Baby John- 6 Months Old!

I can't believe my baby is already 6 months old! This is always such an emotional milestone for me. Tomorrow he will be closer to 1 than a newborn and I just don't see how that can be! :( But this is such a fun age, so that takes the sting away a little bit. :) It hasn't been too big a month developmentally. He still scoots backwards all over the place. He is getting better at sitting on his own. He flipped over in the bed the other night, and it totally freaked me out when I looked at the monitor. We had taken the girls to see Beauty and the Beast, so the sitter had put him down. I had to text her to make sure she hadn't put him down that way! (I knew she hadn't- she's our normal sitter who keeps him on Thursdays and is a baby expert- but still.) He was in that magic merlin sleep suit, and they're not supposed to be able to roll in that thing. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep with him like that, so as soon as I saw him stir, John and I went in there to try to quickly flip him back over. Of course he woke up and then had the HARDEST time going back down. It was a rough night. So now he is in the sleep sack. I hated to say goodbye to the Merlin because he really seemed to like it. And of course he hasn't flipped since.

This was before church Sunday, and he looked so big to me all of a sudden. I think I'm just not used to seeing him in bubbles. He's been in a long, knit rompers most of the winter, so this just looked like a "big boy" outfit to me   {even though I realize there is hardly anything more babyish than a bubble :) }.

He can sit great as long as he has that Boppy around him.

He is typically taking a 6 oz bottle before bed, but he has had 7 oz some nights and even took 8 oz one time! The girls never took that much! I'm not sure they ever took 6 oz! I know Curran didn't but can't remember with SC. The only reason I even offered 8 was because it had been like 4.5 hrs since he had eaten so I knew he would be starving. He normally goes to bed around 6:30 or 7pm. I now have him on a fairly strict schedule of nursing every 3 hours. Sometimes it ends up being two when I have to plan around our activities. It took me a long time to move away from the eat-play-sleep newborn schedule and realize that he doesn't have to eat as soon as he wakes up from a nap. He is also not super hungry when he wakes up in the mornings (usually because he has just eaten at 4 or 5am- eye roll), so I have started delaying that first feeding some.

I was making the girls' beds one morning and looked over to find this. Sorry buddy, but this is just the beginning of your sisters dressing you up.

He still naps about 4 times a day. He typically goes down about 1-1.5 hrs after waking up, but that nap usually only lasts about 45 minutes at most. Then he'll take a late morning nap and an afternoon nap, followed by a cat nap in the evenings. Just recently he started having one good nap a day (I consider "good" 1.5 hrs or longer), but the rest are still the 30-45 minute cat naps. And before anyone thinks it, it's not because he is taking so many of them. Even on days when he only gets two naps in, they are still short!

He loves when I read him books! He always reaches out to touch the pages.

I have decided to give baby-led weaning a go this time around instead of starting with purees. I was planning on waiting until he was 6 months to introduce anything besides breastmilk, but he has seemed VERY interested in my food for a while now, reaching and grabbing for it constantly. So two weeks ago I decided to try rice cereal mixed with breast milk. He HATED it! I tried again a few days later with the same results. Then I tried oatmeal mixed with a little cinnamon, and although he didn't seem to hate it quite as much, it was still not good. Last week I was holding him while I was eating a cinnamon bagel, and he was lunging for it, so I let him gnaw on part of it. I would have never done that with the girls! But he absolutely loved it and did not want me to take it away! Really since SC, I thought for our next baby I wanted to try BLW. So I've done some reading up on it the last few weeks to get ready. Yesterday I gave him a banana for his first food and he mostly just played with it (which is normal). He made a bad face when he got some in his mouth, but he kept trying it. I think we'll try avocado in a few days.

First rice cereal. "What is that junk, Mom?"

Trying bananas!

He loves his rattles!

He is about to outgrow his cart sling, and I'll be so sad. He gets so much attention from everyone when he's in it. :) And clearly he loves it.

First story time at the library, and he was a fan.

He struggled with his naps a few days this week, and I had to rock him to sleep. It's so rare these days, so I tried to enjoy it.

These past 6 months have been so happy for our family! We all can't get enough of this sweet baby, and are so very grateful for the blessing he is to us!