times! He pretty much snacks all day ...The two times I can count on Trent everyday to do the same thing is nap around 7:30am for an hour to an hour and a half and then nap again with his brothers around 12pm for an hour and a half to two hours. I LOVE those two naps because I use the first one to get things ready for the day like get the boys dressed, load or unload the dishwasher, make Matt's lunch for work and get myself showered/dressed. The second nap when they all three nap is when I can rest, eat, clean the house and plan dinner.


New this month: Trent tried solids! We gave him his first taste of baby oatmeal  mixed with breastmilk when he was two days shy of five months and he didn't seem too into it. With Oliver, we did baby lead weaning which is basically just cutting up food really small and letting them eat it as is and skipping the whole puree baby food. I am hoping to do that again this time with Trent, since it worked so well with Oliver.

One other new thing this month is Trent is sitting up! He has been able to roll front to back since about 3 maybe 3 and a half months. Since he really hate his tummy time he has yet to roll back to front. I am glad he likes sitting up though, I think its because he can really keep an eye on his brothers!

While on the subject of brothers, Landon and Oliver are getting more and more excited about Trent growing bigger. Landon absolutely loves holding and kissing his youngest brother any chance he gets. Oliver is still more distant, but will help put Trent's paci in or throw away a dirty diaper because he loves to feel like a big helper.

As you can see above Trent is still waking up at night to eat. He has slept through the night before, but he usually has at least one wake up per night.  I don't totally mind it since I keep him swaddled and he always eats for 5 minutes and goes right back to sleep.

Personality:

ALL my boys were very smiley babies but Trent he is the smiliest of them all! He will smile at anyone and look into your eyes like you're the only one he sees. Its so precious! The only time Trent is fussy is when he is sleepy or in his carseat! Neither Landon or Oliver had any issue with their carseat (Trent is in the same one they were in.) He hates it! I can't go anywhere without him screaming and this just started about a month ago, before that he did what Landon and Oliver always did in the car... slept.

Side facts:

• Loves the bath, being held, the swing at the park, nursing, MAM paci, having his hand in his mouth, watching his brothers, tickles from daddy, solly wrap
• Dislikes: Carseat, anything to do with the carseat, the car, being hungry, tummy time

Trent's hair is falling out and coming in blonde. His eyes are still blue.

Postpartum Update: Month 3

Here is my last postpartum update!

Fitness:

Since my last update, I started doing 10-15 minute workouts in the morning while the boys had breakfast. After about a week of doing that, my c-section scar started to burn/pinch on the left side. It does not seem to be infected, but I did decide to stop the morning work out videos. This past week, I started walking in the morning either with the double stroller and Trent wrapped on me with Matt or a run by myself usually a mile to two miles. I am not sure how often I will be able to do this though, it is very hard to find time during the morning. I still weigh the same this month as last month 101lbs.

Eating:

I am still eating a dairy free/peanut free diet. I tested by eating a granola bar that contained peanuts and a few hours later Trent was screaming in pain. It was horrible so I won't be trying that again anytime soon. I really don't think he is allergic to dairy or peanuts though, I just think his stomach can't quite handle them yet. I will be trying  to slowly add dairy back when he turns 4 months. Wish us luck! 

This is a typical day: 

Breakfast: Dairy-free waffles, pancakes, or bagels with vegan butter and a side of fruit. To drink I will have coffee with soy milk, sugar and a water.

Snack: Two to four lactation cookies or some type of health bar

Lunch: Avocado slices wrapped in turkey, apple slices with Trader Joes cookie butter (it is addicting)

Snack: Trader Joe's organic brown rice marshmallow treats (yum)

Dinner: We tend to only have red meat once a week because honestly the boys don't really eat it. They do on the other hand love fish, so we stick to mostly have seafood like tilapia or salmon and they like chicken with usually brown rice and a veggie. 

average water intake: two liters

Growing Boy:

Breastfeeding:

Breastfeeding is still going strong! Trent isn't on much of a schedule still with the exception of mornings where usually he wakes up around 6am for the day eats and is extremely happy and smiley and then is very tired by 7:45am and naps for about an hour/an hour and a half. After that, I don't know what to expect for the day and I just feed him on demand. As far as sleep, we try to feed and swaddle him at 7:30/8pm every night and then he will fall asleep. Right before I go to bed, I usually pump, where I am making  between 5.5 to 7/7.5 ounces depending on how Trent ate before he went to sleep. Matt will  feed that to Trent via a MAM bottle. He will only take an ounce or two at this feeding and then I freeze the leftovers. I just do this so I am emptied out for the long stretch (930/10pm-2/2:30am) Trent usually does or else I will wake up engorged which is very uncomfortable. After his long stretch, he will have one more stretch from 2:30 to 5:30/6am and be up for the morning . I would say most nights we are down to one feeding if he does wake up twice it will be around 1am and 4 am. I definitely prefer the one wake up though!

Personality:

Trent is just as sweet and happy as his two older brothers are. He absolutely loves to be talked to and smiled at. I think I have spoiled him too much with holding him because sometimes during the day that is the only way he will be happy is if I walk around with him. It has made me really good at doing things with one hand! Trent loves being cuddled and take chest naps. I have caught him smiling at his brothers quite a few times this month! 

Brothers:

 Talking about brothers, Landon and Oliver have become even more attached at the hip than they were previously. Landon still is more interested in Trent and is over the moon when he can get him to smile at him. Oliver is the same as the previous month where he is not jealous of Trent but also is not nearly as excited about him as Landon. 

First Easter: 

 This month Trent celebrated his first Easter. We went into DC and ate brunch with the boys grandparents! 

Three Month Facts:

Weight: 13lbs 6oz

Height: Unknown

Clothing Size: 3-6 month, 6 month

Eye Color: Blue
Hair: FIrst haircut this month and it is coming in thicker and light brown
Dislikes: Being changed, being hungry for more than 0.5 seconds, tummy time
Likes: Being talked to, smiled at, kissed all over, MAM paci, being swaddled, sleeping on his tummy during the day.