A big month of changes

From this:

To this in one months time:

This has been a month full of changes and transitions for all 3 of us. Malachi has come so far and we have found some things that work well and some that don't.

The biggest physical changes for Malachi are that he is getting stronger every single day. When we met him a month ago today, he had no neck strength. His head was very wobbly. He has made huge leaps in strength. He can hold his head up for a very long time when on his tummy and is even starting to lift himself up on his hands. He also was unable to put weight on his legs for very long at all and now he can play in his exersaucer for an hour no problem. He has really started grasping and playing with his toys. He also has learned how to roll over from his tummy to his back, but he can't quite get that heavy bottom half of his body over to roll from his front to his back. He is also starting to be able to sit up, but not for long. I imagine within the next month he will be a pro at sitting up.

This month has been filled with changes to his sleep pattern. We are finally establishing a good schedule with him. We originally started with co-sleeping as recommended by our adoption agency. The problem with that, is that Malachi was used to being woken up in Ethiopia every 2 hours during the night for a bottle. Most of the babies in care are malnourished so I believe they do that to help them put on weight. Malachi was never malnourished so this was really unnecessary for him and was a huge pain those first few weeks home. He was getting to the point where he was waking almost hourly for an ounce or two and then would fall back asleep. I made the tough choice, against my husband's wishes to move him to the crib in his room. This has been a wonderful change and in just one weeks time Malachi now is only waking once a night for a bottle! He is also starting to take 2 good long naps during the day so we are definitely starting to figure a schedule out!

Malachi is also starting to eat some solids. We tried them a few weeks ago and he just didn't show a lot of interest. Now we have tried them out again and he is really taking to it. So far we have only tried cereal in the morning and some sweet potatoes around dinner time.

It has been a huge change for all of us, but overall I think the adjustment is going very well. We are finally getting in to a routine which has been wonderful and Malachi is changing so much on a daily basis. We definitely feel very blessed to finally have him home! We've waited a long time for this little guy :)