My Disclaimer...
This blog is going to be for a step by step guide to my child's developmental milestones. I have a girl, please note that girls typically develop speech milestones faster, especially since her mommy is a pediatric speech therapist, whereas boys typically develop physical milestone faster. It can be used as a guide for other families, but please keep in mind that all children develop at different rates and should you have any concerns about where your child should be, you should speak to your pediatrician or schedule an appointment with a therapist in our office
Her 5th month...
Well her month began with her decideding that 3 am was a good time to roll over, thankfully we have a monitor and I heard her stirring. Yes, that is right...in her swaddle, she rolled from her back to her belly and was very angry when she could not get back. Mommy ran to the rescue, calmed her back down and went back to bed. Only to hear a strange noise on the monitor, turn it on and watch her do it again. Why must she practice things at 3 am. If she is going to stir it is always around 3 in the morning, doesn't she know that mommy only knows one 3 o'clock and it comes when the sun it out, doesn't she understand I have to work?
She sits up with support. She likes her Bumbo seat and sits for longer times. She sits and uses both hand to explore toys. She just doesn't want to go in the car seat anymore, and sometimes we have to force her, but once she is in it she does fine. She grabs at things on her carseat bar, exersaucer, high chair, etc. She likes to stand up, with support, I believe because it gives her a better view of what is going on around her, and I think I have mentioned how nosey she is.
She watches and attends to noises, which can make feeding her kind of difficult, as it is very hard to keep a bottle in her mouth when her head constantly moves. She actually will look around until she locates where a sound is coming from. She follows your movement around a room. She plays peek a boo, and actually appears to look for you when she knows you are hiding and playing it. The she laughs when you say "boo". Her laugh/giggling is so cute. We try to video it, but she does not let us, everytime the camera comes out she just stares at it, despite our efforts by tickling, playing peek-a-boo, silly faces, etc. She smiles when she sees people she knows and she scrunches her face and studies new/unfamiliar faces before she will smile at them. I love seeing her little personality develop.
Speaking of her not liking things on her fingers, when preparing her Easter Cards I attempted to paint her hand to do handprints on the cards, and she really did not like her hand messy. I should also mention that when she was a newborn, we tried to stick her fingers in the clay to make a mold of her hand and ended up having to do her foot b/c she would only fist her hand when we put it in the clay, she cried when we did her foot, but atleast we were able to get it. She honestly looked like she was trying to wipe the paint off on the high chair. I feel her pain. It is hard to try to push the messiness when I know I would not be happy with that either.
So speaking of yucky things that I don't like....she is still slinging spit everywhere and sliming everyone who holds her. Just when I though she had gotten as bad as teething could probably get she kicked it up a notch. EVERYTHING goes in her mouth. She does some munching (up and down motion, a pre chewing skill) on toys, shirts, hands, arms, face, etc. You get too close, prepare to walk away with slobber on you. She lateralizes her tongue (moves it from side to side) when things are in her mouth. No teeth yet. I did find out that my husband got his first tooth when he was 4.5 months, which may explaign some of the chaos.
The Dr. recommended we start food this month. We started with single grain rice, mixed with breast milk. Mmmmm yummy...no really... it looks like paste and sticks to things like paste and this mommy has texture issues and does not like to be messy. I know it is good for her to get messy though, so I try to let her face keep the yuckiness on it, but she is not so sure about it, especially when it is on her fingers. She did well for a week with rice, but when we introduced oatmeal started getting mad everytime we brought a spoon near her, so we are took a couple day break and tried again. We started back with rice and it appears to be going well again. Maybe she just doesn't like oatmeal? I guess only time will tell.
So now my favorite part. She is doing more and more babbling. She will oh and ah and put some m, k, g sounds in there as well. She starts as soon as we wake her and does it on and off all day. I love it and encourage it by talking back to her as much as I can.
I am sure I have forgotten something remarkable that occurred this month, but stay tuned for Month 6....