Birth - 6 Month Milestones

Weight/Height

Born: 6lbs 14oz 20.25 inches
Discharge: 6lbs 6oz
1 Week Appt 6lbs 9oz
2 Week Appt 7lbs 8oz
1 Month Appt 9lbs 13oz 22.0 inches
2 Month Appt 12lbs 11oz 23.5 inches
4 Month Appt 14lbs 11oz 25.5 inches
6 Month Appt 16lbs 5 oz 27.25 inches

Milestones
October 18th Held Head Up
October 19th First Smile October 26th Slept 4 Hours at night
November 16th Found Hand
November 23rd Slept 6 Hours Straight
December 8th Began Grabbing
December 21st First Giggles, Slept 7 Hours Straight
December 27th Rolled Over from Tummy to Back, Hours Straight
February 24th Sits Up Unsupported

Six Months Go By

Our baby will be six months old this week. Half of a year since she entered into this world and six month until her one year birthday. We have the brains of typical parents to a first child. Everything she does is amazing, we think she is absolutely gorgeous, and that everyone else is just as in love with her as we are.

John has realized that a baby can be a lot more fun that he initially thought. He admits to carrying her around the store when we shop so he can watch people get all excited when Angela shoots huge smiles at them and listen to them tell him how cute she is.

I have realized that I need a break here and there so I can decompress and recharge in order to fully appreciate how precious she is instead of trying to keep her happy, remember to change her diaper/feed her, and get her to sleep. 

 I have lost over 40lbs at this point and I suppose I should be happy with that, but ofcourse I'm thinking about the 20lbs yet to go especially on the days where I'm just too tired to exercise.

                                                    

Independent Woman

Angela has had a busy week. She discovered that she can sit up and has managed the coordination to hold a bottle to her mouth and can even get some milk out of it!                                                 Finally, Angela has joined the Boston Salads sales department and showed off her new polo shirt in support of the family business. As we were taking her picture, she also discovered that our arm chair is a bit uneven and when she throws her back/head into the back cushion she can get the chair to rock!

Working on a Happy Sleep Schedule

Up to this point Angela has made a very natural and relatively easy transition into an acceptable sequence of night feedings/sleeping. We've gone from struggling to get her to bed before midnight and being up for periods of 30 minutes up to 2 hours during the middle of the night as a newborn, to a 10:30pm-8:30am routine and then 8:30/9:00pm-7:30am. However the past two days (seems like since she's really grasped the sense that she can sit up on her own now and that this is so much more fun than lying back) she woke up at 3am once and didn't go back to sleep till 5am and then this morning woke up at 6am with no desire to go back to bed.

I do not own any baby books, or specifically any baby-sleep books, but it seems that the idea is - sleep promotes more sleep and to not delay putting down a baby at the earliest signs of sleepiness.

So tonight I noticed Angela was getting a little cranky before 7 and decided to start winding her down & get her ready for bed (changed her diaper, put her nightgown on, brought her downstairs - read some books, nursed her & then brought her into the bathroom because she likes the sound of the shower and held her with her head on my shoulder and sang "The Ants Go Marching"). By 7:30 I had her in bed and was doing my exercises downstairs. She's fussed a few times but now at 9:45 is still asleep. We'll see how things pan out tomorrow morning.

Naps are another issue all together - many days I know that she's tired and needs a nap but I have a much harder time getting her to lie down and when she finally does many times the nap only lasts 20-40 minutes and she's up and raring to go! I'm thinking of applying a nap routine just like her bedtime routine to see how things go.

The Diaper Debate

After dealing with a lot of "up the back" diaper blowouts in the past weeks I decided not only to go up to the next size in diapers but also to switch brands. At first I was in love with Pampers Swaddlers- they were so nice and soft and anything else just seemed too rough & papery. However, the Pampers were lacking elasticity in the back and the poop just kept shooting out.

So, we tried Costco size 3 diapers this past weekend, not that much bigger than size 2, but definitely more snug and still pretty soft - and best of all - no diaper blowout as of yet! I read reviews that Luvs, which are also rather inexpensive are also quite good and that the other diaper brands - Pampers/Huggies spend more money on marketing which is why they charge more. I'm thinking of giving them a try. I should market a diaper sampler pack so that people can find out what works best for them without having to commit to a whole package of diapers and risk not using them.

In other news, Angela is on the verge of sitting up on her own. Sometimes she's pretty good but will sway side to side and fall over, but her core muscles are definitely getting stronger these days and she's even getting better at pulling herself up into a seated position when she's reclined.

Hello size 6-9 month clothes

We are moving up in the world of baby clothes this week. I am going to miss some of the 3-6 month outfits and will see if we can make them last another week or two, but am excited to delve into our new batch of clothes.

We purchased a video baby monitor and a stroller this weekend. I am glad that I waited till after Angela was born to do a lot of my baby shopping so that I could gain a sense of what I needed/wanted.

Right now Angela is a very social baby. If we go out into the public and a stranger comes up to her and smiles/talks to her, she eats it up like a fat guy at an all-you-can-eat buffet. People are shocked at how friendly she is... but we'll see how that goes once she understands the concept of a stranger. She is also becoming a lot more comfortable in a sitting position and at times can hold herself up for a few seconds here and there.

Finally She Decides To Roll Over!

Over a month ago Angela rolled over in her crib, just that one time and it seemed she had no idea or desire to roll over onto her back when we'd do tummy time. Despite a week plus of sleeping 5-7 hours the past week she'd been only doing 2 hours at a time, which was a bit tiring and frustrating because I couldn't quite understand why she had reverted back to such an intense night feeding schedule... who knows maybe she was gearing up to complete the task of rolling over! This afternoon we went from a struggle to roll over to all of a sudden rolling over almost instantaneously when I'd put her down! Congrat's Angela!