three by two: Reese is 5 months!

Since I'm posting Reese's 5 month update in February you can probably guess I'm a bit behind. We've been so busy hanging out and having fun together that time has slipped away from me. So here it goes...

Happy 5 months! December was a great, crazy month and you experienced so many firsts! This month was also one of our most challenging yet, as we seem to have some struggles with sleep. BUT, we worked through it and lived to tell about it :) During month 5 Reese continued to just explode in terms of her interaction with the world around her. Current favorite activities include playing with my face, munching on Sophie the Giraffe, bouncing in the jumper, and "talking" to us. Reese has slowly warmed up to tummy time more and more and we just kept at it! She rolled over from her belly to back and she's about halfway to rolling over from back to belly (that darn shoulder keeps getting in the way). This month her sleep patterns were all over the place and we really had not established a schedule that seemed to work for us day in and out. I think we were still dealing with the tail end of a sleep regression so we just rode it out as best as we could. She wasn't really getting solid sleep (neither was I) so I knew we needed to do a little (gentle) sleep training. I devoured the Sleepeasy Solution and for once a book finally clicked with me and seemed applicable to our daily life. Once she weighed enough and with the blessing of her doctor, I started sleep training on January 14th. The first few days...were not fun :( Reese was getting used to having to put herself to sleep without having me rock and hold her throughout. I checked in on her at set intervals and with every nap and bed time, she made great progress. By the fifth night she was able to put herself to sleep with no fussing and made it through the night. The next few weeks we worked to tweak her schedule and within two weeks she was sleeping 10-12 hours a night. AMEN! Sleep training terrified me but Reese became a different baby, so much more alert and active throughout the day. She started rolling both ways and I really think it's because she was finally getting the rest she needed.

She is a total wiggle worm and loves to engage with everything and everyone around her. Taking her 5 month pictures was a hilarious endeavor that I essentially abandoned because she was more interested in eating the dreaded sticker.

On December 22nd, a few days shy of her 5 month birthday, we had our baby girl baptized. We had a wonderful day with the whole family celebrating!