4 months old!

Ella turned 4 months on November 17.  I waited until after her doctor appointment to make this post.

The last four months have just flown by, although it seems like Ella has been a part of our family forever.  She is such a good, happy baby.  She is so content sitting in her bouncy chair playing with toys or watching whats going on around her.  When she gets tired, she'll just go to sleep and when she wakes up she just opens her eyes and looks around.  She is "talking" more and more and also laughing out loud a lot more lately.

Ella currently weighs 17lbs, 11oz (90th percentile) and is 24.5 inches (50th percentile).  She is currently wearing size 3-6 or 6 month clothes.  She pants are more than long enough, but the shirts are starting to get a bit snug, which is probably due to her extra bulky cloth diapers.  We are still on the middle setting on most of her diapers and when she wears disposables, she is wearing size 2.  Her eyes are still blue.  I think we are going to have a blue-eyed beauty!

Shots went as expected at her appointment yesterday.  She was so smiley and happy before the shots.  The nurses were all commenting that she was the cutest baby they had seen all day.  Poor thing, two shots in one leg and one in the other plus the vaccine that comes in drink form.  She cried... hard... and for the first time she had real tears.  She calmed down pretty quickly and fell asleep right away.  She then slept most of the evening.  I woke her up to feed her around 9 pm last night and she slept through until 6:30 this morning, woke up to eat and then went back to sleep until I woke her up around 9 am!  Shots are tiring!  

At 4 months Ella:

• can laugh out loud
• can follow an object that is more than a foot away
• can hold head very steady when upright
• grasps her play rings very well and starting to grasp a rattle
• squeals when excited
• holds self up to sit when supported. 

Ella almost rolled over the other day during her 4 month pictures, which I credit to her not loving tummy time.        

Ella usually sleeps from about 8:30-9:30 pm to around 6 or 7 am.  She occasionally will wake up around 4:30/5 to eat but will go back to sleep right away.  We were definitely blessed with another good little sleeper!  We are still swaddling at night.  I tried not doing it and just putting her in a sleep sack for three nights last week and each of those nights she was so restless that I was up so much checking on her.  She sleeps so much better when her arms are confined!

At her appointment yesterday we got the okay to introduce rice cereal if we want.  Dr. Huwe said some babies don't show much interest right away and she said it was up to us if we wanted to try or wait.  Being that Ella is in the 90th percentile for her weight, it seems as though she is getting enough to eat as is so I'm not in a huge hurry to get started.  Ava wasn't that interested in the cereal, so I'm interested to see what Ella thinks of it.  I'm sure big sister, Ava will be really excited to watch Ella start eating foods though!