Celebrating Six Months

On July 5th we celebrated Chet’s half-year birthday. A half a year has come and gone. Our tiny munchkin is six months old. Every day that goes by I am so glad I forgot how to clean our house over the past few months. Every single mama snuggle and baby laugh was worth it.

Baby Stats:

Weight: 13 lbs 8 ozs (3rd percentile)

Length: 26.25 inches (50th percentile)

Chet has taken a dip in his weight gain, 25th to 3rd percentile, but the doctor isn’t concerned. We aren’t a big family. Cole isn’t even on the growth chart for his weight. And Chet has transitioned to the I’m-way-too-busy-to-sit-still-or-eat phase of his life. His legs never stop kicking. He rolls all over the house. He inchworms his way to whatever toys catches his attention. Once babies become very active, it is normal to see a dip in their weight gain pattern.

While the doctor isn’t concerned, I am his mom and I am allowed to worry just a little bit. I still can’t keep up with his nursing demands (but he is back to nursing about 75% of the time – teething always interferes with his want to nurse but I don’t blame him. Getting teeth can’t be fun). We are down to 4 bags of frozen milk. I’m working hard at keeping the mentality I chose to adopt when he was on his nursing strike: one month at a time. I was hoping I could make it to six months without introducing formula, and we made it. Now I’m hoping we will make it to seven months (although I’m not feeling 100% optimistic about the outcome).

With the dip in milk supply and dip in weight gain, we have ventured into the fun new territory of food.

First food: Sweet Potatoes

Originally I hoped to follow Baby Led Weaning, but I just felt like he was too young at this point to venture down that road. Instead we are using a combination of homemade and store-bought purees. We started feeding him at dinner time, but now we are incorporating a meal with grandma during the day too. Grandma is feeding him oatmeal plus another food of choice when he gets to her house in the mornings. If this goes well, I think we will introduce an afternoon meal too. His dinners at home have been dedicated to veggies and exploring new food options.

Sweet Potatoes – loves

Squash – hit or miss

Carrots – loves

Avocado – not so sure about this one

Bananas – his favorite

Apples – not a fan AT ALL

How is the one food he refuses the one food I craved during my pregnancy? I ate on average two apples a day when I was pregnant with him. Maybe he met his lifetime quota of apples while he was in my belly. He closes his lips so tight when the apples come near his mouth. He shuts his eyes. And he doesn’t budge until the apples are back in the bowl.

Another fun new discovery – cloth diapers! We finally made the switch. (blog post coming soon!)

Chet also becomes more and more vocal by the day. He has always been a talkative baby, but it is truly NON STOP now. He’s got all the vowels sounds mastered. He says a lot of the consonance sounds too. He loves to screech too. He said mama the other day, although it was not intentional and probably won’t happen again until after he learns how to say dada, dog, and Cole. I did come running down the hallway to his bedroom, knocked Christian out-of-the-way, and squeezed him ever so tightly when I heard it.

One word to describe him this month: Handful.

He is a crazy baby. He never stops. He doesn’t stop talking, kicking, wiggling, worming, whining and fidgeting. He is nonstop. When all else fails, I take him outside and he is such a peaceful baby. He is always happy when he is outside. (Christian blames me. He says it’s because I ran through pregnancy. I blame Christian. All of those words describe both daddy and baby.) Grandma claims that he is really laid back at her house. I’m not so sure I believe her.

Each month the photos become more and more challenging. I could barely keep him on his blanket. (and then my laptop deleted all the photos I had edited. sad.)