4 months Old!

We went to our 4 month well-baby appointment today and considering the fact that it was scheduled right in the middle of the babies feeding/morning nap time, they did very well—even for the shot part—just a little crying, nothing some Mommy-hugs couldn’t help!

Here’s the babies 4 month stats for ya—Enjoy!

~Nora Grayce Burns~

At 4 months old Nora now weighs 11 lbs and 1 oz and is in the 11th percentile for her actual age. This is up from being in the 1 percentile at 2 months. So, little by little she is catching up! She is also 23 inches long now—2 inches more than at 2 months. This puts her in the 20th percentile for weight.

Nora is still eating no more than 4 oz from her bottles, although she must be eating more than that while nursing at some points during the day or she wouldn’t be gaining any weight! She pretty regularly goes about 10-12 hours in between her night-time and morning feedings. All other feedings during the day are between 3-5 hrs. I try to stretch them at least to 3.5 hrs, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. I would like to get her going steadily 4 hours during the day—that would really save mom some time. We are working on it!

So far, both of my babies have been excellent sleepers. Nora finally caught up with Holden and will sleep all the way through the night. We put them down sometime between 7-8 pm and they don’t wake up until 6-7 am. Sometimes I think they would go longer but the sunlight seems to really affect Nora’s sleeping. If it is a bright sunny morning she is awake pretty early, if it’s a dreary day, she may sleep in a little longer. After talking with a lot of my friends with babies similar in age to the twins, I would have to say that I am very blessed for how well they have both organized their nighttime sleep! My goal this month is to start organizing daytime sleep with set naptimes, we will see!
Although Nora’s awake time is steadily increasing during the day, she still doesn’t go longer than 2 hours awake at a time. She has gotten a little better at communicating when she is tired by giving us some cues, instead of just flipping a switch from happy to screaming. Nana and I have both been very grateful for this!

Her personality is coming out more and more each day. She can be down-right silly when she wants to be. She has teasing eyes and silly crooked eyes that crack me up. I have on edge waiting for her to burst out in laughter. Sometimes her faces are so animated and her mouth is open so wide I can almost hear it, but not yet…and I’m gonna be a jealous mommy here and say…her first laugh better be with me! I’ve been working so hard on it!

Also with her personality comes her gianormous temper. I’m not quite sure who to blame this character trait on, cause neither Mike or I seem to have much of a temper—but Nora sure does. Before being a mother, I didn’t quite buy into the whole “some babies are born that way” excuse. I have also been more of a nurture over nature kind of person. Well allow me to insert foot into mouth, and thank you Lord for your lesson/humor, because I am here to tell you all…some babies are just born that way. I mean she’s only 4 months old and I find myself needing the advise of the wise Dr. James Dobson, on raising a “Strong-Willed” child. But don’t worry, I do plan to have this under control one day (I’m just not quite sure how yet!) Let me interject a little example here. Nora finally showed her true colors in church this past Sunday. We were right in the middle of the message when I start hearing this very animalistic scream. I know immediately it’s Nora and the worse part is, we are sitting in the third row of the sanctuary. So if I can hear her loud and clear, it is safe to say that so can the whole rest of the church congregation. Great. So, after a few minutes I can’t stand it and get up to go see what’s going on. As I am walking out, I get lots of sympathetic grins and even a few smirks from the congregation. When I go into the nursery this is what I find—Nora being swaddled up with a face as purple as can be, tears streaming down her face, gasping for air and the lady helping her, hurrying as fast as she can to sit back down and feed her the HALF EMPTY BOTTLE. Once the bottle is in her mouth Nora calms down, and I go back to service. Here is what happened. While feeding her the bottle, she must have pooped and after the week before when Holden had a MAJOR blowout, the nursery workers were probably being over-cautious and decided to changer her diaper before finishing her bottle. Nora apparently did not like this idea and decided to scream at the absolute top of her lungs and render everyone in the room temporarily deaf through the entire diaper change until someone put that bottle back in her mouth. Whoa, the drama. ANYONE OUT THERE WANT TO CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS GENE? I

Just in the past few weeks Nora has become interested in toys. She does not try to reach for or grasp them at all, but she will stare /sing to/talk to them for a LONG time. We have a play gym with little bugs that hang down and she loves to talk to her bugs. Her talking doesn’t sound too different from crying which is kinda funny. Nana and I tease her and say that she is telling her bugs all the mean things that we have done to her... like tummy time for instance.

This month her big milestones have included, the ability to break out of any and all swaddles, smiling at Holden, playing in the grass, babbling, and rolling over.

Nora’s Likes Include:
-standing
-her paci
-crib aquarium
-play gym
-swing
-walks outside
-conversation time

Nora’s Dislikes Include:
-laying in her crib during the day
-the wind in her face
-stopping at stoplights while in the car
-waiting to eat
-tummy time

~Holden Reece Burns~

As I had expected, Holden has really done some growing these past few months! He is really starting to leave Nora in the dust—he’s gonna be a big boy I believe! Holden now weighs a whoppin’ 13 lbs 13 oz. He moved from being in the 5th percentile for weight at 2 months to the 45th percentile now. Lengthwise, Holden is now 25 inches, up from 21 ½ inches at 2 months. That’s 3 ½ inches in two months! He went from being in the 1 percentile to 70th! So basically Holden has caught up in size to other 4 month olds…no more looking like a preemie!

Holden is still eating about 5 oz from his bottles. Again though, from time to time I’m sure he eats more while nursing—considering his size. Holden has started to prefer nursing over his bottle which has been a new challenge we’ve had to face. He doesn’t outright deny the bottle, but it can take him up to an hour to actually finish it. This can be very frustrating for Nana when Nora needs to eat, or if anything else needs to be done. A good thing though is that both babies are now nursing quicker and more efficiently. There isn’t so much down time/ snoozing while eating. Now, they “get down to business”-- eat and then come off. Mommy is very grateful for this change. Total feeding times (feeding, burping and changing both) have gone from 1.5 hours to 30-40 minutes now. Hallelujah!

Holden is also a good sleeper. He perfected his sleeping through the night a bit earlier than Nora, but I believe that is due to his size. He doesn’t always need as many naps as Nora and they are not nearly as long. Holden has much more awake time during the day, and sometimes now I have to convince him that it is naptime, or just lay him down even though he doesn’t seem tired.

He’s still a very happy baby. He loves people more than anything. He likes to be held and talked to. He doesn’t want to be left alone…ever. We have started sitting him in his bumbo seat on the counter in the bathroom while we are getting ready or on the kitchen island while I am cooking dinner. He just likes to be wherever we are. If you put him down while he is all cozy and happy he seriously takes it personally and can break your heart with his pitiful cries. Like Nora, he is on the verge of laughing and I just can’t wait for it to happen. He smiles so big and makes the cutest cooing noises. His favorite place to talk to us is on the changing table while we are changing his diapers. This is a huge change from the early days in his life where a diaper change was just torture. Our biggest problem with Holden is still the car seat issue. I really am over it. I mean, it’s literally torture to go somewhere with him because of the car seat. Sometimes I feel like I just need to pull over and get out so I can give myself a break. I am really looking into other kinds of seats now and I’ll just count the other as a loss…Mommy NEEDS to get this nipped in the bud!

Holden isn’t much into toys. They just don’t seem to hold his interest too much. It’s seldom that he will be happy laying under the play gym and he could care less about any of the toys we hang from his swing and car seat. Right now, he’s all about people and that’s it. He does get really interested in his hands and feet though. Just this morning he was in his bumbo while I was showering and when I peeked out to check on him he had both hands waving in front of his face and was staring/smiling at them.

This month his big milestones have included, grasping his rattle and shaking it, he found his hands and is really good at getting them to his mouth (because of this he doesn’t need his paci so much anymore), he left his daddy a sweet message of the phone, made eye contact with Nora and smiles at her often, he has enjoyed some afternoons in the grass and even rolled over.

Holden’s Likes Include:

-taking walks

-riding in mommy’s carriers

-talking with people

-cuddling

-kisses
-standing up

Holden’s Dislikes Include:

-being alone

-the car seat

-tummy time

-loud noises