Hellobee

Our little Panda just turned five months! I feel like the time has really flown by, even more so than when we just had one child. Panda fit into our family so seamlessly, there was basically no adjustment period. So while I feel like he’s been part of our family forever, at the same time it seems like just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital and he was sleeping 20-plus hours a day.

No more grey eyes . . .

Panda is our happy little guy and gives these dazzling smiles to just about everyone, but his biggest smiles come out when he sees his big brother. In addition to loving attention from Lion, he enjoys when we give him kisses. He starts smiling and laughing when we kiss his face. He is so mellow and happy with whatever activity we have going on.

Teeth: His first tooth is coming in, which we discovered a few days ago when he started gnawing on my hand.

Eating: Panda has started eating solids. We’ve done a modified baby-led weaning (for example, we used a spoon when we gave him avocado) and he is starting to get the hang of it. The first couple of times, he immediately spit out whatever we gave him or just played with the food. More recently, he’s started to really enjoy it and his favorite seems to be yellow squash and zucchini sticks. He also enjoys avocado, especially when Lion is the one spoon-feeding him. He’s tried bananas, blueberries and apricots as well.

Now there’s that smile I promised you all! Ozzie, our traveling koala who has been to over twenty countries in the last four years, photo bombs all of the monthly updates.

Sleeping: He is still a great sleeper at night, but we may have hit the four-month sleep regression a few weeks ago. Instead of sleeping until 6:30 (when we’d often have to wake him), he now wakes up between 5 and 5:30 and starts babbling up a storm. He still sleeps ten solid hours, though, so I won’t complain (Lion didn’t stop taking a bottle in the middle of the night until closer to seven months). In the last few days, we have found that some time in the night, he has rotated himself a full 180 degrees in his crib so that his feet end up at the head of the crib. He is also really great at putting himself to sleep at night. He doesn’t fall asleep with a bottle or use a pacifier (again, very different from Lion), but instead goes down wide awake after we read him a few books and sing to him. He babbles for a little bit and plays with his lovey, then falls asleep. He’s currently sleeping in our room, but he’ll move into Lion’s room soon when we start the room sharing journey, so we’ll see what happens then. Fingers crossed, though, that he continues to be a good sleeper!

Naptime is another story, especially at daycare. At daycare, he ends up taking a series of short twenty-minute naps throughout the day; occasionally his daily sheet indicates a seven minute nap. Mr. Dolphin often wonders why they bother to record those naps because, “Those aren’t naps! He just closed his eyes for a really long time.” His naps are better on the weekends, but can still be tough especially if he becomes overtired. Occasionally, he is so tuckered out from the school week that he will take several very long naps on Saturday, but it never seems to affect his sleep. Whether his naps total ninety minutes or five hours in a day, he still gets his solid ten hours each night.

Lion wanted in on the action.  Any time we put Panda on the floor, Lion rushes over to lie down next to him, hold his hand or give him hugs and kisses.  

Panda instantly starts reaching for his big brother whenever he sees Lion.

Milestones: Panda can roll from front to back with ease and just learned how to roll from back to front. Whenever Lion lays down on the blanket next to him, Panda immediately rolls to his side and starts reaching for his big brother. He loves to reach and grab at nearby objects, the vast majority of which he instantly puts into his mouth. He is learning to sit independently and can do so for a little bit before he starts slouching. Despite being born a month early, he seems to be right on track with his development, often hitting milestones earlier than Lion did. We’re not worrying about the milestones this time around because Lion hit his on the latter end of the range for his first twelve months, then started hitting them all early, but we still find it interesting!