Happy 4 month birthday!

Yesterday we celebrated Benett's 4 month birthday! We also had his wellness check-up at the doctor's office. Mike and I totally thought Benett would be well over 15 lbs, but is official weight was 14 lbs 12 oz. This put him in the 48th percentile for his age. Pretty good for a little guy who was on the low end of the spectrum at birth! He has also gotten a lot longer over the past 2 months. He is now 24" long which means he has grown 3.5" in the past 2 months and 6" total since birth! Maybe we should nickname him "little weed" instead of "little b."
We are so proud of all the things Benett is learning how to do. He loves to talk and laugh ALL THE TIME! Sometimes, I can't even get a word in. He is on the verge of rolling over, but hasn't done it by himself yet. His arm and back muscles just quite haven't gotten strong enough to raise his 43 cm head really far off the floor(his head size is 75th percentile for his age, he is going to be VERY smart :-). We will be working on rolling over for the next week because the doctor gave us the ok to let him sleep on his belly at night as soon as he learns to roll over. Up until this point Benett has been sleeping in the bed with us and quite frankly no one gets all that great of sleep. I have been having some VERY weird dreams the past few nights because Benett is moving around, and I am kind of half asleep and half awake and incorporating his movements into my dreams. Being able to sleep on his belly at night is significant because Benett hates to sleep on his back. We actually have to swaddle him in order to get him to sleep at night. I really don't like doing that, but right now it is our only option because everyone says he has to sleep on his back. Benett has been napping on his belly for the past month or so because I just couldn't get him to take really good naps unless he was on his belly or in his swing. When he started to not like sleeping in the swing, the belly became my only option, and so, we just went with it. He is so much happier during the day when he gets the rest his little growing body needs. We are actually on a pretty good schedule now where he takes one short nap in the morning and two longer naps in the afternoon (all in his crib). He can even put himself to sleep on his belly! We do not get the same results on his back. He will lie awake fighting off sleep forever and end up screaming at the top of his lungs until we go into his room. I only know this because we thought we would try to get him to sleep in his crib last night. After about 15 minutes of him moving around and then 5 minutes of him starting the scream, I told Mike that I couldn't handle it anymore. That is when we agreed that we could let Benett stay in our bed for a couple more weeks until he learns to roll over. This is a much better solution for us because the transition out of our bed and into his crib will be so smooth (hopefully)! He already sleeps in his crib for his first stretch of sleep at night while Mike and I are eating dinner and hanging out. When it is time for us to go to bed, Benett is usually waking up for his late feeding so it works out pretty well for everyone.

Benett is also getting much better at using his hands. He will reach out and try to grab things occasionally and bring them to his mouth. Just last night he held his bottle for the first time! Benett doesn't really eat from a bottle much anymore because I took over the early morning feeding from Mike so he could get into work early and workout before heading to his desk. However, last night, we put a tsp of rice cereal in a bottle to see if it would help him sleep longer, and I am happy to say it worked. Benett went 7 hours between feedings! Hooray! You have no idea how beside myself I am with the changes that are just around the corner. Benett sleeping for longer periods of time AND being able to sleep on his belly by himself AND having him on a schedule is wonderful!