Six whole months

I can not believe that Sam is now SIX months old!! Oi! And this past month feels like it has seriously flown by. I ws trying to think of things to write for this post and a lot of the month is quite a blur. That might partly be due to lack of sleep, though (more details on that to follow).

Last time we checked Sam’s weight, which was a month ago, he was just shy of 19 lbs and he was 27″ tall. Basically he’s sitting in the 85 percentile for both height and weight. He was still packing on 2 lbs a month, but I’m really, really hoping that has slowed a bit. He’s got to be over 20 lbs now, but just hoping he hasn’t surpassed his best friend Simon, who is seven months older than he is! Oh my not-so-little man who is just too adorable no matter how big or small. When people see him and then find out how old (or rather how young) he is, they usually respond, “Well, you must sure have some good fatty milk!” Yes, yes indeed.

Of course, the nice thing that has been slowly developing over the past month or two is that Sam isn’t eating nearly as often as he used to. And just after he turned five months old, we started introducing him to puréed foods and a bit of oat cereal. It was slow going at first, and we still have hit-and-miss days with the food (as to be expected, I’m sure), but there has definitely been improvement. After an afternoon with Grandma Janice, who fed him cereal because he still won’t take a bottle, he really started liking the pablum. And now that I have borrowed my friend’s Baby Bullet, I can more easily get food to the texture and consistency that Sam likes. So far he has tried avocado, sweet potato, apple, nectarine, green beans, pumpkin, turnip, and mango. The sweet potato was by far the biggest hit, followed closely by pumpkin. And I think most of that was due to texture. Oh and a cute little quirk, one we should have anticipated given Sam’s hate of plastic bottle nipples and soothers… he won’t eat off a plastic baby spoon. Ya, I know! So picture me scrambling around trying to find a wooden baby spoon. Found a little wooden spoon spreader at a gourmet cooking shop and now have ordered some hand carved spoons from an Etsy artisan out of Manitoba, Canadian Wood Crafts. Oh my sweet boy…

Two developments on the sleeping front. One, I gave up trying to swaddle him and he is now just in a sleep sack at night. It was a battle I had been kean to give up on for a while, but he just seemed unable to sleep long periods without being swaddled. But then the second thing started happening so long periods of sleep weren’t happening anyways. The second event is still a mystery to me, but basically about three nights a week (sometimes more) Sam wakes every 20 minutes to every hour. The longest period of sleep might be less than two hours. It makes for a looong frustrating night. And this mama is quite the grumpy bear in the morning, as is baby and hubby. We know he’s teething, so that’s part of it. But we suspect there might be more going on, since you can often get him to sleep rocking him in your arms. Maybe that’s enough to comfort him from the pain most nights, or maybe he’s got some issues with not wanting to sleep alone, or there’s that dreaded sleep regression thing…who knows. I certainty don’t, otherwise we would have sorted it out and all be getting good, restful sleep! If you have any advice on this issue at all, please feel free to comment. Would love to hear your opinions or personal experiences!

On the flip side, one of the fun developments this month is his new found joy, the Jolly Jumper! My parents bought him one and it stands in the corner of our living room, where he jumps to his heart’s content! It didn’t take long at all for him to figure out the jumping motion and how to turn around in it. Now he wants to do “jolly jumpums” all the time! Even when you’re holding him! And especially after he’s been stuck in the car for a while.

Speaking of cars, every week he has been getting increasingly more uncomfortable in his infant car seat. And no wonder! He’s almost outgrown the thing! Never could I have imagined that by six months we would be buying another car seat for him! But we did and it arrived on Monday and hubby just finished installing it, so we’ll see if it makes car rides more enjoyable for baby boy (time for a road trip!). This is the one we ended up buying. It converts all the way through to the booster seat stage, so we shouldn’t have to buy anything else for Sam. We have also started using the big stroller seat in his UPPAbaby stroller, instead of clicking in his infant seat. It seems to have really increased the time he’s willing to spend in the stroller which is helpful and he has returned to taking naps in it while we walk around.

I’m sure there’s been other special moments and little things, but can’t think of any more right now. I tell ya, these months are going by more quickly! Feels like we’re going to be writing the post for month seven in a blink of an eye!