This past week our Genevieve turned five months old!
As you’re reading Genevieve’s update, keep in mind that she was born six weeks early and think about her milestones accordingly.
The big update from this past month is that we finalized Genevieve’s adoption! As Genevieve’s adoption was out of state, the finalization took place over Zoom. It’s still surreal that both of the girls’ finalizations were over Zoom, especially after Tommy’s courthouse finalization. Regardless, it was still a very nice event. It’s so exciting to have reached this milestone.
Genevieve just gets more and more alert each week. She’s spent a fair amount of time with all four grandparents the past couple of months and has gotten so much more comfortable with all of them. It took Genevieve a long time to get used to snuggling with me and Jake. It’s great to see her getting comfortable having other family members hold her now.
Genevieve also continues to have better and better facial expressions. She’s very serious. For a long time, the only real facial expression that we got besides dead on staring was what we call the Zoolander face ha. Genevieve has started giving small smiles. She also crinkles her nose when she’s happy, which is the best. Genevieve has started using her voice and just talks, instead of crying, when she’s in her gym, being fed, waking up in the morning, etc.
Genevieve still doesn’t want to spend more than an hour or so at a time out of her swaddle. She loves being in her activity gym for short periods. But when she’s done, she’s done. Genevieve has started playing with the toys in the gym a little, which is so much fun to watch. I’ve also put her in the kick ‘n play a few times, which she likes. She’ll kick away constantly, again, for short periods.
The girls and I did outings on our own this past month to Art in Bloom at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Domes for the first week of their spring show. Genevieve slept straight through Art in Bloom, and I spent most of the Domes excursion walking around with Olivia. So I didn’t end up getting any pictures of Genevieve during either of these outings.
Over the past month, Genevieve has increased to eating six ounces at every single feeding, which blows my mind. She eats consistently every four hours or so during the day and can go longer stretches at night. I was hesitant to push to six ounces with the pre-mixed bottles, as they’re so expensive. But Genevieve blows right through three of them at a time now. She does pretty well eating six ounces out of the Avent bottles, too.
For the most part, Genevieve is completely out of 0-3 month clothing and into 3-6 month clothing. The only item that’s still awkward is pants. The 0-3 month pants are too small and the 3-6 month pants are too big. As she still wears pajamas and one-piece suits the majority of the time, it hasn’t been a huge deal. We’re using up the last of the size one diapers, and then she’ll move up to size two.
I mentioned in Genevieve’s four-month update that she had the worst cradle cap for quite a while. After working it all out and then switching to a more hydrating shampoo and conditioner, it hasn’t returned thankfully. Genevieve’s hair is softer than ever and finally seems to be growing a little bit more.
Genevieve continues to do better and better napping during the day. I make sure that she gets at least one longer nap stretch each day, usually in the afternoon, as that’s when Olivia naps. It just depends from day to day whether she needs two longer naps or not. I almost always put her down for one longer nap in her bassinet to ensure that one of the kids doesn’t wake her up. Sometimes it takes her a few tries to go down in her bassinet. But it’s very rare that she won’t settle and get a longer stretch.
Genevieve’s sleep at night has been a mixed bag this past month. After sleeping through the night the majority of the nights the prior month, it was frustrating that she had a number of rougher nights again, waking up more frequently. The last week or so of the month went a little more smoothly again. I got a few eleven p.m. to six a.m. stretches that were completely uninterrupted. The one downside is that when she makes it until five or six in the morning for a feeding, she often doesn’t want to go back to sleep.
You can find all of my baby/toddler updates for all three kids as well as general family updates and other family-related posts in the family section of the blog.
