Davis Five Months

Happy Spring! We are waiting for our spring weather here in the Northwest, still lots of rain and gloomy days. Even though Daylight Savings is kind of a pain, I’m loving the longer days and can’t wait for the weather to warm up so we can get back to our evening walks and trips to the nearby park.

Little guy is five months old and continues to be such a joy to our family. He continues to give us lots of smiles, tons of laughs and giggles and just warms our hearts. Jemma and Zoe are wonderful big sisters to him and are always willing to help when it comes to taking care of “baby Davis”.

Davis is now taking around five ounces at each feeding and when he is hungry is the only time he really fusses and cries. We switched him to the Playtex bottles and are using the drop-in liners with the medium flow nipple. It’s so much easier than washing all of the million Dr. Brown parts and he isn’t having much issue with air intake. We are continuing on with one ml of DHA and probiotics daily.

Davis has started having more frequent BMs, he use to have only one every 7-10 days, but now he’s having several a week and even had two in one day last week. We still have him in size two diapers but a box of size three are on their way!

He is almost primarily in six month clothing, although he still has some three-month clothing that fit on the snug side.

Davis is in a sleep sack at night and is sleeping in his crib now! I give him a four to five ounce bottle in our room after we’ve put the girls to bed and if he’s still hungry, I nurse him until he falls asleep and then I take him to his room and put him in his crib. He’s sleeping from about 9:30 PM until 5-6 AM every night. I usually wake up around 3-4 AM to pump and with this pump session I fill a bottle so that it’s ready to go when he wakes up.

Davis is getting his first tooth, his lower left central incisor is just coming through, he has been chewing his fingers and drooling non-stop, but didn’t really fuss as it was coming through.

Davis is continuing to easily roll from his back to his front, he can go from both right and left sides. However, he has yet to roll from his front to his back.

We are taking our first family trip since Davis has been born in late April. We are headed to Maui and my parents are joining us this time since we will definitely need extra hands. We are very excited to head to a sunny location and are looking forward to my parents joining since they haven’t been to Maui in a very long time! We are staying in a condo in the Kaanapali area that we haven’t stayed in before, it’s located closer to the boardwalk and beach than in the condo we normally rent, so it’ll be nice for everyone to be able to walk easily in the area. We are planning on introducing solids to Davis on the trip, we had done this with the girls when they were six months on vacation in Hawaii. Wish us luck on packing and getting seven people easily to the airport and on the plane!

And lastly, my Mom has let us know that she will be “retiring” from helping us with our childcare at the end of this upcoming summer. We are so blessed that she will have helped us for over three years and are going to be sad to see her go. With the arrival of Davis, three kids has been a lot for her to take care of on a regular basis and since she lives out of town, when she helps us, she is away from home for over two weeks at a time, leaving my Dad home by himself. Also, when she is at our house, she is helping us on evenings and weekends, unlike my mother-in-law who gets to go home every evening and has her weekends free. My Dad and her want to do some traveling in their retirement and are looking forward to new places to explore. I’m sure my parents will continue to visit regularly and all of the kids will really miss their Mimi!

With my Mom retiring, we are beginning our search for an Au Pair, we are working with two agencies-Au Pair Care and Cultural Care Au Pair, which were both recommended by friends who have used both agencies. We are planning on interviewing a few candidates this weekend. With my Mom staying with us half of the month, we are use to having an extra person in our household and have extra room for an au pair to have her own space. My mother-in-law will continue to help us two days a week, which we are very happy to have her do so. We compared hiring a nanny for three kids to getting an au pair, and the au pair seemed to make the most sense for our family. We look forward to learning about another culture as well and think it’ll be a great experience for our children.