Owen at Four Months.

Owen's 4 month stats:

Weight: 12 lbs 6 oz (3rd percentile)

Length: 25 inches (54th percentile)

Head: 16 inches (18th percentile)

My little Owen! My sweet friend! I can hardly believe that he's already four months old! I feel like Ben and I just brought him home from the hospital, and now he's growing so quickly. I know that I've said this before, but the transition from 1 child to 2 has been such a breeze. Sure, there are crazy moments, but Owen is such a mellow baby that things have just gotten better for our family. We are so blessed to have Owen's happy little spirit in our home and he has made our family feel more joy and love than ever before. 

Owen smiles and laughs constantly, and he is very ticklish, especially on his sides and the back of his legs. His sweet little sounds make us smile and is always showing his happy personality.

Owen has started to be able to have more awake time, which has been quite freeing. Make no mistake, mama loves naptime, but sometimes I felt like my day was now divided into two hour chunks (awake one hour, sleep one hour) and it made it difficult to get a lot done. Now Owen is staying up for about 1.5-2 hours at a time, which makes life seem more flexible. Owen is so alert and loves to watch people and look at his toys. He's actually started to show a lot of interest in his toys and is always trying to grab them and put them in his mouth. 

Owen loves to be on his tummy. In fact, whenever he gets put on his back during playtime he rolls over to his tummy almost immediately. See?

Owen has been chomping on his hands constantly and has also found his feet, as seen below:

Owen also loves to stand and hang onto our hands. He has such strong little legs! He also does great in the Bumbo and has really good head control. 

Owen continues to be a great sleeper. During the day, his naps are usually one hour with the occasional long nap thrown in there. He goes to bed around 8:00 every night, and then I feed him when I go to bed around 10:30. He usually sleeps until around 5 or 6, eats, and then sleeps again until around 8. He's still sleeping in his Woombie, but I'm thinking of transitioning him to a sleep sack now that he's wiggling and rolling all over the place in his bed. He always gets put to bed on his back in the middle of the bed, but he often wakes up on his side, facing the opposite end of the crib. Little wiggle worm.

I've been back at work for a little over a month, and Owen has been doing really well with his sitter. He eats, plays, and sleeps and has been showing no signs of sadness or anxiety when I leave him. I'm always very ready to pick him and Dylan up from the sitter, and he always seems happy for me to come get him. 

That being said, as of this morning I am now feeling a little stressed. 

{Long, worrisome paragraph related to breastfeeding ahead}

This morning at Owen's 4 month checkup, he was weighed and measured, as usual. Do you notice where Owen falls on the weight percentile? 3rd percentile. Do you know where he was at two months ago? 26th percentile. I know that I may be getting a little worked up, but for the past few weeks I've been wondering if Owen has been getting enough milk. One of the more difficult things about breastfeeding is not knowing how much milk your baby is getting. You can guess whether they're eating enough by how long they eat, how much gulping and swallowing is happening, how the baby is acting, and how you feel. But you don't really know. As mentioned before, Owen is a really fast eater. He eats, eats, eats, and then acts completely disinterested in eating any more. I've taken that as a cue that mealtime is over, even if I can tell that I have some more milk. I just thought that I was lucky that my body produced more milk than what was needed. Last weekend I started to get a little nervous, since I wasn't feeling like I had that extra milk at the end of a feeding anymore. I didn't really like that I felt completely empty at the end of a feeding, and then I worried that there wouldn't be enough available at the next feeding. On Monday night, the saddest thing happened- Owen was ready for his night feeding and there was barely enough milk for him to feel satisfied. I tried to give him a bottle of formula, but he was not having it. I  had to put Owen to bed knowing that he didn't have a full tummy and not being able to do anything about it. I had just given my babysitter all of my frozen milk to store at her house- dang it- so I didn't have any reserves available. I decided to pick up some Fenugreek at the local health food store. Fenugreek, you say? What's that? It's an herb that can be taken in capsule form to increase milk supply. Side effects (other than having more milk): You smell like maple syrup. No joke. And guess what? Fenugreek totally works! After taking the pills for a day I noticed a jump in my milk production. Hooray! Now I'm just going to focus on trying to get Owen to eat as much as possible during each feeding in order to chunk him up. 

{End of worrisome rant.}

Worries aside, the past four months have been absolutely wonderful. Owen is a perfect addition to our home, and we are so grateful to have him!