Just a quick update of Mason at 4.5 months, I’ll likely come back and add more today as I think of it!

sleep - the 4 month mark started off rough when we transitioned him to his crib and tried not to swaddle him. We quickly learned he wasn’t ready and instead put him in a SwaddleMe blanket and except for the few times we have to go give him his paci back a night, he sleeps from about 8:45 - 5/6am, eats, and then sleeps again until 7/8am. He still naps between every feeding but takes one long 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and we are very thankful it is at the same time Lauren naps! Sometimes he’ll lay in his bed and go to sleep on his own, other times he falls asleep on me before I get him there!

teeth - Mason’s bottom right tooth broke through right at 4.5 months and the left one is right behind it. He had a rough day yesterday and last night as it’s really bothering him and it’s also causing a little fever and runny nose. I can’t believe he has a tooth already! Lauren got her bottom teeth at 6.5 months!

sitting - He is doing really well at sitting on his own. He can be sitting with his arms down in a tripod of sorts, but then use his strong little abs to pull himself up to sitting up straight. He still topples now and then though.

moving - And the reason he really doesn’t like sitting, is because he prefers his belly (so unlike his sister!). If you lay him down on his back, he’s immediately over on his belly. It makes diaper changes and changing his clothes a huge challenge! I’ve learned how to dress him while on his belly really well! Either that or I have him sit on my lap. And of course he’s not crawling yet, but he gets to where he wants to go no problem. He either rolls to get there (yesterday he rolled 1/2 the length of his room to go check out the vent that caught his eye!), or he does an army crawl of sorts and just pulls himself with his arms and pushes a bit with his feet. He is crazy strong! And when we lay him down, we look again a minute later and he is nowhere close to where we left him! Miss Lauren (his daycare lady) says he’ll be crawling at 6 months for sure! yikes! I guess we’ll see!

eating - Mason is still on 100% breastmilk and is eating every 2-3 hours when he’s with me. He eats every 3 hours at daycare and takes 5oz. bottles. We started him on rice cereal mixed with breastmilk at 4 months (per pediatrician recommendation) and he really doesn’t like it. After a week we moved onto oatmeal and he’ll tolerate that better and eat it all, but he’s not happy about it while doing it! I’ve tried warming it up, tried it cold, it doesn’t seem to matter. I think part of it is that he doesn’t like to be confined to sitting in the bumbo for the 5 mins it would take him to eat, he wants to move! In a few weeks, we’ll start introducing veggies and see how he does. He was holding his bottle really well at 3.5 months when my mom watched him for a week, but I’m not sure how long he’d been doing it since he doesn’t get bottles at home.

likes - He loves to play in his exersaucer and jumperoo and is always entertained anytime Lauren is in the room. She always gets the biggest smiles from him! He’ll lay on his blanket and play with toys for quite awhile too. We have two bouncy seats, one expensive one with music, movement, etc. and one really cheap one upstairs that just has a bar on it with 3 toys hanging down. Every since he was born, he prefers the cheap one. So weird. He’ll usually sit in that for 30 mins or better while I get ready in the morning. He can spot a tv from a mile away and will watch it. yikes. He’s definitely seen more tv than Lauren had just because he’ll watch what she’s watching, even if we try not to let him! We have a dvd player in the Pilot and even though he’s rear facing, he’ll strain his neck up and back to watch.

personality - He is totally the happiest baby. Tons and tons of smiles. He’ll smile at anyone that will look at him, or watches them smiling at them until they notice him! He loves to do that to daddy…he’ll just stare at him smiling until he notices and then when he does, Mason gives him an even bigger smile! He’s definitely a mama’s boy and whenever he actually does get upset (not very often), he really just wants me.

other firsts - In the last few weeks, he’s discovered “screaming” and thinks its hilarious to scream just to do it…it sounds like he’ll lose his voice doing it! He also started blowing raspberries about a week ago. It’s really cute, until it’s bedtime when he wants to do it to play!

size - At his 4 month well baby visit, he was 14lbs and 25″. He’s still wearing his 3-6 month clothes, but some onsies are too short on him (he’s pretty skinny, so the width is always fine). He’s also wearing 6-12 month onsies just fine (some are a bit big) and pants (but those tend to be a bit big on him still). It’s made guessing what size he’ll be this summer pretty hard!

hair - He’s lost most of his hair at this point. He has a mohawk left in the middle and a few whispy’s on the side and then a bit on the top and a bit on the bottom in the back, complete with a rat tail!lol And if you comb over the top just right, it makes him look like Hitler! If he doesn’t lose the rest of it pretty soon, he’s going to have to get his first hair cut to not make it look so scary! He has a ton of new growth in though, so he’ll never be completely bald, and it also coming in dark, yea!

eyes - They’re still blue! They aren’t a really bright blue, but a more dark, sometimes gray-blue. It really depends on what he wears and the light. There is definitely no brown in them. So we have no idea what color they are going to end up! His pediatrician says she thinks they’ll stay blue. That would be great, dark hair and blue eyes! I don’t know though…Billy has really light brown, almost hazel eyes (there is a lot of green in them), so maybe they’ll end up like his. Who knows, maybe by his first birthday we’ll know!

Mason is just growing so fast!! I love this 4-6 month old stage!