Amy's Mind Scribble

This is pretty much a running log of Lila’s 5th month. I started writing this about 1/3 through the month and meant to post more regularly. Instead, I ended up just adding to it as the month went on.

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Lila’s doing so well with her cereal. We started with 1 tbsp and 4 tbsp of milk so that it was really runny. The next week, we went up to 1 1/2 tbsp, same amount of milk. We skipped several days while in Atlanta, but this week since we’ve been back, we went up to 2 tbsp and thickened it up a bit. She can’t get enough! She’s not so frantic about it, but we can’t shovel it in fast enough. She still loves her bottles though. Hard to believe she can start having baby food soon. I’m thinking of making it myself, at least I’m going to give it a try.

Pumping is going ok. I took back the hospital pump rental at the beginning of March and bought a medela one at BabiesRUs. Hard to believe that I’ve been doing this for almost 6 months. For the last week, my supply seems to have dropped a bit, but I’m going to start getting up at night to pump again to see if it picks back up. After making it this far, I’d love to be able to make it to a year. I counted and organized the milk in the deep freezer because I have to start rotating out the stuff I pumped in October and I have a month’s worth in there. So technically I could pump to 11 months and she’d still have enough for a year. It would be nice to have more than that, but I don’t have much to freeze these days. *Edited to add on 3/23 that it’s going so much better again! I don’t what was up with that dip, but I’m so happy that it’s better. I’m so proud of myself for making it through this for 6 months. I’m not positive I’ll make it another 6 months, but I’m going to try.

Developmentally, she’s doing great. It’s so fun watching her learn new things. She is so good at holding things now and is constantly grabbing and playing with her toys. Gone are the days of batting at the toys.. now she grabs and pulls them. She also loves to bang on my keyboard. Most days when I’m working and she’s awake, she’s sitting in my lap. I keep toys nearby and put them on my keyboard or hand them to her to play with. It’ll be nice when she can sit up by herself because then I can sit her on the floor and just sit next to her rather than holder her in my lap. Anyway, if she throws a toy to the floor, she’ll start grabbing my keys and “typing” instead. I’ve lost several documents to her clicking random things with the touchpad mouse as well. Sometimes I sit her in the bumbo with the tray next to put and put her baby laptop on her tray, but she doesn’t find that nearly as amusing as mommy’s keyboard.

Her sleep got a little out of whack on the Atlanta trip, but she’s getting back on track now. She pretty much goes to bed between 9-10 and gets up at 7-8 every day. She’ll sometimes wake up in the night if she gets out of her swaddle, but otherwise she doesn’t. We probably should start weaning her from the swaddle, but I’m so scared that it’s going to ruin her sleep. I love that she sleeps throug the night now, though her naps are still kind of wacky. I think she’ll figure it out and get herself on a schedule though — that’s exactly what happened with sleeping at night! **Update – as of 3/22, Lila is out of her swaddle! I was so nervous to try it, but she’s been breaking out of her swaddle for the last few nights and waking herself up screaming. So, I bit the bullet and last night I wrapped the swaddle part of her sleep sack around her tummy and left her arms out.. she slept through the night unswaddled!!! WOW.

The last few nights (3/23 – 3/26) have sucked big time with her sleeping. I’m not sure if it was the chaos of helping Mike & Tracy move or the fact that she’s unswaddled, but she woke up over and over and over again at night. Finally, last night, 3/26 was better, so hopefully it stays that way!!

I start writing this yesterday (3/18) and had written “Still no rolling over.. “, but guess what?!?! She rolled!!! (note to self – rolled over for the 1st time on 3/19/11) She’s been so close to rolling from back to tummy, then last night we had her on her floor and out of nowhere she rolled from tummy to back. She was getting mad that she was on her tummy and crying and fussing. She put her hand down and it was like she just pushed off with it!

I was going through my videos to find the rolling over one so that I could upload it and I played this one below. Lila was watching and started bouncing in my lap and squealing at herself on the screen. LOL

I weighed her today and she was up to 12 lbs 10 oz (3/18) I’m sure she’ll hit 13 by her 6 month appt on April 4 (2 weeks away). Her 0-3 stuff is pretty much being put away at this point. In fact, most of it went into a storage bin yesterday. I kept a few sleepers out that still fit, but their days are numbered as well. On one hand, I’m so excited for her to wear all of her cute 3-6 month spring stuff, but I want to cry that I’m putting away these clothes. I waited so, so long to be able to buy those little baby clothes and she’s out of them already. sniff, sniff. I was rocking her to sleep tonight and got so teary eyed. I want time to just slow down. I love all of the new things she’s doing and she just gets more fun every day, but I’m sad that I just can’t even remember how small she really was.

She’s doing so well with sitting up. At Little Gym, she actually sat up for 30 seconds or so by herself without falling. She’s also able to stand and hold onto the bit mat at Little Gym for a bit without falling!

We moved Lila to her crib!
The start of Lila’s 6 month has been full of milestones!!

First, we moved Lila to her crib! I sooo miss having her sleeping next to me in the bassinet, but it was time. Weight wise, she could have stayed in it for another 2 months probably, but she’s been moving herself all over the place and pressing her face against the side of the bassinet. It was worrying us that she’s somehow suffocate herself. As much as I wanted her to stay in the bassinet, we moved her to the crib for her safety. I thought it might be a difficult switch, but she didn’t blink an eye. For about a week before we moved her (March 3), she had been sleeping 7-8 hour stretches (going to bed around 11, getting up around 7), then having a bottle and going back down for another 2-3 hours. Her first night in the crib I was expecting her to wake up pretty often, but she’s such a good girl that she slept her 8 hour stretch like normal!

Yesterday (March 6) Lila got her first taste of rice cereal!! I hadn’t planned on giving her anything before 6 months and was considering skipping cereal in general, but our pediatrician wanted us to start her on it, so we did. She really seemed to like it. She kept trying to pull the spoon to her mouth to get it faster. Here’s a video… (fyi, excuse the chatter in the video. I was talking to Ben the whole time and then after watching the video, I realized that he never once responded!!)

Lila slept for 11 hours last night straight! I could not believe it. She was such a bear last night because she didn’t get enough sleep th enight before and didn’t get great naps. Around 9pm, her crankiness was wearing on me, so I took her to bed. It took me 1 1/2 hours of going in and out and soothing her, but she finally went down and then woke up this morning happy and smiley. I don’t know if it was the cereal or just a fluke, but she definitely needed the sleep!

We gave her cereal again tonight and let Ben’s mom watch on skype. It didn’t go quite so well. She was just too frantic for food and wanted her bottle. In hindsite, I shouldn’t have had the bottle in her sight because I think that might have made things worse. She ended up wearing half of the cereal and was a happy girl when she finally got her bottle. We’ll keep at it though.

We’re headed to Atlanta this week for 3 days for the Google seminar. I’m already thinking how nice it will be to have this trip behind us and be back home! Before we go though, I have a full schedule. Tomorrow is Little Gym and Tuesday we’re going to the Children’s museum. Plus, I have a ton of work to get done before we go too. It would help to pack sometime as well.

She has gotten so much more interactive this month! She laughs and smiles all the time

- She laughs, smiles, squeals, and chatters all the time now. She’s so vocal .. I have a feeling she’ll be a talker like me.
- She’s getting so much better at grabbing and holding onto things!
- She recognizes her bottles and grabs for them.
- She plays with the animals on her paci’s – she’s able to get them in easier, but also pulls them out all the time and gets frustrated when she can’t get it back in.
- Sits up so well in her bumbo now AND the highchair!
- Plays the piano on her ‘Around We Go’ activity center.
- She’s not rolling over yet, but rolls onto her side when she’s on her back.
- Scoots all over the place at night! It blows my mind how a swaddled baby that can’t roll over can move herself all over the place at night.

We’ve been going to Little Gym each Monday and are having a good time with it. I’m meeting other moms and Lila’s watching the other babies. We play a lot with a little boy named Kyle there because he’s only a week older than her and the other babies are a couples months older. I’ve already signed her up for the summer session as well.

We’ve also been going to story time at B&N each week with some moms from the Summerville moms group. Lila doesn’t understand the stories, but she seems to like observing the older kids. We’re going to the Charleston Children’s museum with some other mom’s from the group soon. Most of the activities are for kids that ar ea little older, but the moms it’s just infants going to the museum. I was a little leery at going, but one of the moms said there’s stuff there geared towards infants too, so we’re going to check it out.

Lila is still mostly in her 0-3 clothes, but some are starting to get snug. She’s also still in her size 1 diapers, but we’re going to move her up to size 2 as soon as this package is finished. I washed all of her 3-6 clothes the other day and while I’m excited for her to wear them, it makes me so sad to know that I’ll have to pack up the 0-3 in a couple weeks. My little peanut is getting so big!

At her 5 month weight checkup, she was 12 lbs even. I can’t believe she’s more than 3x what she was when she was born. I just can’t even imagine her that small and it was not that long ago. It’s so hard to believe that’s almost half a year old. I feel like I waited and dreamed about her for so long and it’s just going by way to fast. Speaking of which, I’ve spent a lot of time reminicising this month about this time last year, which was easily one of the amazing months of my life.