Six months! Half of a year! 26 weeks! 182.5 days! Wow.... This month has been full of excitement and full of change.
To start, we have been working on getting her to sleep more at night. Before this month, she had good nights and bad nights, ranging from sleeping about 6 hours to waking up to feed every 2 hours. And most recenty, it was waking every 2 hours! But she was only eating for a few short minutes and then drifting back into sleep... so she didn't actually need food, just comfort. So, on the eve of her 5 month "birthday", she moved into her room to sleep in her crib. Up until then, she had been sleeping either in her bassinette in our room, or in bed with us. The first night of her in her own room I cried myself to sleep :) " My baby is so far away" "My baby is growing up" "What if she wakes up and realizes we aren't there and is scared/sad/lonely/miserable?" Yes, David was a saint for dealing with my still raging emotions. And wouldn't you know, she slept extremely well. She still woke up several times, but was able to either calm herself back to sleep, or us patting her was able to make her quickly drift back into slumber. She did not need to eat at all during the night! Amazing! Since then, we've had several nights where she doesn't wake up at all until about 7am!! And then there are nights where she wakes up and is inconsolable for an hour. Seriously, right when we finally get her back to sleep, she starts screaming again. We generally take turns in dealing with her these nights, because it is so frustrating to be woken out of a deep slumber, and you can only deal with the screaming so much (David is on night duty otherwise!)!! But in general, she is sleeping at least as good, if not better, than she was in our room. However, it is a pain to get up and feed her in a different room. It was much more convenient to roll over, grab her, latch her on, fall back asleep, and when she was done, move her back over to her bed only a few feet away. The time she spent with us in our room in her basinnette or in our bed was precious. I miss her being that close, however, I'm also excited to have her in her own room!
She's also changed her sleep position. She is now a stomach sleeper, and sometimes a side/stomach sleeper. And when she is on her belly, she sticks her booty in the air- it is SO super cute to see!
I also want to mention how happy she is when she wakes up! She wakes up in such a good mood. We leave a few toys (and pacifiers, which she no longer will use as a pacifier, but it makes a great toy to blow raspberries at) for her to play with... so I usually wake up to her cooing and shaking her toys! It's a nice way for me to wake up, rather than to a screaming baby! She is also so peaceful in the mornings... just likes to relax and take things in! This is also nice - it allows me to take a shower and eat my breakfast while she takes in the sunlight, or quietly plays with a toy!
This past month she has become more vocal. She has several sounds down: "ah", "ba", "ga" and "ma" (those are the only one's I've distinguished at least!). And she often practices them. When she is really mad/upset, she often says "ma-ma" which is cute, despite the screaming! It makes me excited for when she says it and actually means it and knows what it means! She also continues to enjoy blowing raspberries to anyone who will listen! :) She is also starting to giggle, although it is often times just silent glee... or, it sounds like an old woman smokers laugh! She is still learning to develop those vocal muscles!
Mobile, did I mention how mobile she is? Seriously, she can roll to anywhere she wants to go, get any toy she wants to get, get any paper we've left anywhere in the room (for her as she views it!)! If I set her on her John Deere mat, sometimes she rolls and gets the whole mat on top of her! Which to her, is just a new and different angle to play with the toy! She isn't quite crawling, but she can scootch herself forward and backward although she isn't moving anywhere fast that way. Also, changing her has gotten exponentially harder, as she arches and twists for things!
She is really interested in the cats, and is often grabbing them if they are nearby and trying to figure out how to eat them. I'm always saying "gentle" and showing her how to pet them and not just grab them. Wish me luck :) Or I should say, wish them (the cats) luck!!
Some days she is really good at self-entertaining for awhile. She likes to be in her exersaucer when I'm working in the kitchen. She likes to rock back and forth (not jump really) in her jumperoo. She likes to roll around from toy to toy on the ground. There are of course days where she doesn't want to do any of those things as well!
In general, our days look like this:
On good days, she wakes up to eat around 6 to 7... then we go back to sleep
She wakes up at 9, I shower, she sits in the bathroom in her bouncer and plays with a few toys
We go downstairs and I eat breakfast and she plays with toys
We play with toys together
She feeds
We go up to her room and read a few books or play with her See & Say
She goes down for a nap (between 2-3 hours after waking up): on good days, she falls right asleep, on bad days, it takes much, much longer :) I always wait to see her rub her eyes and yawn for me before I try to set her down... then I know she is tired, and she really does need the sleep, but that doesn't mean she's always happy about it!
She naps anywhere from 15 mins to 2 hours
I eat lunch
Every other day she gets a bath (in the sink tub still)
She feeds
We either go out and run errands, or chill and play at the house
I make an attempt to do household chores, or work on dinner, Kayla permitting
She takes another 15 min - 2 hour nap
David comes home
We eat dinner, she feeds
We do our nightly activies
We play with her
She feeds for the last time up in her room in the rocking chair, and I sing to her and pray with her, and she goes to sleep, usually this starts between 9:30-10ish...depending on the day
Ideally, we don't see her awake until about 7 :)
Rinse and repeat
For those of you counting (or maybe it's just me!), that's 5 feedings a day. If she wakes up at 4am or so to feed, then we have 6 for the day. The times of feedings all depend on when she wakes up to feed first, but the order is more or less the same. It's a very flexible schedule/routine, which is nice since we live a busy life! It is really nice that she is able to go 3+ hours between feedings now. I no longer feel trapped to run quickly to the grocery store the second she is done eating so we can make it back before she needs to feed again! It is nice!
On her 6 month birthday, she had her first taste of real food. I made sweet potato puree, with breastmilk to boot! It wasn't too bad, although I decided cooking potatoes in the oven is rediculous. Seriously, I follow recipes very well, and potatoes always take like twice as long to cook as they say they will. So that was annoying. Kayla burst into tears when I turned the food processor on. She was in my arms, watching me do everything, and when I turned it on, the noise must have scared her because she just burst into tears. It was so sad! So then I had to make an angry face and growling noises and pretend it was a game to get the job done! She has only one other time been scared of loud noises like that, and it was the vaccum cleaner. Now, I don't vaccum all the time, but she's never been afraid of it before, so something is changing.
We had her doctor's appointment today, so we have an update on her stats. She is 27.5 inches long, which keeps her in the 95% percentile. Her weight is 16 lbs 4 oz, which puts her just above the 50% there (which is a drop from about the 75% percentile). The doctor isn't concerned about this... he said that about this time is when genetics start to kick in, meaning if she is genetically inclined to be thinner, it could start now. So, consindering I was in the high end on height and low end in weight, it seems she is taking after her momma! :) Her head circumference is 17.25 in, which keeps her in the 75%. Overall she is quite healthy. She had to get 4 (FOUR!) shots today. It was about as tramatic for me as for her. This is by far the worst time she's had with getting them. She looked shocked at first, and then terror set into her eyes, and she looked at me with pleading eyes. Of course tears we welling up in my eyes, and when I spoke to comfort her, you could hear the emotion in my voice. SOOOOO sad.... she whimpered the entire ride home, and continued for at least 30 minutes after we got home (in her sleep). So pathetic. Poor kid.
Oh - her 8th tooth broke through the surface today, so she has 4 on top and 4 on bottom!
This is her around 3 weeks, and then her at 6 months - quite a change! She's much more alert, much bigger (longer, thicker), has lighter hair and more of it, and a lighter complexion (her tan must have faded, LOL!)!
1. Her eyes are still a pretty blue color - more bright blue now
2. Her left tear duct is still plugged.
3. OK, I don't know if she cries tears or not! With the duct being blocked, it's hard to tell because she is often tearing out of that eye. But once or twice while she is crying I've seen tears come out of the other eye, so I think those are real?!?
4. She is majorly cutting down on her spitting up... now it seems she spits up more like an hour after she has eaten, so it's a suprise instead of the expected spitting right after feeding!
