8 weeks and 4 months

I made some notes to myself when Kalena was 8 weeks old about some of her likes and dislikes. I never posted that list here, so I thought it would be interesting to compare what she liked at 8 weeks to what she likes at 4 months.

At 8 weeks, Kalena was loving her Baby Einstein play mat. She would lay happily for 3 or 4 rounds of songs, laughing at the lights and colors of the star and gurgling to herself while hitting the toys and watching them swing. At 4 months, she grabs onto the different toys and tries to pull them down. Then, once she gets bored with that, she practices rolling on to her stomach and tries to eat the mat. Yummy!

At 8 weeks she enjoyed being talked to. She started smiling in response to being talked to around 3 weeks, particularly when my dad talked to her, and by 8 weeks she was smiling back regularly. She still enjoys us talking to her of course, but these days she also likes to "talk" back to us.

Eating! All the time. When she was 8 weeks old, she was still doing well with nursing and bottles. I had only been back to work for 2 weeks, so she hadn't gotten lazy about nursing yet. Now, as I've posted about before, she is lazy, and will pretty much only nurse for middle of the night feedings. She does still take formula and breast milk out of the bottle without an obvious preference for one or the other.

Ah, the sling. At 8 weeks, Brian was using the cradle hold and I preferred the snuggle hold, but it didn't really matter because either way she would fall asleep about 5 minutes after we stuck her in there. At 4 months she is too big for the cradle hold and wants her legs out in the snuggle hold.

At 8 weeks she was still loving the pacifier. She used it to help her go to sleep and stay asleep. It was also a comforter if she was fussy. Now she has pretty much stopped using one. She prefers to eat herself to sleep these days. She'll still take the pacifier if we offer it to her, but she's pretty much indifferent to it.

She wasn't so sure about baths at 8 weeks. She didn't cry, but she did push off with her feet and try to throw herself out of the sink. At 4 months bath time means smiling and laughing and splashing the water. It is much more fun.

At 8 weeks she was pretty sure that sleeping on your own is for suckers. Now, she is POSITIVE that sleeping on your own is for suckers. Also, she would like to nurse all night long thankyouverymuch.


And of course, she looks different. Here she is at 8 weeks:



And here she is at 4 months (ok, it's a day early) looking a little mischievous and sporting some serious bed-head.