Happy 4 Months Caleb!

Happy Four Months Baby Boy!

His Stats:

We went to the doctor for his check up and he is 14 lbs (22%) and 26.25 '' (90+ %).

Ironically, these are my favorite monthly pictures of him. He looks oh so happy in them, but this has been a really, really hard month. More on that later, though.  He is cooing, grasping objects with both hands, clasping his hands, and grunting. This entire month despite Mom and Dad's efforts he pretty much woke up every 1-3 hrs at night every single night for the whole month. Needless to say, he has some exhausted parents that may or may not be going a little crazy. Also, because of his lack of sleep, Caleb has been particularly moody this month. One minute he will be so happy and the next so, so sad- so much so it is hard to calm him. But, for the first time ever, he was happy at the doctor's office. She even remarked that she didn't have to scream at us over your loud crying while we were asking her questions. Seriously, every visit before he would get so mad when we undressed him, he could never calm down and she would have to yell so we could hear her over Caleb's screams (I don't know if others have struggled with this, but it is super hard to concentrate on what your doctor is saying when your baby is screaming so loud you can barely hear, much less think straight)

There were some really special memories from this month:

• He got to meet one of my best friends, Chrissy, who was in town visiting from California

and here is her adorable son Logan

• He got to hang out with Chrissy, Meagan and Mom (old roomies)

• Enjoyed some Hughes family Christmas traditions

before going out to look at lights...look at that Santa Bottom!

he's clearly impressed by the lights show

watching lights play to music

visiting Santa at Bass Pro (this was the longest line ever...don't think we will be doing that again)

dress up

asleep at Christmas Eve service

• Caleb's First Christmas morning at home

I just can't get enough of that smile

he will understand more next year

enjoying Daddy and Mommy's new bikes

• After doing Christmas as our family of 3, we headed over to Mimi and PawPaw's house

too many presents to capture (this is only half the room)

Caleb's first Christmas

Uncle Blake, Aunt Kayla and Uncle Greg

Caleb and Mimi with his new exersaucer

look what Uncle Blake and Aunt Kayla caught!

• Then we headed over to my cousin, Anne's for the Vento family Christmas, and sadly Mom forgot to take pictures- she only got a few while we were there

cousin Katelyn and Caleb

Aunt Kayla trying to calm him down

Paw Paw trying to entertain Caleb

• then we came home late and Poppy and Gigi got here! We got to celebrate Christmas with them the next morning and enjoyed having them in town for a few days. :)

Caleb with all his gifts from Poppy and Gigi and Dad's side of the family

happy to have them here

Caleb and his Grandpas- Poppy and Paw Paw

Caleb and both sets of grandparents

Caleb and both Grandmas- Gigi and Mimi

• Caleb also had many visitors this month!

sweet Meredith!

my sweet former students who are all graduated from college now! Maddy, Lauren and Michelle

Caleb and sweet Emily

Allie (and Judson in her belly!)

Caleb got to meet Evan, Madison and Aubrey!

Caleb loved meeting Theresa!

Caleb and beautiful Dristhi

• Caleb is getting better at "sitting" in his little seat

• Enjoys playing with his new toys from Christmas

his new play mat

he looks like he's lifting weights here, haha

one of Mimi's sweet students gave this tummy time pillow to Caleb

loves his puppy

• got to have another "date" with Kate

Now for "real talk". Caleb looks so happy in pictures, and he (when I take the picture), but there are many moments that look like this:

talk about breaking your heart- I had to leave him here, trying to entertain him while I was attempting to "boost" my milk supply by pumping after every feed. I did this about 6 times a day every day for over a week, and I was exhausted and sadly, I didn't really notice a difference in my supply, either.

 I posted for some advice on Facebook, and I got 50+ comments- it just shows how hard it can be to get babies to sleep. We have had a really hard time accomplishing this task. We tried absolutely everything and really saw little to no improvement. It was worse than just a 4 month sleep regression because Caleb stayed in this regression for about 10 weeks- and he started it before he turned 3 months- and he is hopefully coming out of it now that he is 5 months. He had a stuffy/runny nose and also seems to be teething (no teeth yet) but he chews on everything so that didn't help things either and he is becoming quite the distracted nurser (common for this age). Sometimes he would even refuse to nurse and then I would offer a bottle and he wouldn't take that either. I would have to go into the bathroom, run a hot shower to create steam (so he could breathe easier) and nurse him in there. We would use the Nose Frida often (maybe too often- his nose started to bleed some) and saline drops, too. I have taken forever to write these past couple of blogs because, honestly I have been barely making it through the days until the last two weeks.

The past month was probably the hardest thus far. Caleb essentially stopped sleeping- well in the day he would sleep maybe 2 times for 30 min if we were lucky- or sometimes longer if I was wearing him in the Moby wrap but that stopped working as well towards the end of the month (one time at church- we meet at a school- I had to walk outside around the entire perimeter of the school a couple times shushing him to finally get him to go to sleep in the wrap- and then he woke up less than 30 min later) because he was becoming increasingly observant of his surroundings. At night he would wake literally 3-5 times, and while he used to go back to sleep after I nursed him, he wouldn't really do that anymore. He began staying up for 1 and 2 hrs at a time when he would wake, and we would swaddle him and shush him and walk around and bounce and sing- you name it. We tried everything. And I mean EVERY. THING. Swaddled, not swaddled, back, tummy, sleeping in the swing, in the rock in play, sound machine, black out curtains, soothing bedtime routine, essential oils, reflux medicine, cutting out dairy (of my diet for almost a month), baby massage, letting him cry(for 2+ hrs at a time), cosleeping, supplementing (like once or twice), sleeping with a "lovey", putting him to bed earlier, putting him to bed later, etc. And nothing seemed to work. I literlaly felt like I was going crazy and losing my joy. All day every day I felt like I had hardly anything to show for the day- Bryan would ask how it went and I barely had time to get dressed (so I could go tutor once he came home) much less eat- I tried increasing my milk supply by pumping after every time I fed, taking herbal supplements, drinking a lot of water, eating a lot of oatmeal, lactation cookies, etc but Caleb was just so unhappy because he was sleeping less and less- and we were also barely making it through as it had literally been months since I had slept for longer than 2-3 hrs at a time. I just wondered how long I would be able to sustain this, and daily asked God for grace. At the end of his 4th month of life, we really didn't know how to get him to sleep for naps at all anymore. Sometimes we would just put him in the car (he would scream for several minutes until he would finally sleep) and then he would sleep for less than an hr almost every time. 

People always ask, "How's the baby?", and they are being friendly and nice and may really want to know, but I feel guilty for thinking everytime- "he is really, really hard. He isn't sleeping and isn't happy very much of the time anymore. I don't know if this is 'normal'".  I felt like most parents couldn't relate because unless you have this hard of a baby- rather you call him "colicky", "high needs", "fussy", "nonsleeper"- whatever you want to call him- you just do not understand. There were so many days filled with not only Caleb's tears, but mine, too. Days where 3 different times I would have to just set him in his crib and walk away and maybe slam a door or two...I expected the newborn phase to be hard, but it was much harder than I thought (see the 1 month post), but I thought by 4 months he would have outgrown this "colic" or "extreme neediness"- I was wrong. At church, I tried to leave him in the nursery and 2 of the 4 times we tried he ended up screaming so much for so long, they had to come get me. One Sunday I just stood during the worship service (with Caleb strapped to me, trying to keep him calm) tears running down my cheeks because I couldn't ever have break from him. All the other little babies were just super content, chillin in the swings/bouncy seats/on the floor in the infant room, but not my son- he was the screamer/the needy one. I even considered possibly going to the counselor at our church because I just felt so much like a failure. I couldn't help but think about Caleb in terms of his sleeping and eating habits and neither seemed to be going well. So many offered to come and help/watch him, but I didn't know how to let them. I was trying to nurse Caleb every 2-3 hrs, and no one else could get him to nap, so it would be really logistically hard to leave him for any extended period of time (more than 30 min- 1 hr). My mom even offered to come spend the night and get up with him, but I wasn't ready to give him formula. I just was super stubborn about "breast being best" and me being able to make it work. 

But, God has taught me Caleb is so much more than eating and sleeping habits. He is a whole little person and has a whole life story waiting to unfold. My job is to try the best I can to nourish, guide, protect, encourage, teach, and above all love him and point him to Jesus. Oh, how I need Him.- great song by the way:

God has entrusted me to be Caleb's Mama- and that is a HUGE, huge calling. I never want to lose sight of the why when it comes to raising this sweet little boy who will hopefully be a godly man one day who follows the Lord wholeheartedly as Caleb did in Numbers 24:14.