February 28, 2013
7 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 7 months Smiley!! Since, February is a short month, we have elected to say you are “7 Months” old on the 28th. How on earth did your half birthday come and go so quickly? I swear, just yesterday I was talking to Daddy about how you are half a year old and we were officially closer to your 1st birthday than your actual birthday. I just can’t figure out how time keeps speeding up on us.
I have so much I want to tell you about how you are growing and what you are doing for this past month, but as usual, I will try to keep it to a reasonable length. =) So, in January, you cut your first two teeth. This is relatively early for most babies and I wasn’t sure if you were just going to start cutting them one after another or what. So far, you still only have those two adorable little bottom teeth. I think you might be starting to teethe again based on your amount of drool, but I haven’t seen anything showing up yet. Time will tell.
We had your sixth month appointment this past week. We were really delayed because your prior shots were delayed due to your surgery right around 4 months. You did great at your appointment. You weighed 16 lbs, 10 oz and were 26.25 inches tall. You were right at 50th percentile for everything. “Perfect” baby according to the doctor. You were so funny waiting to see Dr. C. You were so proud of yourself when you essentially shredded the paper on the examining table. It was really funny to watch you ripping at that paper. You even tried to help the doctor with your exam attempting to take the stethoscope and move her hair out of your way. You got sort of upset when she wanted to roll you over to check your back and bottom as well as when she rolled your hips but you recovered pretty quickly. You got your first flu shot (you go back in a month for the booster) and one other shot. You have to go back in a week to get the additional shot you would usually have. It is not recommended to give it at the same time as your flu shot so we are holding off on it for a week. You seemed perfectly fine when we got home and went to be okay. At about 9:30 you must have gotten really uncomfortable because you cried for about an hour and a half before settling again and going to sleep for the rest of the night. You didn’t have any fever but you must have just been uncomfortable in some way. Daddy was the one that finally got you to sleep. You were having none of me trying to comfort you. The next day you woke up all sunshine and giggles like nothing had ever happened. It was much better than the reaction you had after your 4 month shots. The only real difference I saw in you was that you were extremely tired the next day. You actually took 3 fairly long naps. We are going to start weaning you off your Zantac now. I’m hoping you will be completely off in the next month but we will have to see how you do.
I mentioned last month that we were going to night wean as necessary. Turns out, that wasn’t even needed. All of a sudden, you decided to sleep through the night and we never looked back. I was nervous for your 6 month growth spurt and how it could affect your sleep, but you barely made a peep at night right around that time. There are some nights that you will randomly fuss a bit during the night but it usually lasts less than 5 minutes and you are right back down. You still roll all over during the night. It is not unusual for me to get you up in the morning and your head is where your feet started out. Most days I still have to wake you up. Some mornings you get up on your own, but you are usually content to just hang out in your crib until I come and get you. This means that you are now sleeping 12 hours a night. Our routine was changed a bit recently. We officially changed to the bath, nurse, book, prayers, song, bed routine and it works. Some days you are super tired and you “sleep” through your book but you always wake up for prayers. We have an adorable lamb that says your prayers and you just love him. Nana put you to bed one night during this month and because of your routine, you did really well. Last time she put you down, it didn’t go so well. You are so much like me. Very type A, routine oriented. I just hope you don’t get the anxiety over messed up plans like I have. Hopefully you also got some of Daddy’s personality traits in that department and will be more go with the flow than I am.
We ditched your “baby” tub this month and invested in a blow up tub that you can sit up in. It will also be good for traveling until you are bigger. You love it. It was definitely time to get away from the tub that required you to lay down. You love to splash even more now and do it constantly while I’m trying to bathe you. You have also decided that you don’t like water in your eyes all of a sudden. I’m hoping it’s more that soap (despite it being tear free) is in your eyes and that is what is upsetting you. I hate water in my eyes and it gets quite annoying for me when swimming or even when showering so I’m hoping this is just a stage for you. You used to not mind… we shall see.
You also changed your nap schedule up on me. When we decide to add more awake time, you aren’t a baby that needs small increments of time. We just increase awake time by half hours at a time. We went from 2 hours awake to now doing 3 between your first and second nap. That also helped you lengthen your naps and, as of today (though who knows what next week could bring), you are down to two naps a day. You typically get up at 7:30, stay awake for about 2 to 2 ½ hours, sleep for an hour and a half, stay awake for around 3 hours, nap for an hour and a half to 2 hours, and then stay up for around 3 hours before bed. The only real issue we were having with this is that at the end of the day, 3 hours is a lot for you but there is no where to fit in one more nap and anytime we try, you fight it for about 20 minutes, and then only have about 20 minutes to sleep before I wake you up because if I don’t, it pushes back bedtime too much. Hence, the reason we dropped it.
You are still nursing 5 times a day. With your new nap schedule, we have had to alter how you nurse some as well. We used to always eat, play, sleep… that would take us to 4 times a day though and I fear the loss of my supply at this point with that. I think you would likely be okay, and I would too but I am just not ready to chance it yet. So, you nurse when you get up, you nap, you nurse again after getting up then nurse about 30 minutes before nap 2 (just to make sure nursing isn’t associated with sleeping), nurse again when you get up from nap 2 and finally as part of your bedtime routine. I know scheduling nursing isn’t recommended, but you really put yourself on this schedule. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what your hunger cues look like at this point because you never need to give them to me. I think we will wait a few more months before trying to drop a nursing session. You also eat twice a day. In the morning you have 2 tablespoons of oatmeal with about 2 tablespoons of a fruit. Usually it is applesauce, but sometimes pears or peaches. Then at night you have 2 tablespoons of oatmeal and 3 oz of veggies and/or fruit. You still love everything we have given you. We have added a ton of new foods this month. You have now had carrots, peas, pears, peaches, and beets as purees. You also had broccoli for the first time just yesterday. I gave it to you whole (steamed). You weren't quite sure what to make of it but you ate a bit.
We are going to be trying green beans and zucchini soon. I am starting to make your purees a bit thicker as well. We also had you try puffs this month. You are working on that. You gagged a bit at first and now seem to have figured out that it disintegrates if you don’t try to swallow right away. You crunch on them a bit, but are still working on that. I think we will try banana pieces soon too. Most of the reason for the finger foods at this point for us is to let you practice your pincer grip. You sometimes look like you are going to use it but are still at the age that you mostly grab things with your entire hand. Watching you try to get the puff in your mouth is hilarious. Jack is going to love you eating finger foods as soon as he figures it out. You threw a few puffs on the floor already but I picked them up before he could realize it. You are still a little water hog. You just love water. You often have your straw sippy with dinner. I have to take it away from you so you don’t get too much and fill up. You can hold it yourself if I hand it to you, but you haven’t yet picked it up on your own. Mostly because of how small you are in your high chair right now, you often can’t reach it or it would be too awkward to figure out how to hold it so I hand it to you after I take the tray off. You can get the straw in your mouth on your own now though and finally understand that you have to pause periodically to breathe. You can’t drink and breathe at the same time like you can while nursing.
Speaking of throwing things on the ground, you now seem to understand that when you drop something from your high chair, I am going to pick it up. That is quite a game for you sometimes at dinner. You throw down your keys, I pick them up, you throw them again, I pick them up again. This can go on quite a while. You have also become a master sitter this month. You prefer to sit rather than lay on your back and you can do it for 10-20 minutes at a time if you want. Sometimes you seem to get bored of it or a toy is just outside your reach and you fall over trying to get it (which often upsets you). It has made playing so much more fun for you, I think. You are now working on crawling. You will push all the way up on your hands and try so hard to get your knees under you. On a few occasions you have been able to do so. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before you figure it out and will be off. More often than not right now you end up scooting backwards but you are working on it. You are also able to stand up while holding onto something for a short period of time. You can’t pull to a stand yet but if placed there, you can usually stand for just a minute before falling into whatever you are holding on to or back into a sitting position on the floor.
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This month we dealt with quite a bit of separation anxiety it seemed. I knew this stage was coming soon… So help me if I was to step out of your sight. You would lose it. Even when I try to get your attention and show you that you can still see me, you scream. This lasted about two weeks and one day you woke up back to your normal happy self. You have started doing this really funny fake cough/laugh this month. You do it when you are happy but it is definitely fake. You are also perfecting your fake cry. That one is quite frustrating for me. I want to comfort you a lot of the time but I know it’s fake and you know it’s fake. You try though. I guess I can’t blame you for trying. That’s part of the issue with this stage. You are seriously upset I have left sometimes, at time you are just frustrated with not being able to do what you little brain seems to think you should be able to, and sometimes you are just trying to get attention with your fake cry. It can be difficult figuring it out at times. You are also starting to make more sounds. You started out randomly saying “meh” and now sometimes say “ma”. I heard you say “da” once too. I know none of those sounds have meaning behind them yet, but it was nice to hear you begin to use consonant sounds. I can’t wait to hear your cute little voice as it progresses to actual speech.
We have started going to the park periodically. You love the swings. You also like to “slide” with my help. Basically that means I hold you and let you slide down the slide very slowly stopping you before you get to the bottom. Regardless, you think it is hilarious.
Happy birthday Smiley Girl! I can’t believe we are only 5 months from you turning 1 year old...
Love,
Mommy
7 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 7 months Smiley!! Since, February is a short month, we have elected to say you are “7 Months” old on the 28th. How on earth did your half birthday come and go so quickly? I swear, just yesterday I was talking to Daddy about how you are half a year old and we were officially closer to your 1st birthday than your actual birthday. I just can’t figure out how time keeps speeding up on us.
I have so much I want to tell you about how you are growing and what you are doing for this past month, but as usual, I will try to keep it to a reasonable length. =) So, in January, you cut your first two teeth. This is relatively early for most babies and I wasn’t sure if you were just going to start cutting them one after another or what. So far, you still only have those two adorable little bottom teeth. I think you might be starting to teethe again based on your amount of drool, but I haven’t seen anything showing up yet. Time will tell.
We had your sixth month appointment this past week. We were really delayed because your prior shots were delayed due to your surgery right around 4 months. You did great at your appointment. You weighed 16 lbs, 10 oz and were 26.25 inches tall. You were right at 50th percentile for everything. “Perfect” baby according to the doctor. You were so funny waiting to see Dr. C. You were so proud of yourself when you essentially shredded the paper on the examining table. It was really funny to watch you ripping at that paper. You even tried to help the doctor with your exam attempting to take the stethoscope and move her hair out of your way. You got sort of upset when she wanted to roll you over to check your back and bottom as well as when she rolled your hips but you recovered pretty quickly. You got your first flu shot (you go back in a month for the booster) and one other shot. You have to go back in a week to get the additional shot you would usually have. It is not recommended to give it at the same time as your flu shot so we are holding off on it for a week. You seemed perfectly fine when we got home and went to be okay. At about 9:30 you must have gotten really uncomfortable because you cried for about an hour and a half before settling again and going to sleep for the rest of the night. You didn’t have any fever but you must have just been uncomfortable in some way. Daddy was the one that finally got you to sleep. You were having none of me trying to comfort you. The next day you woke up all sunshine and giggles like nothing had ever happened. It was much better than the reaction you had after your 4 month shots. The only real difference I saw in you was that you were extremely tired the next day. You actually took 3 fairly long naps. We are going to start weaning you off your Zantac now. I’m hoping you will be completely off in the next month but we will have to see how you do.
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| So cute waiting for Dr. C to see you |
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| So proud of yourself and how well you ripped up that paper |
I mentioned last month that we were going to night wean as necessary. Turns out, that wasn’t even needed. All of a sudden, you decided to sleep through the night and we never looked back. I was nervous for your 6 month growth spurt and how it could affect your sleep, but you barely made a peep at night right around that time. There are some nights that you will randomly fuss a bit during the night but it usually lasts less than 5 minutes and you are right back down. You still roll all over during the night. It is not unusual for me to get you up in the morning and your head is where your feet started out. Most days I still have to wake you up. Some mornings you get up on your own, but you are usually content to just hang out in your crib until I come and get you. This means that you are now sleeping 12 hours a night. Our routine was changed a bit recently. We officially changed to the bath, nurse, book, prayers, song, bed routine and it works. Some days you are super tired and you “sleep” through your book but you always wake up for prayers. We have an adorable lamb that says your prayers and you just love him. Nana put you to bed one night during this month and because of your routine, you did really well. Last time she put you down, it didn’t go so well. You are so much like me. Very type A, routine oriented. I just hope you don’t get the anxiety over messed up plans like I have. Hopefully you also got some of Daddy’s personality traits in that department and will be more go with the flow than I am.
We ditched your “baby” tub this month and invested in a blow up tub that you can sit up in. It will also be good for traveling until you are bigger. You love it. It was definitely time to get away from the tub that required you to lay down. You love to splash even more now and do it constantly while I’m trying to bathe you. You have also decided that you don’t like water in your eyes all of a sudden. I’m hoping it’s more that soap (despite it being tear free) is in your eyes and that is what is upsetting you. I hate water in my eyes and it gets quite annoying for me when swimming or even when showering so I’m hoping this is just a stage for you. You used to not mind… we shall see.
You also changed your nap schedule up on me. When we decide to add more awake time, you aren’t a baby that needs small increments of time. We just increase awake time by half hours at a time. We went from 2 hours awake to now doing 3 between your first and second nap. That also helped you lengthen your naps and, as of today (though who knows what next week could bring), you are down to two naps a day. You typically get up at 7:30, stay awake for about 2 to 2 ½ hours, sleep for an hour and a half, stay awake for around 3 hours, nap for an hour and a half to 2 hours, and then stay up for around 3 hours before bed. The only real issue we were having with this is that at the end of the day, 3 hours is a lot for you but there is no where to fit in one more nap and anytime we try, you fight it for about 20 minutes, and then only have about 20 minutes to sleep before I wake you up because if I don’t, it pushes back bedtime too much. Hence, the reason we dropped it.
You are still nursing 5 times a day. With your new nap schedule, we have had to alter how you nurse some as well. We used to always eat, play, sleep… that would take us to 4 times a day though and I fear the loss of my supply at this point with that. I think you would likely be okay, and I would too but I am just not ready to chance it yet. So, you nurse when you get up, you nap, you nurse again after getting up then nurse about 30 minutes before nap 2 (just to make sure nursing isn’t associated with sleeping), nurse again when you get up from nap 2 and finally as part of your bedtime routine. I know scheduling nursing isn’t recommended, but you really put yourself on this schedule. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what your hunger cues look like at this point because you never need to give them to me. I think we will wait a few more months before trying to drop a nursing session. You also eat twice a day. In the morning you have 2 tablespoons of oatmeal with about 2 tablespoons of a fruit. Usually it is applesauce, but sometimes pears or peaches. Then at night you have 2 tablespoons of oatmeal and 3 oz of veggies and/or fruit. You still love everything we have given you. We have added a ton of new foods this month. You have now had carrots, peas, pears, peaches, and beets as purees. You also had broccoli for the first time just yesterday. I gave it to you whole (steamed). You weren't quite sure what to make of it but you ate a bit.
We are going to be trying green beans and zucchini soon. I am starting to make your purees a bit thicker as well. We also had you try puffs this month. You are working on that. You gagged a bit at first and now seem to have figured out that it disintegrates if you don’t try to swallow right away. You crunch on them a bit, but are still working on that. I think we will try banana pieces soon too. Most of the reason for the finger foods at this point for us is to let you practice your pincer grip. You sometimes look like you are going to use it but are still at the age that you mostly grab things with your entire hand. Watching you try to get the puff in your mouth is hilarious. Jack is going to love you eating finger foods as soon as he figures it out. You threw a few puffs on the floor already but I picked them up before he could realize it. You are still a little water hog. You just love water. You often have your straw sippy with dinner. I have to take it away from you so you don’t get too much and fill up. You can hold it yourself if I hand it to you, but you haven’t yet picked it up on your own. Mostly because of how small you are in your high chair right now, you often can’t reach it or it would be too awkward to figure out how to hold it so I hand it to you after I take the tray off. You can get the straw in your mouth on your own now though and finally understand that you have to pause periodically to breathe. You can’t drink and breathe at the same time like you can while nursing.
Speaking of throwing things on the ground, you now seem to understand that when you drop something from your high chair, I am going to pick it up. That is quite a game for you sometimes at dinner. You throw down your keys, I pick them up, you throw them again, I pick them up again. This can go on quite a while. You have also become a master sitter this month. You prefer to sit rather than lay on your back and you can do it for 10-20 minutes at a time if you want. Sometimes you seem to get bored of it or a toy is just outside your reach and you fall over trying to get it (which often upsets you). It has made playing so much more fun for you, I think. You are now working on crawling. You will push all the way up on your hands and try so hard to get your knees under you. On a few occasions you have been able to do so. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before you figure it out and will be off. More often than not right now you end up scooting backwards but you are working on it. You are also able to stand up while holding onto something for a short period of time. You can’t pull to a stand yet but if placed there, you can usually stand for just a minute before falling into whatever you are holding on to or back into a sitting position on the floor.
.JPG)
This month we dealt with quite a bit of separation anxiety it seemed. I knew this stage was coming soon… So help me if I was to step out of your sight. You would lose it. Even when I try to get your attention and show you that you can still see me, you scream. This lasted about two weeks and one day you woke up back to your normal happy self. You have started doing this really funny fake cough/laugh this month. You do it when you are happy but it is definitely fake. You are also perfecting your fake cry. That one is quite frustrating for me. I want to comfort you a lot of the time but I know it’s fake and you know it’s fake. You try though. I guess I can’t blame you for trying. That’s part of the issue with this stage. You are seriously upset I have left sometimes, at time you are just frustrated with not being able to do what you little brain seems to think you should be able to, and sometimes you are just trying to get attention with your fake cry. It can be difficult figuring it out at times. You are also starting to make more sounds. You started out randomly saying “meh” and now sometimes say “ma”. I heard you say “da” once too. I know none of those sounds have meaning behind them yet, but it was nice to hear you begin to use consonant sounds. I can’t wait to hear your cute little voice as it progresses to actual speech.
We have started going to the park periodically. You love the swings. You also like to “slide” with my help. Basically that means I hold you and let you slide down the slide very slowly stopping you before you get to the bottom. Regardless, you think it is hilarious.
Happy birthday Smiley Girl! I can’t believe we are only 5 months from you turning 1 year old...
Love,
Mommy
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