Orelia at Five Months

These past five months have flown by, and we are having such a great time with our little girl.

A week after she turned 4 months old she started sleeping through the night.  I decided not to go in and feed her the moment she awakened in the middle of the night, and turns out she was more than capable of going back to sleep.

Ever since that first night, she's been sleeping about 11 hours straight - from 8 pm until 7 am.  I'm really appreciating it!

Now that she wakes up at the same time every morning, we are on a very good routine every day.  She feeds 5 times a day, every 3 hours.

She's napping three times a day, for 45 minutes or more each time.  She naps in her crib or in her car seat if we are out and about.  If she's not in her car seat, she usually goes through a bought of crying (sans tears) before she can actually fall asleep.  Now that I know what's going on, it doesn't bother me.

Orelia is still a very happy baby who loves to smile at Mommy and Daddy.  She smiles at strangers or friends too, but she is happiest with Mom or Dad.

She has been developing her sense of humor recently, and will go through periods of 5 minutes where she finds something hilarious and will laugh hysterically if you keep repeating it.  Usually this involves me growling in her face and pulling away or perhaps bringing a puppet into her face and making it disappear.

She is becoming enamored with Harper and will now smile when she sees her.  It melts our hearts.

She has been rolling back to front for awhile now, and does it often during play.  She now consistently rolls from tummy to back, as well.  This makes enforced tummy time a little more difficult.

Singing to her, especially with hand movements, is a sure-fire way to make her content.  I am learning all kinds of new songs to entertain her.

She loves all her toys and stuffed animals.  She is learning how to play with toys in a way other than just sticking everything in her mouth.  She wags things around intentionally more for the fun of it before stuffing it in her face.

She can't sit up yet on her own, but she can sit up when leaning against someone or some thing.  She sits great in her high chair and loves to play up there as well as eat.

She probably still prefers to lay on her back to play and sometimes doesn't even need a toy to entertain herself.  I can plop her on a thick blanket on the floor in the kitchen and she will just roll from side to side and be happy.

She is becoming more and more vocal.  She has been making a noise recently which makes us refer to her as the Frog Princess. It's kind of a croak noise she does when she is very happy.  We love our loud little Frog Princess and are so happy to enjoy this precious time with her.