Looking more like his daddy every day <3

Since I never did get around to that 3 month update (blame Trump) we’re just moving right ahead to 4 months.

I remember reading about the concept of the “fourth trimester” when I was pregnant—the first three months after a baby is born when they’re so helpless they might as well still be in utero.

Well, being on the other side of those early days… I totally believe it. The amount that Hudson has grown physically and developmentally in the last four months is incredible. I do recognize that this rapid growth applies to all babies—not just our little genius 😃  But Hudson is a veritable person these days, and watching our own baby grow has really blown our minds. Jason and I keep saying, “we made this!” and looking at each other like—holy sh*t. Does that ever get less crazy to think about?

You’ve been warned: this update is a LONG one. I try to be concise in my other posts, but on this topic I want to be able to look back and remember all of the little details 😃 And with that, here’s life with Hudson over the last few months.

Stats

Pre-shot smiles at the doc

Hudson is 17 lbs, 27” and his head is huge: in the 100th percentile. That last stat totally cracks me up… I keep telling him he has THE biggest baby head. His weight is 85% and his height is 98%! Everywhere we go  people will ask how old he is and when I tell them, most often the first thing they say is—“he’s a big boy!” Yes, he is. It’s comforting to know that he’s such a sturdy little guy, but I’m also glad that he’s getting a little more coordinated and helping me by holding on when I pick him up. Our little dude is HEAVY, and getting heavier.

Smiles

Loves bouncing in his chair

These days, Huds is all smiles. Big, open mouth, squealing smiles. Except when he’s hungry… then watch out! Definitely NOT all smiles. But about 95% of the time, he is the happiest, smiliest little guy. When we go to get him out of his crib in the morning, he gives us the biggest grin and wiggles every limb to the point that he lifts his little body off the mattress. It is the absolute best and my heart explodes every time.

Eating continues to be his greatest passion and after a good feed he’ll lay back and give me a huge, satisfied smile, like “Nice one, mom. Go us.”

Developmental

Fascinated by the foot

Hudson is constantly in motion. His favorite move is lifting both feet straight up in the air then rolling his body to the left. (Which I keep thinking requires a TON of ab strength… speaking from a place of subpar ab strength these days 😃) He will do this move over, and over, and over. And if he’s wearing PJ’s with faces on the feet, he’ll do it all day long. So funny. I try to get him to mimic the move to the right and he’ll look at me like I’m insane. You do you, bud! We’ll address that muscular imbalance another day.

He’s getting really good at grabbing things. Initially, he would only swipe at an object when he was laying on his back, but now is also reaching forward to grab at toys or blankets while he’s sitting on our laps. Which by the way, is his favorite way to hang out… this baby does not like being held like a baby these days! He wants to see the action and he’s getting stronger and stronger. His huge bobble head is getting much steadier when he’s holding it up, and when I hold him facing me against my chest, he tries to jump and push off the entire time.

Oral fixation has also kicked in and he puts literally everything he can get his little hands on straight into his mouth. He’ll suck away at his own sleeve or the corner of a blanket for upwards of 10 minutes sometimes. This is all accompanied by an intense amount of adorable baby drool.

CEO of the jungle meeting / tummy time with a reindeer butt

Nearly SIX weeks ago now, he rolled over from tummy to back, three times in one day. And it’s never been seen again, despite daily tummy time and me rolling him over to “remind” him of how fun it is. Literally zero interest or any kind of indication he’s planning on doing it again. Riddle me that, child development experts! Thanks to his constant leg kicking action, I think we’re more likely to see a back to front roll any day now since he’s gotten the back to side move down.

(Hudson edit to add: Mom took so long to get her act together and get this post up, I’m totally rolling over like a champ these days.)

Talking

My favorite part of this age is that he is talking, and singing, all. the. time. When my grandparents came to visit when he was around 2 months, my Grammy remarked that she’d never seen a baby so young “talking” already. Well Gram, he’s still going! He alternates between high pitched, lyrical noises that I swear are him attempting to sing, and a series of grunting/growling noises depending on his mood—and sometimes all in the span of a few seconds. He’ll lay in his crib singing to himself for nearly 20 minutes sometimes before deciding he’s really ready for someone to come get him. He also makes similar noises when he’s really happy with something, usually his playmat. The grunting will come out when he’s concentrating intensely on something, or when he’s starting to get frustrated with whatever he’s doing and would like us to change it up, please.

Playing

Hudson has been so much more awake and alert over the last month or so, and the days of just snuggling in bed while he’s not asleep already feel very long, long ago. (Sniff)

I have no earthly idea what we would have done with him if it weren’t for the almighty playmat. I would estimate it’s gotten upwards of 200 hours worth of action out of Huds in the last few months… by far the best $50 I’ve ever spent on Amazon, and that is saying something. He started out just laying there and smiling up at the bug lights, eventually starting kicking his legs to the music, and over the last month has been all about grabbing for the hanging toys and attempting to finagle them into his mouth. My BFF recommended switching out the toys to keep it interesting and I just ordered a few more linking toys for round 3.

But while the playmat is awesome and a great way to get some hands-free time, I have the most fun these days just playing with Hudson. He is extra adorable in the mornings, and after the first feeding of the day he’ll lay on the bed and talk to me, kicking his feet and grabbing my hands and hair. His smiles and baby giggles absolutely slay me, and I’m sure the faces and noises I make would render me certifiable if anyone had a live feed into these little sessions. I will do pretty much anything to make him laugh.

We’re still getting out walking as often as possible–even in the colder temperatures!–because I’m convinced Hudson loves it. Maybe that’s just mommy, but hey. In the early days, the stroller was a surefire way to induce a near-immediate nap, but recently he’s stayed awake for longer and longer periods in there, checking out the view.

Is there anything cuter than a baby in an animal hood bath towel?

And finally, he’s always been a bath man, but he’s getting even more into kicking around in the water these days before bed. We’re hoping to start swimming lessons this winter and I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a total water baby.

Music

We are VERY into Christmas music around here. Or really any music. Even when he was brand new, he’d get very still when music would play and he’d listen intently. Now that he has a bigger capacity to react to the things he’s processing, he goes crazy kicking his feet and squealing when he likes a song. And what luck—he’s just in time to indulge mom’s passion for holiday tunes 😃 He seems to particularly like songs that are really rhythmic or lyrical, so we’re jamming to the Pentatonix holiday album 24/7.

Sleep

His lips! <3

Ugh. At this point, even I’m bored of hearing myself talk about the mystery that is infant sleep. And yet, I just can’t help myself…

In the last few months, we’ve had some major highs, but also some lows… which the almighty internet kindly refers to as a “sleep regression.” Hudson started sleeping through the night around 13 weeks, going down at 7 and up around 6:30. Sometimes there would be a 5am wakeup in there, and he’d go back to sleep after that until about 7am. But basically: new parent sleep nirvana.

The one thing we never, ever waiver on is the bedtime routine. 6:45, in the bath, followed immediately by bottle and down for bed. He is usually more than ready for his little routine (and as Grandma says, even seems to be “asking” for it!) and goes down easily to sleep.

Then, we went to Mexico, and thankfully he continued to sleep well for his grandparents while we were away! But when we came home it was another story. He continues to go down easily, but suddenly, whether due to all of the change, a growth spurt, or the four month sleep regression, we were doing 3 wake-ups a night. Besides J and I being walking zombies, I felt totally at a loss. Do we feed him? Not feed him? Pick him up? Try to keep him in his crib?

The nights that we battled it out with him trying to do the pacifier and hold him off from eating, thinking that we were creating bad habits by feeding him at night—well, those were rough ones. A lot of sleep advice, and our pediatrician, for that matter, suggests not feeding babies at night once they’ve started sleeping through because they’ve proven they don’t “need it” at that point.

However, as both a huge pushover and a lover of sleep, I ended up feeding him pretty much every time. It was the only thing that really calmed him down and he’d go right back to sleep. Now, we’re down to just one wakeup a night, usually around 2am—which feels very doable after the previous few weeks! Proving that you can find the research to support whichever point of view you prefer, my most recent sleep read, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, says that most babies Hudson’s age will need 1 feeding a night. So I’m calling us on track on that night sleep for now.

Then there’s naps.

Naps continue to baffle me because he still never sleeps much more than 45 minutes. Which at this point I consider a good nap—but the problem is that if you’re attempting to follow the popular eat-play-sleep 3 hour schedule, it gets really confusing how to make that work without letting them get overtired. So, despite my dreams of consistency, we’re taking it day by day and it’s going alright. It’s getting easier and easier to put him down for naps, and I just have to trust him that eventually, when he’s ready, he’ll sleep for longer periods during the day.

One more thing I have to add here, so that I don’t ever forget it: he won’t let us hold or rock him to sleep right now. Instead, he has to be laying flat in his crib, with his suit on. Then, we have to give him Frank, his pacifier with a bear attached to it, and stand there holding Frank down to his chest while he spends 5-10 minutes calming himself down. He does this by grabbing Frank’s paws over and over and attempting to fling him to the side of the crib. While I would much rather be rocking him for ten minutes, I find this little routine of his so funny and cute. How do babies get so quirky?

Blitz

“What cat?” / “What baby?”

Those that know J and I well will not be surprised that our cat gets his own section in our baby’s monthly update. This is kind of a small thing, but one I hope to remember because J and I both find it hilarious. Our kitty Blitz, previously the apple of our collective eye, has been a trooper about adjusting to being one of two apples these days. Kind of, anyway. But recently Jason and I realized that Blitz and Hudson refuse to look at or acknowledge each other. Hudson will stare at a fork on the table for 5 minutes, but the cat that’s within 3 feet of him at all times? It’s like he’s invisible. And while Blitz has given Hudson a few tentative sniffs, for the most part he just stares at me in disdain from across the room when I’m playing with Hudson, or attempts to crawl right into my lap while I’m trying to feed Hudson. Nothing to see here, folks. He’s also taken to crawling underneath Hudson’s playmat and sleeping there until I haul him out.

Our dreams of them being besties appear to be a ways off 😃

So, if it’s not apparent by the two thousand+ word summary above—life is pretty great. We are total cliches of new parents, uploading tons of pictures into our Hudson iCloud daily and remarking over every little thing our baby genius does.

Did you see him stick his tongue out like that?! Does he not look SO cute in those jammies?!

But we are so, so in love with Hudson and enjoying every minute of this adorable baby stage. We went to a meetup for parents and kids in our building today and met three little boys that were 1, 2 and 3 years old. It made it too easy to picture our little city babe at all of those ages, and yet another reminder to savor these fleeting baby days.

We love you, Hudson! We are so lucky to be your parents.