Five months of Avery

Our Little Elf turned five months old on Friday!  Avery's fifth month was all about her starting to interact with her world.  Her biggest accomplishments were learning how to reach for toys and put them in her mouth, learning to roll over from her tummy to back and practicing sitting up.  She now sits propped up on her arms like a little tripod, though she normally topples over after only a minute or two.

She is such a happy little spirit and is always smiling and laughing.  She has found her voice too, and likes to coo and make noises, especially if she's unhappy about something.

She still does not particularly like her carseat, but I can finally make short trips without worrying that she will end up screaming her head off.  She is still suspicious of her stroller, but I can tell she's getting more interested in looking around.  She is definitely napping better, taking 3 or 4 good 30-60 minute naps each day, though she still sometimes fights me on it!

Night time is still our biggest challenge.  Avery sleeps just fine, it's ME who is suffering.  She wakes about 5 times on average each night.  Meaning sometimes she wakes only a couple times, but sometimes she wakes far MORE than five times.  She never cries, she just wakes and yawns and kicks and squirms, and if I don't respond right away (I usually try to wait and see if she'll go back to sleep on her own hahahahahaha-no) she goes "eh?  uh?" and so it goes.

I am getting to the point where I am giving up hoping it is a phase that will end and starting to think about what we're going to do about it.  A couple months ago I was really loving sleeping with her because she would go 3-4 hours and I didn't have to physically get up with her.  I felt like I was getting more sleep than I would have if she'd been in her crib.  But when she wakes every hour or two, I find I can't really fall asleep between wakings and thus I lay awake most of the night.  Even if I do fall asleep, being awakened so frequently takes its toll.

I am beginning to wonder if it's just being in our bed that is exacerbating her night waking.  I am scared to try something different that might result in me getting even LESS sleep than I get now because I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of ... losing it?  I don't even know what "it" is or what that means, but I actually feel like weeping at the thought of sleeping for the whole night and that's just sad.

I truly like having her with me at night for a whole variety of reasons and I would be sad to end it.  I wish we could get past this.  Maybe it will end up being worse than what we are doing now, but I'm to the point where we are going to try putting her in her crib ahhhhhhh wish us luck.

Avery's sixth month is going to be a big adventure for her because a week from today we are traveling to the mainland for a month.  We are going to see her Yaya and Hubba, and visit some other family as we make our way across the country to Florida for my sister's wedding!