Simple Joys: Ellen's 4 Month

This month Ellen has been busy learning how to sleep. We quickly learned that most babies need to be taught how to sleep and Ellen was no exception. We had visions of our baby getting tired and us putting her down and her drifting off to sleep peacefully. Not the case. :)

We do feel very blessed that Ellen has always been a great night sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. Every now and then she will wake up in the night but for the most part her night sleep has never been an issue.

Her naps however are a completely different story. She would wake up at 45 minutes on the nose into her 2 hour naps. For a period of time we thought she was just a cat napper but quickly realized (via massive meltdowns) that she was actually not getting the restorative sleep she needed during the day. So enters sleep training.

For a week and a half our days were filled with me sitting in the nursery with her during naps soothing her back to sleep. I know if we let her cry-it-out completely it wouldn't have taken so long but I have time right now and I just can't do it. She was napping lots better. She would still fight naps here and there but for the most part at 45 minutes she would wake up but could then put herself back to sleep. Yeah! We've never felt so accomplished until we had to stop swaddling her and start all over! :)

Just this week Ellen figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach. Now we have trouble keeping her on her back. She also learned how to roll onto her stomach while swaddled. So we had to stop swaddling her to sleep. This was/is a HUGE adjustment for Ellen. It has disrupted our great sleep and nap patterns but we hope she will get used to it in the next week or so. Here's to hoping!

Another new development this month is she has learned that she can scream and grunt. Not a sweet scream or even an I'm upset scream. Just a ear piercing scream for no real reason. She can crack us up! She will let out the loudest scream and then look at us like "why did you do that??!!"

Anything Ellen gets in her hands now goes directly to her mouth. We have had to watch her closer. When I wasn't paying attention she grabbed tissue paper from a present and was getting ready to eat it. It is always a given... from hands.....directly to mouth!

Here are a few other things Ellen has been up to this month.....

Ellen had her first trip to the zoo with Bethany, Josiah, and Amelia. She LOVED the aquarium. Next year we will have to get a zoo pass.

We had Ellen's baby dedication at church. All our friends and family came to celebrate.

Drew was out of town on work so Ellen and I had our first night alone.

Since Drew was out of town Ellen came to cooking club with me but then decided to have a meltdown so we had to leave before I got to taste our yummy food. Days later we started sleep training. :)

Here she is with Vanessa at cooking club before her meltdown.

Ellen got her first postcard from Grandma and Grandpa Henning while they were in Hawaii!

We celebrated Father's Day with the greatest new Dad around! We are so lucky!

Ellen got to see Aunt Jackie one more time before she heads back for more rotations. We won't get to see her again until January. :(

We had a wonderful dinner at our home with Jason, Bethany, Josiah, Jazzman and Don. Drew and Jason grew up together and had lots of fun talking about "the good old days."

Ellen got to celebrate a baby BOY cousin coming in October. It was Ellen's first gender reveal party! We are so excited for Aunt Joy and Uncle Tyler. Ellen wore a blue dress (our guess was boy) with a pink flower. She needed to remain neutral. :)