Another week! This week wasn’t as hard for me emotionally as last week, nor was Lydia as happy. But continues to get stronger and learn more things. It’s hard to believe that, as of next week, we’ll have been doing this whole parenting thing for half a year!
Lydia was born a week late, so the crankiness that’s come on recently is just about on time for Wonder Week 26. Not sure how much I really trust that book, since the wonder weeks are so frequent, and they can last up to a month. But I suppose it’s nice to be able to put a label on what’s going on with her.
I also wonder about teething pains, as usual, despite nothing being close to the point of being able to feel any bumps. At one point, she went to town on her frozen washcloths, which is maybe some evidence.
Sleep
The newest thing here is that Lydia has started rolling onto her tummy during sleep. She did it a few times this past week, but then was doing it a whole bunch last night. Up until now, she’s pretty much always slept on her back or side. I do remember a little tummy sleeping, especially on my or Will’s chest, when she was a tiny newborn, but for months now it’s been the case that any accidental rolling to her tummy in the middle of the night would lead to her trying to get up and move.
And that’s still kind of the case, except now she’s rolling on her own. She gained the ability to roll in her sleep like this a bit before she started doing it while she was awake, but I’ll say more on that later. Now she can do it. If she’s in deep sleep, it’s fine. If anything, it seems as though she’s sleeping more deeply. And she doesn’t kick me when she’s on her tummy, which I love! But then, if she wakes up at all, she’ll start crawling around and sitting up.
It kept happening last night, though I think most of it was before 1:30 or so. (It’s always really hard for me to know what’s actually going on at night, since I haven’t set up a tracking system, but I think I actually got a pretty long stretch later in the night.) It usually worked to bring her back over to me and nurse her. I don’t think she was hungry, but that’s pretty good at putting her to sleep anyway, which can be convenient at times.
This morning was pretty adorable. I woke up around 8:20, and she was still asleep, lying on her stomach next to me. I even got up, went to the bathroom and came back without disturbing her, which doesn’t usually happen. By around 8:30 she started stirring. First she moved a bit on her tummy and collapsed again. Then, a couple of minutes later, she seemed to realize what position she was in and just started sitting up. It’s as thought she has a whole subprogram that gets activated when she’s on her tummy where she absolutely must move around. Her eyes were all droopy, her muscles were all floppy, and she looked so tired! But she was sitting up.
Very different from how she would wake up from lying on her back, which was much calmer and more gradual.
Lydia’s been going to bed around nine or so, waking up around 7:30 or 8 (sometimes later, like this morning), and napping about three times. Usually at least one nap is long, and at least one is only about 45min. She can stay awake for about three hours at a time, I think.
Eating
I think my supply was lower than usual in the early part of this past week because I had my period. Hard to really know, since I don’t pump much and I don’t track anything, but it seemed as though she was nursing constantly without seeming very satisfied. She was switching sides a bunch, possibly because the flow was too slow for her taste. But even if my supply was temporarily lower, I don’t think it really matters.
As of this past week, Lydia has actually started showing more interest in food. Will said she watched him eat sauerkraut very intently for about five or ten minutes. It’s unlike her to stare at one thing for so long, so it does seem like it might be a sign of something. She’s seemed more interested in my food too, and I guess I have more of a gut feeling that it’s time. Could be invented, since we’re nearing six months anyway.
I’ve been continuing to put her in her chair when I eat, and she is usually content to interact with me and play with her utensils and cup. She likes to chew on the fork and spoon from all angles, but recently she’s been spending more of her time actually using them the way an adult would to eat food. Not the cup though. She likes to throw it around and suck on the rim, but she’s never used it the normal way. I do sometimes put a little bit of water in it, and she does enjoy pouring it on the table and feeling it with her hands.
I’ve reread the Baby Led Weaning book, and am getting excited for her sixth month birthday. I realize there’s a very good chance she won’t consume anything much for a long time, but it’ll be a new type of playtime, and I think she’ll be more content to sit while I eat if she has something more to do.
Thinking about what we usually eat, I realize most of our food is in pieces that are too small for her, so I think I’m going to preparing some separate stick-shaped stuff at first. I’ll give her pieces of what I’m eating too, but they won’t usually be the right shape.
I’m not too worried about starch, even though babies maybe don’t make as much pancreatic amylase as adults. For one thing, I think she’ll probably chew things long enough that salivary amylase may be enough. But more than that, I guess I just trust her body. I’m sure I’ll post more about exactly what happens here, but since we’re pretty strict about what we eat, I’m feeling good about letting her try almost all of it.
I got her this bib, mostly because the Bumkin ones I looked at supposedly had lead in them.
Elimination Communication
This was definitely our best EC week yet. We had a long streak (three days and two nights, I think) where we didn’t use any diapers, and the rest of the week we just had a few misses. The main contributing factor is that she’s been pretty chill about going whenever I offer lately, so it’s easy enough to just offer all the time.
I have been cutting back a bit though with the times that I offer, since she can actually hold it pretty long a lot of the time. Last night, when we had someone else watching her, I realized it had been quite a while, more than an hour. But she hadn’t peed at all. I can usually tell when she’s about to poop, but I’ve been doing the pee mostly on timing, and her timing is changing over time.
I still potty her a couple of times at night, but she can hold it a while. One time she definitely held it from 8:30 or so to 5:00am. This definitely makes me wonder… I know doctors talk about how you can’t actively do nighttime potty training, and you just have to wait for the kids to produce whatever hormone it is that wakes you up when you have to pee. But I’m skeptical that it really can’t be influenced.
Just for fun, I had Lydia wear some of the tiny diapers I had gotten for her for a while a few days ago. I think she looked adorable in them, and she didn’t pee.
Her diaper covers are also pretty close to being too small. They fit okay now on the biggest setting, but if she gets much bigger, they won’t. I have a couple of one-size ones that’ll work indefinitely. I’m also wondering if I’ll have to get another set of refolds. I know lots of people switch to all-in-ones when their kids get older, which I’ve considered as well.
If I do get bigger ones, I think I’ll do snaps instead of velcro. One of Lydia’s new skills is taking off the velco on her diapers. I’ve seen her do it on the left side and the right side, but so far not at once, so the diaper has stayed on.
Babywearing
I’ve been wearing her more since she’s been fussier. Walking her around isn’t as reliable a soothing technique as it was when she was younger, but it’s still nice. And if I she’s still cranky, I feel better having her close to me than not.
Motor Skills
There are some new developments here! She’s better at crawling, having been at it for about a week now, but she’s still not inclined to crawl very long distances. She’ll call to me from the living room when I’m in the kitchen and doesn’t even seem to be considering crawling over instead.
She can roll over from back to front. After doing it all last night, she figured out doing it awake this morning, and it seems to be pretty solid. The first try took her a minute or so, but then she started doing it right when she found herself on her back. After a while she was complaining to me to move her again, so I figure she got tired since those particular muscles wouldn’t be that strong yet. But she can do it.
She loves pulling up, but she can’t do it on things that are very tall yet. She will definitely pull up onto our mattress. She very clearly wants to climb up on it, but she can’t. She also goes off the mattress head first pretty often. I usually cushion her fall, because she’s inclined to hurt her nose going off. She has backed off once, which looked safer to me, but it’s not her usual strategy.
She can’t pull up on the coffee table on the couch, but she’s very much trying, and she’ll get frustrated about it.
One newish thing that I find really cute is that she’ll kneel and support herself on things. The diaper bag is still a favorite to try to pull up on, along with my hands, leg, or other body parts when they’re positioned correctly.
As I mentioned above, she’s getting good at unvelcroing her diaper and using the utensils we let her play with.
She can definitely independently get each foot in her mouth when she’s lying on her back, and sometimes she’ll use the opposite hand to do so (usually the same hand).
I think I’ve noticed that she tends to use her right hand more than her left. I’d say I’m pretty confident in that actually, though I don’t know when handedness is supposed to show up in babies.
Personality/Other
I took Lydia to Zumba again, and we had a babysitter for a few hours one evening while we were home. Both went pretty well. I think I want to ask the Zumba babysitters to bring her to me a little sooner, since I don’t want her to have to get really upset before I come comfort her, but she went quite a long time before complaining, and I’m told that she’s pretty happy until she’s not anymore, which fits with what I know of her.
We have some more babysitting scheduled, so I figure eventually she’ll be happy enough with it that I’ll actually want to leave the house.
She doing a bit less cooing this week, maybe because she’s doing more shrieking. Still lots of other sounds though. One thing that was really fun was when Will started playing a hand game with her and it seemed like maybe she was imitating and playing along. Not clear cut that she was, but very cute in any case.
Me
I’m doing better on sleep. I ended up taking some pretty long naps this week, and I’ve been good about going to bed early. Those are the two ways to make sure I’m well-rested. One new thing Will and I are doing this year is quarterly reviews with our friends, to see how we’re all doing on our yearly goals, so that happened this week. I’d say my goals were not terribly ambitious, but that I’m mostly doing them. There was one I didn’t make much progress on that I’ll push to next quarter, but I did everything else I planned to.
The way I see it, non-baby things that happen this year are pretty much a bonus. I’ve still been doing a bit of coaching here and there, which I also enjoy.
