Tate at 4 Months

Tate is growing like a weed and changing every day!  We had his 4 month well baby check last week and he is doing great!  He got shots, the same ones as at 2 months, and if you remember my post about those he didn’t handle them so well for the next day and half.  This time he did much better, no continuous screaming and crying for 5 hours straight.  The second day he acted a bit ‘off’, definitely not his happy little self.  He did a lot of sitting with me, laying his head against my chest and LOTS of napping.  But by that night he was back to being sweet little Tater!

Weight: 20lbs 6oz.

Height: 26 1/2 inches

Percentile chart: He’s over the 97th percentile in both, obviously.  Ha ha!  But he’s very proportioned, so that’s good.

Tate’s New Tricks:

Reaching out to grab toys.  Just in the last few days when he lays on his play mat he reaches up to grab the toys that are dangling down in front of him. 

If it’s in his hand, it’s in his mouth.  Tate puts everything in his mouth to chew and suck on.  He found his hands and individual fingers earlier in the month and now will suck on either his thumb or his first finger – so cute!  He is a droolie little guy … teeth??  I hope not yet!

Squealing – when he gets excited he lets out a loud, shrill, ear piercing squeal! I love it!  I can’t wait for him to do that in church, ha ha!

Sleep:

Last month I reported we had an all night sleeper.  Well, that was short lived.  He’s back to waking once a night, usually around 3:30, to eat.  He goes right back to sleep and will sleep until sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning. 

He is napping MUCH better since starting him on his acid reflux medicine.  He will take at least one 2 hour or longer nap a day, then a couple of 1hour or longer naps to fill in the rest of the day.  All of this in his crib!  And he doesn’t want to nurse to sleep.  He gets fidgety and fussy if I try to nurse him when he’s ready for a nap, it’s best just to give him his pacifier and blankie and lay him down.

Tate can put himself to sleep now!  All I have to do is lay him down awake.  He pulls his snuggle blankie up by his face, rolls over onto his right side and goes right to sleep.  If he rolls to his side then you know he’s going to fall right to sleep.

This picture of him sleeping cracked me up because he kicked his leg out from under his blanket.

Besides all this, he is still strictly nursing.  We are thinking of having my mom take him for a day to force him to take a bottle.  I don’t know why at this point I’m considering this, we’ll see if I got through with it.  She can’t until mid-July so by then who knows what will happen.  He had been doing this funny thing where he’d nurse on one side then get busy talking and looking around.  30 minutes later he’d be ready for the second side.  Then 2 hours from the first side he’d be fussy so I’d feed him again with the same routine.  I was starting to get frustrated about him not just settling in to nurse so I mentioned it to his dr. She said to try holding him off so he’d be hungrier and therefore would nurse longer at a time.  That day I started holding him off for 3 hours between feedings and he’s doing so great with it.  He’ll nurse for about 15 minutes total between both sides and seems happier all together because of it.  And it’s nice for me to have that 3 hour stretch.  Now if I needed to run an errand I could feed him and know he’ll be okay until I get back. 

Tate is such a happy little guy now and has the best smile!  I love that he lights up when he sees me.  He adores his daddy and gets so excited to see his big brothers.  He’s happy to snuggle with Grandma Jean and always flashes Papa a big grin!  They are pretty good buddies.  And the big smiles he gives his Auntie!  He really loves her!

Check out those band aids from his shots!  Ouch!

Tate is doing so great, I love spending all my days with him!

Here is a comparison shot to show how big he’s gotten! Oh how I miss that little newborn!  He’s changed his looks quite a bit!

Erin