4 months

Merritt! You are four months old!!

Whew, little girl! You have maintained your sweetness but your spoiled and impatient sides have become well known around this house. You have become a handful with sleeping and nursing, or lack of sleeping and nursing.

We noticed the last month that you were becoming very distracted while nursing, so you would fuss until you were free to look around. At that time I started pumping multiple times a day to make sure you were eating enough. You became very attached to a bottle though! You got to be lazy and not have to work on getting milk out like you do when nursing. You were so impatient while waiting for let down!

Spoonful of applesauce and enzymes

We also had issues with enzymes and so you're weight has hovered right around 10lb. :( You are now taking 3.5 capsules with every feeding and that seems to be helping. We know when to increase your dosage by how often and what your stools look like. Other indicators are how many wipes I have to use and how many outfits you might go through.

The Hartley Stare

You continue to sleep in the swing, mostly with it reclined as much as possible and not swinging. You take 45 minute naps and to extend it the full 1.5 hours we get the swing going or hold you. There's a lot of holding actually.

You started talking yourself to sleep, but soon that turned into grunting and fighting off the Sandman. Once you give in you're out though!

We shouldn't complain too much since you sleep great at night. You usually nurse once between 4:30-5:30am, but sometimes you sleep until 7:30am!

You wear 0-3 clothes! And size 1 diapers. We haven't started cloth diapering yet, but I would like to try soon!

You have horrible cradle cap just like Hartley did, but I don't want to mess with it too much because it pulls your delicate baby hair out. The cradle cap is orange (Hartley's was that way too.. I'm not sure if that's normal for all babies) but at least it blends in with your dark strawberry blonde hair. Your eyes are a beautiful blue!

Although you haven't gained weight, your length has increased to 23.5 inches! It's funny when we meet strangers. They always comment on you being a newborn. I'm like, "Yeaaaah.. she's almost 4 months.." But they also notice how happy you are! You give big, happy grins. :)

You went to Columbus for the first time to see Momma's family. The only traveling you've experienced are the monthly trips to Augusta which take almost 2 hours one way. You did pretty well this trip, only fussing until we were about 30 minutes away from our destinations.

You met your crazy cousins and they loved meeting you!

We visit Mema and Grandaddy a lot! Hartley loves going over to swim in the new pool and you've joined us a few times. It's ridiculously hot so we have to be very careful not letting you sweat too much.  Too much sweating means you lose salt! You're forehead is usually salty (normal for CFers) and I often kiss it just to see how salty you are. We usually take turns watching you in the house and letting Hartley swim. 

Daddy's family got together for our "vacation" picture! You have so many cousins that love you!

You and Hartley love love love each other! We have to get on her a lot about getting in your face, but you love when she talks to you and lays with you on the floor. You have rolled over a few times but you are mostly content rolling to your side. And you love kicking around to get a good view of the tv. :)

Keep growing, Merritt!! And nurse better! And sleep longer!