Six months plus one week!
I’m tired right now, but tiredness has not characterized my week overall. We were both pretty happy this week.
We’ve been doing solids for another whole week, so that still feels pretty new.
We also went to the zoo today, which was maybe the first kid activity I planned for Lydia. As expected, she didn’t appear to care much about the zoo activities, but it was fun for me, and she did actually enjoy the goat at the petting zoo when I held her down at its level.
I’m so glad I’ve been taking the time to write these summaries every week, because she really is so different! I know I forget a lot as it is, but I would forget much more if I didn’t keep these records.
Sleep
Sleep has been calmer this week. I wouldn’t say there was no crawling around at night. Some nights she crawled around until she was pretty much ready to collapse, and I think she did some middle of the night crawling too. But it’s either less or it’s just become less salient. I’ve mostly been keeping her between me and Will at night, or keeping her pretty far from the edge and holding onto her. She didn’t roll off at night again this week.
I talked to a still-cosleeping mom of an 18-month-old, and she said that at a certain point she felt comfortable moving the mattress back up off the bed and onto a floor, and now she has steps for her daughter to climb up. She and another mom there both said their daughters rolled off maybe a couple of times around 6-8 months and then never did again. That conversation was pretty comforting. I actually hadn’t expected Lydia to be okay with a big bed by 18 months, but looking at her kid and the way she was moving it did make sense to me.
We had some late mornings this week. I absolutely love when that happens. At least twice, she didn’t wake up for the morning until after 9:00. I actually think the solid foods might be a relevant variable. One thing is that she usually poops right when she gets up, so one guess of mine is that the solids have shifted her poop schedule, and that’s helped her sleep in later. I have pretty low confidence in that hypothesis though.
Another relevant factor is that I think Lydia is moving towards two naps. She’s not super regular about any of her sleep, but I’d say most days she has been getting three naps. Sometimes four. But lately it’s happened that she’s gotten two long ones and by the time she got tired again, it was already late enough that she was ready to go to bed for the night. So I’d say bedtime is probably going to get earlier on average, but maybe also more variable for the time being. Because other nights she just ended up having a late third nap and then going to bed later. This week, bedtime ranged from about 8:30-10:30.
Monday nights we sit around a fire outside, so it’s always a nice reset for her where she’ll go to bed pretty early because of the lack of artificial light.
Nursing
Lydia’s nutrition has been on my mind more than usual lately, because of the solids. I do think it still happens that sometimes she’s frustrated with low flow, and then I wonder whether I could most easily address this by making sure she gets enough other foods. I’ve also been vaguely intending to keep track of how long she’s capable of going without wanting to nurse (during the day). But I haven’t really kept track yet.
Solids
Lydia is getting better at feeding herself. She’s definitely ingested at least some food, mostly stuff like butter, avocado, and cheese, as far as I can tell. We ran out of bananas mid-week, or she might have gotten more of those too. Soft, stick-shaped things are the most successful so far. Though she’s also had plenty of fun sucking on things like steak and red pepper.
There’s been plenty of gagging, but nothing that worried me much. At one point, someone who wasn’t us asked permission to give her a little food and put it directly in her mouth instead of her hand, which actually seemed to upset her quite a bit, I think because she gagged more.
Still no pincer grip, but she’s getting better at holding pieces of food on the edge of her hand, so more of it sticks out to get into her mouth. She also seems to have more control about not squishing her food in her fingers. It’s really neat to see her get the hang of everything.
“Bite-sized” pieces are still a challenge.
The food thing is still fun, but I’m also realizing that it’s going to take a bit of thought on my part to fit in a bunch of meals for her every day. My intuition is that the more opportunities the better. That’s in keeping with the baby-led weaning philosophy, and also gives her the most opportunity to get nutrition from food.
After doing some more reading this week, both on the internet and in books, I’ve becoming less convinced that the whole “before one, food is just for fun” attitude is correct. Lydia has delayed cord clamping, so her iron stores should be more than most babies, but I updated in the direction of solid foods being important past six months.
I think this update translating into worry and me pressuring her to eat would be bad, but I will make some changes because of it. One thing is that I’ve decided I’m not opposed to spoon feeding some her along with finger foods if she seems to be okay with it. I want to at least try. But the main thing is that I think I should just prioritize having as many meals with her as possible, even though she may be spending a pretty decent chunk of her waking hours playing with food.
I’ve also decided to prioritize water more, and I’ve been helping her out with the Doidy cup. I think she’s beginning to get the idea but it’s only been a few days.
There are also logistics that I still need to sort out on my end. How do I know when she’s done? How do I clean her up afterwards without upsetting her too much? How do I then clean the table and floor? Should I get mats for the table and floor? (We like our bibs.)
I’m sure we’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, and it will all start to feel more natural.
Some things Lydia has at least tasted: avocado, butter, cheese, steak, ground beef, ground heart, cauliflower, broccoli, mushroom, chick pea, apple, sauerkraut, egg yolk, rice, potato.
Elimination Communication
Her poop is not that different yet. Its texture has been more solid, but it still mostly smells the same.
Sometimes I’ve wondered whether she was either mildly constipated or having other digestive difficulties, since she seem to have discomfort that fit that profile, and my prior is that eating all sorts of new things could cause that.
I’m still experimenting with the night thing, and still not quite sure what the best nighttime EC routine is. I think she’s resisted the potty more this week than last, but that she can also hold her pee longer. It’s more often than not worked to just trust that she doesn’t need to go for quite a while. Sometimes she’s even turned down going right after a nap, and that’s been fine so far.
She’s also pretty inclined at this point to only pee a little in her diaper when she does go. She’ll almost always go more when I potty her right after changing her diaper.
I may have mentioned this, but Lydia is sometimes okay with strange bathrooms and sometimes not, but is pretty consistently okay with going outside.
Babywearing
Wrap use is similar to last week, which is more than it had been before that. It’s weird though. Sometimes she really seems not to want it for nighttime sleep specifically. Other times she doesn’t mind.
Motor Skills
She’s even more of a confident and fluent crawler this week. Pulling up on things requires less effort. She pulled up on our big arm chair, which was new. She’s also doing this thing where she’s barely teetering for about a moment before she topples. I wouldn’t exactly call it balancing, but I can see balancing in her future.
Last week, I forgot to say that Will and I predicted she would be standing independently for a few seconds at time by seven months. I think that still sounds right. I can see how she’ll get from here to there.
A few times it’s also happened that pulled up much more by pushing up her legs than by using her arms, which is new and cool.
She’s also stabler in a kneeling position, and I’ve seen her sit in a kneel with her legs splayed out. My mother and I both like to sit this way, even though some people find it difficult to do, so I’m not surprised to see Lydia doing it. I haven’t checked with Will to see if it’s something he does too.
Personality/Other
This week at Zumba I went in to hang out with Lydia and nurse her twice (not because she was upset), and she didn’t need me at any other time. I figured that from a conditioning perspective, it would be best to go in before she got upset.
She does seem to be more easily consoled by the babysitters there than before though, which is very nice.
I’m not sure exactly how to describe what I mean here, but Lydia’s noises have seemed more intentional this week. I noticed it early in the week while we were eating together. She just seemed as though she were very much trying to communicate something, even though I wasn’t sure what it was at the time.
She’s still not really making consonant vowel pairs, but she’s pretty into raspberries right now, which do sort of sound like “buh”.
It seems like she’s paying attention when I sign to her more, which makes me very motivated to do it more consistently. She’s pretty consistent about smiling and getting happy when I say and sign that we’re “all done” with something she doesn’t like, like a diaper change. So I think there’s some comprehension there.
Me
I’ve been finding it quite difficult to find time to write as much as I would like to, but I got a lot of things done this week that had been on my plate for a while, which felt excellent. Doing nagging tasks as a way to get back mental energy really works for me when I actually do it.
There have been blocks of time where Lydia wanted me to play and I wanted to veg out and read, but it’s also easier to be present with her when she immediately and visibly responds by getting happier. Reading books to her is way more fun now that she’ll react to what I’m saying and laugh along with my changes of inflection.
I know it’s in my interest to sleep a bunch in the next few days, and make sure I get more writing done. On the bright side, my social life has really been quite satisfying, and I know for many people that isn’t the case in the early days of parenthood. So I’m very glad and appreciative on that front when I remember to think of it!
