The First Eight Months with Baby

If you remember my last post The First Two Months with Baby you'll see how drastically a baby changes in such a short period of time! I wanted to write another post at 6 months, but alas, being a mom, time escaped from me. Here is a summary of the past eight months with the little light of our lives. I'll also post again at the bottom the baby things we can't live without at this point.

Little AJ has grown a lot since two months. Her little spunky sweet personalty is budding and she is much more mobile, which means she sleeps less. She has gone from sleeping between every feeding to now taking 2-3 naps per day. She went from needing to fall asleep with us in our bed before transferring her to her crib to now only needing to be rocked a little bit before sleep. We switched her from the pack n' play to the crib at around 6 months and she started sleeping through the night again! She typically will sleep for 12-13 hours from 630pm until 730am. Our nightly routine includes giving her dinner around 530, "bathiest time" where I'll sing "It's the battiest time of day, it's the bathiest time of night, it's the bathiest time, the bathiest time the bathiest time of night!" song to her and she knows whats coming so she gets a huge smile. Then pajamas, sometimes lavender essential oil on her feet, Daddy or I make a full 8oz bottle and warm it up and turn the white noise on and read a short book or two, usually Goodnight Moon or Goodnight Ocean. She'll usually drink the whole bottle and she'll turn herself around when she's done and want the pacifier and to lay on my chest on the rocking chair. I'll rock with her for a few minutes until she's a bit drowsy and bring her over to the crib to go to sleep.

We still nap together during the day sometimes

 She is a determined little bug who loves exploring everything and once she learns something new she keeps on practicing. Right now she loves to pull to standing, sometimes even letting go with one hand to crouch down to pick something up. She crawls and crawls fast. Ever so curious, everything goes into her mouth. She did snack on a leaf during this little fall photoshoot above (and promptly spit/threw it back up - they move fast!). 

She gets a huge smile on her face when she sees food it coming. She loves her formula too but she loves the variety of flavors she can try with purees. Although I wanted to breastfeed until Addie was a year old, around 7 months we finally started supplementing. She would only want to feed at night before bed and when she woke up, and then eventually she didn't want that anymore and by that point my milk was basically dried. It felt uneventful for me not reaching that one year goal, but my daughters wants and needs obviously come before my own and she just preferred the bottle.

I pureed some Maine blueberries and she thought they were alright!

She LOVES mango, and sweet potato, butternut squash, carrot, and pumpkin - so pretty much all things orange. She also loves yogurt! I was curious as to whether she might like a briney flavor so I had her quickly get a little taste of a bread and butter pickle chip the other day and we confirmed that she has my taste buds (Mike does NOT like any pickle). Makes sense, I ate enough during pregnancy. Let's hope she continues to have an adventurous palate! She now eats 3 times per day at breakfast, lunch or snack, and at dinner time in addition to her 3-4 8oz bottles per day. We try to make meal time at the same times we would eat so we can all be at the dinner table together.

There are some things we don't use anymore and some things we still can't live without. Here is the breakdown of some of those things:

Pack n' Play: We still use this a lot, just in a different way. We brought our pack n' play down to the living room to set her in when we need to do other things around the house really quick. We also take it with us when she is staying over Nana's house! I don't know what we would do without it!

Carrier: I use the cloth wrap less and the baby carrier more now that she's a bit heavier. When I go shopping or visiting a friend or when we're just mingling with people at our own house its easy to put her in to hang out, especially if its for longer periods of time where she can just fall asleep.

Baby booster seat high chair: This booster seat has been perfect for meal time and space saving purposes. The table is stored right below and its super easy to clean!

Diaper genie: Once Addie started eating solids she got reallll stinky. This definitely helps keep smells at bay!

Baby monitor: We use it every night and during naps.

Bottle warmer: Something I did't expect to use because we would just use a bowl and hot water before, but now that the doc recommends using filtered tap water for the fluoride and it's usually cold from the fridge this has been huge. We could still use a bowl and hot water but this only takes 3 minutes as opposed to 10.

Baby toys: We have things for her like a busy box, and baby laptops that say peek a boo or talking bears, but she'd rather play with crinkly empty wipes bags or the wooden toys instead like taking blocks out of a wooden box. She's often too busy just practicing her standing to sit and play with her toys. One thing she does love is a book with buttons that make noises. But her favorite toys are mommy and daddy! (and Grandma and Nana)

Here are her monthly photo progressions below!

I heard from a lot of people that the first 6 months are hard, but then it starts to get really fun. And it really is. There is something special about the newborn stage and I miss just having her sleep and cuddle with me all the time. But her new-found independence and rediscovering the world through her eyes, there is really nothing else like it.