Monkey Man is 5 months old!

Wait, 5 months means almost half a year!  How can that be?  I know they say that time flies when you have children, but I must say that for the second child this is even more so the case than the 1st one.  I truly feel that just a few weeks ago we were driving this sweet baby boy home from the hospital.  We are truly enjoying him and his developing personality so very much.  One of the best things is seeing his relationship with Peyton develop.  They simply adore each other and both have the ability to make the other one happy at times they are upset.  Its the greatest thing ever to witness as a parent.  Ok, so how's this little man doing with all his development and milestones?  Read on to find out.

Sleeping:
I must address this one first as we all know with the newborn stage, this topic is of the upmost stress, trying on the patience, and inconsistent.  Weird, because those exact words describe Kemper's sleep this past month (similar to the last).  He is back to waking every 2-3 hours once again (all night long I must add).  Most of the time it seems he wants to eat, but sometimes we try and just give him the pacifier back.  To make things more difficult, we took away the swaddle once and for all towards the end of this month.  It truly needed to be done as he was getting out of every kind of swaddle every single night, as well as more consistently rolling over onto his tummy while in the swaddle, which of course is no bueno due to the fact they can't get their arms out to roll themselves back over if needed.  The first night was pretty tough.  Ultimately, after trying many, many times for 2 hours in the middle of the night, we laid him down on his tummy and he slept great that way the rest of the night. What does this mean?  Its means once again we have a tummy sleeper (as Peyton was at this age also)!  And we are embracing this and deciding to be comfortable with it since he is healthy.  We are hoping that we have some better sleep in store next month! 

Kemper is still napping twice a day.  He goes down for his first nap 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning and sleeps between 1-2 hours.  His second nap is usually around 1:30 or 2:00 and he also sleeps for 1-2 hours during that nap. 

We continue with the 8:00 bedtime routine.  Bath, jammies, nursing and then down for the night.  We usually put him down with his pacifier, but he almost always ends up spitting it out within the first hour.  Instead of the swaddle, he is in the Halo zip up sleep sacs.

Eating:
Kemp is still exclusively breastfed and eats about every 4 hours.  He has always preferred the football hold while nursing until this month where I think he has just gotten too big for that position.  Now he nurses in the traditional cradle position.  He is eating 5-6 oz of breast milk out of the bottle while at daycare.  We plan on starting solids this next month.

Clothes:
Kemper is wearing 6-9 month clothing and is growing rapidly!!

Babysitters:
So far, Kemper has been babysat by Nana, Trudy, Stephanie, and grandma.  We have yet to leave him overnight, but I think we are almost ready to do so!

Milestones:

• Kemper has become MUCH more aware of his hands this month and is very grabby with everything.  He can transfer objects between his two hands, hold onto items, and grab for items off a surface.  He also is mastering picking up his pacifier and putting it into his own mouth.
• Rolling, rolling, rolling.  Front to back, back to front, all over the place!
• NO.  MORE.  SWADDLE.
• Grabbing onto and sucking on his feet.