Happy 4 month Birthday, Hunter!

Hunter turns 4 months old today.. just a day before we bid farewell to Shanghai.

He’s developed so much in the past month, and we really saw his personality evolve. Overall he is easy going and placid like Chris (unlike me, LOL), which means he likes interacting/laughing with strangers and is happy going out all the time with me. BUT, if we’re late in putting him down for his nap, he definitely makes it known to the whole wide world!! What drama. It’s lots of yelling and red eyebrows/eyes until he gets put down, and we know he’s overtired by then as he goes down in about 1 second the moment he touches his cot. Because of that, we try to be vigilant in ensuring he has his nap every 2 hours.

We’ve also now learned to read him and gotten used to noticing his tired cues, happy cues, etc. It all seemed so much easier this month, compared to previously when we were largely guessing what he wanted. Most of all, we thank God for a happy and healthy lil bub!

MONTH 3-4 PROGRESS:

Growth spurt / sleep regression / sick / unswaddling / new bedtime routine – Yep, the poor lil chicken dealt with ALL of this, in the SAME week. The day he hit 3 months old a few weeks ago, he suddenly started waking up frequently at night (unusual as prior to that he was a great sleeper). And yes, I did blog about it, but I also omitted the following…… Since he was already unsettled, we decided to go the whole hog (crazy, I know!) and also stop swaddling him (as he was strong enough to bust out of the swaddle and suddenly decided he didn’t like it anymore)… AND also completely shake up his bedtime routine. Before, it was Bath -> Breastfeed -> Sleep. This is NOT the way to do it, I read, as it makes feeding his ‘sleep cue’, so if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he needs to be fed to fall back to sleep. And so we changed it to Breastfeed -> Bath -> Storytime with Chris -> Sleep. All the changes and upheaval meant it was pure madness for 7 soul-destroying days, the suddenly he pulled out of it and all got better! Now, he sleeps from 8PM -> 3 or 4AM, with a dreamfeed in the middle. Then sleeps again til 7 or 8AM.

Breastfeeding – still this same old, same old. Still going with the 100% exclusively breastfed shebang. It’s now easy, painless, and efficient.. which is quite hilarious considering the hell I went through in my first 6 weeks. It all seems so far away now I’ve forgotten all the tears and horror of it all! A few weeks ago, when Hunter was going through the Week of Madness (see above), I also fell sick. Really sick. Within a few hours, I was producing almost ZERO breastmilk, much to my shock. Fortunately, since I had so much overproduction, Hunter was still fine for about 2 days.. then after that, I got better and everything kicked back into production again. Except THIS time, my milk production was cut by about HALF. Dunno why?? My body just decided to produce milk at half-volume. It was awesome. Engorgement went away, milk jets shooting across the room went away, and Hunter’s constant choking went away. I felt like a normal person! Granted, I still have oversupply so he can only feed on one side at a time, but it’s still waaaay better than before.

Mr Milk Face, this is when he accidentally pops off me and gets sprayed, oops!

Loves to go out – Since he was very very young, I brought Hunter out almost daily. I didn’t want my whole life to change when I had a baby, and I didn’t want to have to give up my daily life and friends… so I just brought him out with me and went about my day as per usual – going out with friends, going shopping, eating, etc! At the start, I did it for me, because I didn’t want to be stuck at home bored out of my mind. But then I realised that it worked super well for Hunter too, because now he is very happy with different situations, people and surroundings. He’s so used to going out 1-2 times daily that he eagerly looks forward to it now, and gets really bored if we stay home all day.

Voicing his likes and dislikes – Hunter simply adores attention. Give him attention and he’ll squeal and giggle merrily. Ignore him and he’ll fuss until he gets his attention again. Sigh! He’s also much more vocal now. He only feeds 5 minutes (?!?!) on me, which I feel is way too little. So every time, I try to make him eat more, and he’ll push himself backwards and YELL angrily, like I’m trying to torture him!

Self-soothes with hands and Teddy – this was a big milestone for us because it made our lives heaps easier. He uses his Teddy especially at night, which he clutches and kneads at if he wakes up at night. It’s super cute to watch him cuddle Teddy 🙂

Learning to sit up – his back muscles are really starting to develop, so he likes sitting upright. Heaven forbid if you cradle him in the semi-lie down position, he’ll YELL! He wants to either be carried upright, or sitting up.

Sitting in a baby chair, but looking rather nonplussed

Does push-ups from bellybutton up – Now can push himself up with extended arms so his upper torso is up. Very cute to watch and amuses us to no end 😉

Discovered his feet – about 2 weeks ago, Hunter suddenly noticed that OMG HE HAS FEET!!!! He stares at them, plays with his toes, and generally is so interested in them. Feet: an endless source of amusement. Who knew? 😉

Discovered his vocal chords – Hunter’s always been quite the gurgler, but in the past few weeks, he is noisy! He will loudly make all sorts of sounds and seem to struggle to try and ‘talk’ to you, with this earnest little face and repeated sounds to try and communicate what he’s feeling. Wish we could actually understand what he was trying to say!

Mr Merry!



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