Thursday, May 21, 2009

The care and feeding of a 4.5-month-old

Olivia likes to sleep, and while I'm getting more work done I also feel like a captive in my own home. She doesn't sleep on the go any more; too much to look at! Sometimes when Steve is working from home I escape during naptime, but when he's home I'm pretty productive, so I don't want to stop and run errands.

Her daily routine right now is something like this:
8am - wake up
10am to lunchtime* - nap
3-5ish - nap
evening nap (1-2 hours)
10 - bedtime

*This child has a built-in sensor to wake up when Mama is in the middle of eating lunch. It doesn't matter if it's noon or 2:00.

I give her 4-6 ounces of formula 4-5 times a day depending on how much she's awake, and at one meal I also give her a bowl of rice cereal along with some veggies or fruit. So far she's tried sweet potatoes, green beans, squash, prunes (yeah), peas, and applesauce. She's getting better at opening her mouth for the spoon, but lately her spoon-feeding time is not fun and I'm not sure why. After having a bottle I'll put her in the seat and feed her a couple bites, and then she gets increasingly fussy to the point where the food just runs down her chin because she won't swallow. Today I cleaned her up and put her in the exersaucer, then I tried giving her the last part of her bowl and she ate just fine. Maybe she doesn't like sitting in the highchair. But my dad fed her just fine in the seat on Sunday, although I did just notice he was using a terry bib instead of the Bjorns I normally use (which only say they're soft). Will do further research.

**Update the next morning: This morning I put her in the seat with a terry bib (vinyl/wipable side up) and that worked better.

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