une petite aventure: Holt: 4 Months

"Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation."--C. Everett Koop

What a great reminder. And how true! AND…how is my baby already 4 months old? What a joy he is! He is such a wonderful fit for our family. I am so thankful and humbled by how the Lord created him just for us.

*Milk allergy update: Holt has responded extremely well to me going dairy free! It has taken us this whole month for it to completely get out of both of our systems, but he is feeling so much better! Thank you to those who have been praying for us. The good news is he should grow out of this between 6 months and 1 year--although I'm guessing it will be closer to the 1 year mark since his sensitivity seems to be somewhat severe.

*Thanksgiving: We celebrated Holt's first Thanksgiving and it was a blast! You can read all about that here

Weight: 11 lbs 9 oz (3rd percentile)--he has lost about 3 oz. since our last visit. The pediatrician doesn't seem worried because he is continuing to sleep well at night and be on target developmentally too. We are just going to do everything we can to ensure he is getting the proper nutrition.
Height: 25.5 inches (85th percentile)

Milestones: *he holds his head up pretty much all the time now *he found his toes and loves to grab and chew on them *he talks to us all the time *he laughs every now and then *standing is still his favorite--the kid can seriously stand for 10 minutes at a time *he can see at longer distances---he can recognize us across the room and has started to look out the window in the car *his pincher grasp is improving--he can pick up toys and bring them to his mouth

Sleep: Oh man. This has been somewhat up and down this month. He HAS slept through the night several times (yay!)--I'm talking 8:30PM-7AM. That. Is. Glorious. Let me tell you! However, he will do that a couple nights in a row, and then bam! The next night, he wakes up around 5:00AM or so. We had a particularly rough week and a half around Thanksgiving because he had a pretty bad cold, which made it to where he couldn't breathe very well, and his reflux was acting up pretty bad so he wasn't eating as well. Both of these combined made it rough for the sleep department. He still takes 3 naps a day, although some are only 30-45 minutes, but all in all he does great.

Favorite Things: *his toes *his fists *music *talking and interacting with us *looking at lights and out the window *cuddling *shower time

Feeding: This has been up and down this month too. Since we left to go to Miami and I was gone from him, I had to pump to keep up my supply. However, even doing that your supply still gets a little low. It's been tough on me to get it back up to where it was--especially because when he had the cold and his reflux acted up, he refused to eat. I was having to supplement with formula because I knew he was hungry and he felt like he had been losing weight. It was so hard! Thankfully, at the tail end of being sick he hit a growth spurt (he ate every 1-2 hours during the day for about 2 days straight). I think the result of that helped my supply increase and get back to normal because ever since then we haven't seemed to have as many problems. It's been a rough couple of months between the milk allergy and my supply dropping, but hopefully we are on the upswing now!