The Quinns: Baby John- 7 Months

Whew I'm late on this one- John turned 7 months old on April 22! At his 6 month check up he was 16 lbs 6 oz. and 26.1" {both 25th percentile} I was waiting for this appointment because I wanted the doctor's permission that he was ok to cry it out. I knew she would say yes- she always says by 6 months she is ok with it- but I wanted to make sure she was ok with his size. He is on the petite side, but she whole heartedly agreed that he did not need to wake up to eat anymore! I could not let him cry that night because I had to get up at 5am the next day to work on a client's Disney trip so I needed some sleep! So the following night was the night. He had actually been doing a tad better and only woke up once the three previous nights {it had been twice!}. That night he woke up around 3:15 and started fussing. I waited about 5 minutes and then went in there and gave him his lovie. He ended up fussing off and on for 45 minutes. I went in there one other time but he got so upset, that I realized that wasn't a good plan. With the girls I went in there in increasing time increments {Ferber method}, but that just seemed to make him madder. And he never was screaming bloody murder. He just fussed off and on until he finally fell back asleep. The next night he slept through the night, 6:30pm-6:10am! Then for about a week after that, some nights he would wake up and just need his paci, other nights he would fuss a little. But it seems to have sunk in, and he's sleeping great! He's also taking really good naps most days. He still normally takes 3 naps: the first is around 8am, then maybe 11 or 12, and then a cat nap around 3:30. It really just depends on the day and what we have going on. On the weekends he sometimes just gets two naps in.

Cutie pie on Palm Sunday wearing socks and shoes for the first time. Too bad he ruined one shoe by chewing/slobbering on it while he was in his car seat. :(

I introduced solid foods this past month. I wanted to give baby-led weaning a try, so I gave him bananas first which he didn't seem to love. A friend told me the trick of pushing your finger down the middle of the banana, and it splits it into three equal pieces. Works like a charm and perfect for BLW! Next we tried avocadoes which he really seemed to like; they were just really slippery and hard for him to hold onto. I also gave him purees because I want him to like those too. It's much easier to take a pouch or jar of baby food with us on the go. So next I gave him apples mixed with rice cereal which he was not a fan of. Now steamed apples cut into long pieces is another story! He loves those and steamed pears too. He loves all the orange vegetables: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I gave him steamed broccoli which he really seemed to like it first, but everytime I've given it since then, he doesn't seem to be a fan. He likes the jarred fruit mixes like peaches/bananas/oatmeal and apple cinnamon oatmeal. He also will now eat his pureed fruits and veggies swirled with rice cereal or oatmeal, which he hated at first. Just this week he had tiny pieces of a grilled cheese, cheese quesadilla, and mac and cheese, all of which he scarfed down. He LOVES Mum Mums as well as Puffs, when he can actually get the Puffs in his mouth. He needs to work on his pincer grasp- he still shoves by the fistfuls. He loves drinking water from a sippy cup. He figured it out pretty fast although he still can't always get it turned up by himself.

His first two teeth popped through this past month! The first bottom tooth came through one week after he turned 6 months, and the second followed very shortly thereafter. They are sharp little suckers, and he loves to chew on anything and everything.

You can barely see his teeth in this picture.

He says lots of consonant sounds. Right around the time he turned 6 months, he started with ba ba ba and fa fa fa. He has added the d, m, n, p, and g sounds as well. He seems to be somewhat close to saying mama; he has said it a few times when whining, so it wasn't intentional. Or maybe it was? :) He did very clearly say it when I put him in the high chair. The girls heard it and declared it his first word, but he hasn't said it that clearly since. I do love listening to him babble!

He loves to sit on the floor and read books. I did that a lot with Curran but not so much with the second child. I'm not sure I read her a book until she was old enough to be put to bed at the same time as Curran. :) But baby John isn't content to be by himself for long, so I'm either carrying him around, or we sit on the floor in his room and play. He got a couple of Usborne books for Easter, and he LOVES them! One of them has wheels and the other is a train book that makes noise, so he loves to turn the pages and pat them {slap them- he does that with his food too. kinda strange}. He also loves to sing songs, so we do a lot of patty cake and wheels on the bus. He also likes to go for walks in the stroller {sadly we don't do that as much as we should}. And he gets SO excited about his baths! He's in the ring seat now and loves splashing around.

I put him in this little car handed down from a friend and he LOVED it! I needed to water the plants so I plopped him down it in, and he had a ball.

On the days we found out the girls were in fact girls, John went out and bought them the sweetest gifts. I tried not to let him hurt my feelings on baby John's behalf that his daddy didn't buy him anything when we found out he was a boy. But a few months later John went to the Masters and bought him this onesie. It's probably fitting that this is the first {and only} thing John bought his son.

John loves having girls and doesn't get too into the whole idea of having a son to do boy things with because he enjoys taking his girls to do "boy" things with him and loves watching golf and basketball with them too. But I will say, he was very cute about dressing BJ in his onesie and asked me to take a picture. :) That is a rare thing for him to request. :)