AJ's 5 Month Update

We're back here again and I'm a little more on time with this update. AJ is five months and we're seeing so much of her little personality come out!

Family Life

Things have been very hectic this month. T's work has ramped up which means that I'm home by myself with AJ until he gets home and then he tries to get other things done around the house once he's home. Over the past weekend I was feeling the burn out from being AJ's main carer for the past month and he took over the final bottle and bed routine. Made me feel all kinds of new. 

Arlo's anxiety has also been at a high lately, so we've had to go back to basic's with him once more to try and help him get through things. It's impacted things a little bit as it's been happening a lot more and it's sometimes waking AJ. We're getting there with him, it's just taking some time. 

Daphne's mothering has ramped up again. She's constantly looking over AJ and making sure that she is ok. AJ has also been showing a lot more attention to both Arlo and Daphne. She's been trying to hold their faces like T and I do, trying to give them loveys like we do, it really shows how much she has been watching us with them, so we've started introduce how to touch them and interact with them. 

Health

Miss AJ has generally been pretty healthy except for a nappy rash.

About a fortnight ago she developed a nappy rash that didn't look quite right to me. I took her to the doctor who told me to keep doing what I was doing and to come back if it became angrier. We had a few more spots pop up like what happens with nappy rash but when a HUGE blister appeared I knew that it was time for a trip back to the doctor. 

She thought that it was bacterial, swabbed it and prescribed us some creams before calling me later that day and suggesting that I go into the ER with AJ after she consulted with another doctor. The ER thought that it was a staph infection, most likely impetigo, and we continued the treatment the GP had in place. We went back to the doctors this week for the swab results and it confirmed that it was a staph infection.

The funny thing about this whole thing is that I was nannying a little boy who had chronic impetigo

when I was pregnant with AJ. I asked at the ER if it was possible that she got it that way and the doctor wasn't able to say for sure if it was the cause or not. Apparently, the bacterial that causes impetigo is something that we all have on our skin and it just happens sometimes. 

The good news is that as of this week it's all cleared up and she's not even going to get a scar out of it which is great. 

The only other thing that has been happening is that she is currently teething her first two teeth. Baby girl is handling it ok. Some days are better than others and most days shes a drool monster but she's slowly getting there. They're almost through at this stage and I'm hoping that by the next update I'll be able to share she now has teeth. 

Feeding

AJ is still eating the same as she was last month. She's showing no signs that she wants to go up in the amount of forumula that she is drinking just yet. Her reflux is getting a bit better as well, but its still one of those things where you have to play it by ear and see how she goes. 

I have been on the look out for her readiness markers for starting solids and we're hitting most of them, except for the tongue thrust reflex. It's still happening so over the next month I'm going to be testing her to see how it's going and hopefully when she turns 6 months shes going to be ready to start solids. 

Sleeping

I cannot fault this girl on how well she sleeps at night. We're still having that one wake up in the early morning to have something to eat but otherwise, she sleeps really well. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet but starting to think that once she hits 6 months and we start solids she may actually start sleeping through the night. Thankfully she wakes up extremely happy, unless she is hangry, so I can get through her waking in the middle of the night still. 

Her day sleeps are still a struggle. While I know it's developmentally normal for her to sleep for 30 minutes at a time, it does get exhausting when she is then up for 2 hours and becomes a stage 5 clinger because she is tired. I've been leaving her in her bed for 10 minutes after she wakes and sometimes, if I'm lucky, she does fall back to sleep for another hour, but it's really a flip of the coin whether or not this happens. 

We've also started taking our day sleeps in our own bedroom to start preparing her for that transition when the time comes. She's been handling that pretty well and honestly she sleeps in there just as well as she sleeps in her portacot in our bedroom during the day. So I think that when the transition happens and she's moved fully into her bedroom, we're not going to have too many issues.

Development

Things have progressed a lot this month in regards to AJ's development. 

It took her a week but she finally mastered being able to roll from her back to her belly. She still has no interest in rolling from belly to back but we're working on it as it's something hat she needs to do in order to help her learn to sit. 

Her fine motor skills are going gangbusters since we started doing more activities to work on them. She's now reaching out, grabbing and pulling things towards her that aren't attached to her play gym. She's also doing a lot of exploring with her mouth, which is completely developmentally appropriate and a way that she explores her world. The more she does with her hands the more I'm starting to see her try and use them in other ways, like trying to hold her bottle. 

A lot of vocalising is happening at the moment. So far she hasn't spoken any word intentionally just yet but I have heard sounds that are a lot like "Mum" and "Arlo" but because they haven't been directed at someone just yet, I'm not counting it as her first words. 

One of my favourite things that I'm seeing happen with her is that she's starting to really react to her favourite songs that we sing. She knows when her favourite parts (her being lifted up high or tickled) are happening and her fave breaks out in the biggest smiles. She's also trying to return affection now with open mouthed slobbery kisses.

I've been seeing a lot signs that she's ready to sit as as well and she's trying to commando crawl more and more over the past few weeks. The next month is going to be interesting to see where she is going to go with all the gross motor things that she is currently trying to master.