5 months have come and gone!

Jack is 5 months old today! I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. It is definitely bittersweet. I have enjoyed every minute I've been blessed to have with him. He has been such a blessing and a joy.

He is a very sweet boy, cuddly and he laughs SO MUCH! His favorite thing to laugh at is Riley. He just laughs and smiles and wants to talk to her all the time. I hope we catch him laughing at her on video, we haven't yet, but I'm sure we will soon!

Jack takes after Matt and I already. We like routine. No, we love routine, and Jack is no different. Is that normal for a baby? He has put himself on a very predictable schedule. He wakes up between 7-9, then naps every two hours for about 30+ minutes. Then we give him a bath between 7-7:30, and he is out by 8. then he usually sleep until 2-3 and then wakes up every 3 hours, and when he "wakes up" he doesn't even open his eyes, he is just waking up to eat. I'm hoping this lasts, I know it will probably change, but I would be one happy mama if he stayed on his self made schedule :)




look at how big (and bald) he is now!!!! I can't believe how much he looks like a little boy already and less like a baby! Happy 5 month birthday Jack, WE LOVE YOU!

I'm nervous about this post, but I thought is was time to share my news with the world. Please, don't judge me. It sounds disgusting, but I promise it's not!

In the past two weeks I have only washed my hair once. Okay, that's not entirely true. I've used shampoo only once.

A few months ago, actually right after having Jack, I came across a a blog called Sorta Crunchy. <--(this link will take you to the post I'm talking about.)


On her blog, I came found a post about no poo. What is no poo? No poo (no shampoo) is a collective term for methods of washing hair with no commercial shampoo.

The method I have been using is baking soda and apple cider vinegar. First, you make a paste out of the baking soda and water. Massage your head with the paste, let it sit a few minutes, then rinse it out. After rinsing out the paste, mix the acv with water I do a 1:3 ratio. I then dip my ends into the acv and then pour the rest over my scalp.

I know, it sounds gross and smelly, but I promise, after rinsing out the acv you can't smell it at all.

As a wife and mother, it is important to me to save my family money, as well as make our home a happy and healthy place. Commercial shampoo can be expensive, and it is full of harmful chemicals. I personally, have a very dry scalp and store bought shampoo just makes this problem worse (even "dandruff" shampoo doesn't help.)

The reason I first wanted to try a 'poo free lifestyle was because scented shampoo was making me sick! Since getting pregnant and having Jack scented lotions/shampoos/perfumes/and soaps (including laundry soap) make me really nauseous for some reason.

I'm really happy with this method thus far. I use it as often as needed, about 2-3x a week, and my hair feels nice and healthy. I didn't think it would work because my hair normally gets really oily but I haven't had any problems at all :)

The next "crunchy" venture I'm going to take is washing my face with oil! You can ready more about no 'poo ,and the oil cleansing method(washing face with oil) at SortaCrunchy!

co-sleeping.

People have a lot of bad things to say about co-sleeping. That its dangerous (you could roll over onto baby and can increase chances of sids), and can be habit forming (baby wont want to sleep in own bed.) Before having Jack I felt the same way, I didn't care if other people slept with their babies, but I wasn't going to because I was too afraid of squishing him. The first few days home were difficult. Jack started out sleeping in our room, but in his bassinet. Technically that is co-sleeping- being in arms reach, but I found that didn't really work for us. In my sleep I would try putting a pacifier in his mouth (not intentionally I was just dead tired). After about two nights I decided to just bring him into our bed. I was nervous, but I wanted sleep and I wanted my baby to feel safe. Well, every night I ended up just bringing Jack to bed with me. Since Matt was gone the company was nice and I slept every single night! Jack never truly woke up (he never woke me up crying, he would just be moving around because he was hungry I would wake up enough to feed him and fall right back asleep. Around the time Jack was 2-2.5 months old I started putting him in his crib for the first part of the night and then bring him to my bed around 3am.

Now Jack is 4 months old and guess what? He sleeps in his own crib! I still have been bringing him to our bed after his early morning feeding, but he has started whining and whimpering in his sleep if he is too close to me, and forget cuddling! Sleep has been hard for Matt and I because of his whining and whimpering. Well, a couple mornings ago, after Matt left for work, I realized, after scooting Jack over so he had his own space, that he just wanted to sleep alone!

So, last night was my first night of my experiment, I just fed Jack and put him back in his crib. To my surprise there was no whining in his sleep and he only woke up to feed twice (he is going through a growth spurt right now). also, a side note, I have done this before, but we preferred having him in our bed. We usually miss him after we put him to bed. In fact, I just put Jack to bed about two hours ago and Matt just asked me to go wake him up... (he asks me this every night, I always say no!)

All of this to say, for us, co-sleeping has been great for us. Rather than forming habits of needing to be with us, it has shown Jack that he can trust us and that his needs will be met, he feels safe being on his own because he knows we will be there to care for him when he needs it.

co-sleeping can be dangerous, but as long as you aren't drinking/on drugs or narcoleptic, it is a great way to bond with your baby!