James at 6 months
I've been bad at posting these monthly updates although I have been using the little stickers to take monthly photos! Pretty soon I'm going to be so far removed from what actually happened during those months that I won't be able to remember and update his baby book, which is important to compare between boys what they were doing from month to month.
At 6 months, James:
Is somewhere in the greater than 20 pound range. I haven't stepped on a scale with him recentl, but he's chubby!
No idea how long he is now. We have a well-child visit next Thursday
Eating:
Would drink all the milk in the world from bottles, if not for Mama being unable to fill them up when she's at work!
He takes somewhere between 13-16 ounces from bottles each day and I'm lucky if I can get 11-13 pumping 4 times per day. *sigh* Same story, different child
Around 5 1/2 months, we started solids. I wish that I'd been able to get to six months straight of just breastmilk, but it wasn't working out that way and I was becoming super anxious and that was decreasing my supply further... long story short, he tried mushy bananas. And LOVED them!
Since then, he's also gnawed on a green bean once or twice, tried squash (acorn and butternut-- liked the butternut better), avocado (LOVES to choke himself on large pieces), and Gerber puffs just this week. Oh, and apple slices to gnaw on as well.
He LOVES LOVES LOVES solids, but he has to feed himself. He's pretty good at getting the spoon into his mouth, but not so good at picking up pieces of avocado with a pincer grasp. Still using the palmar grasp, which tells me that he probably wasn't 100% ready for solids... along with the fact that he just tries to slurp down the purees rather than mashing them further with his jaws... Oh well. He is happy about eating solid foods and he's still getting most of his nutrition from breastmilk and I've started to even out between what he takes in bottles versus what I can pump... so we're going to exist in this type of holding pattern for a while, I guess.
No teeth yet, which means that we won't do anything that is much beyond mushy soft foods or gnawing for texture/taste.
Sleeping:
Oh, sleep. That blessed, blessed commodity.
If only.
At 4 months, James was a SUPER SLEEPER! He would go down somewhere around 8:30-9 pm and sleep for 4 or 5 hours. And we would be sleeping for 4 hours or so, and getting in some REM cycles and it was AWESOME!
Then at 5 months (ish), James got his first real cold and was snotty and unable to breathe and upset and choking on snot... so he'd wake up a million times during the night and want to nurse but not be able to breathe and whine and cry... and there was no sleeping.
I think we had (at best) 40 minute stretches during the overnight for the week leading to Thanksgiving and since.
This has been wretched because I am just *done*. I have no reserves.
The first week, Jake and I stupidly tried to stay in the same room and we were both exhausted and snappy. Then, we wised up and Jake went to sleep in another room (also because he had a cold and was being a whiny bastard about it, so I sacrificed and let him get a full night's sleep). This meant we had one parent functioning, but sort-of (see above comment about having a cold) but I still wasn't sleeping any longer than 30-40 min stretches.
This has continued. James has started identifying me as his comfort object and will only like to be with me when tired/sleepy/ready to sleep.
Last night, Jake took him from 8:30 until 10:30 or 11 while I got some uninterrupted rest to try to gain back some sanity. James probably woke around 11 or 11:30, and I got him to nurse and brought him back to bed with me. He was fussy and whiny and not settling for a long time, and I thought I would just check the clock to see if we were "close" to wake-up time (yesterday I got up with him at 4:30 because I just couldn't stand it any longer).
And the clock said 12:30.
I just lost it. I shouted at him "Are you kidding me?!?" and my voice was raspy and awful sounding with being so tired and so strung out. So I brought him to Jake and said "Please, just take him". Jake got him back to sleep in his crib and dealt with him at 3 am when he woke up again (I didn't hear it at all, I was so soundly asleep) and again at 3:30 I brought James back into bed with me until 5:30 when Jake took him away again.
I just am so tired and DONE with the fitful, not-really-put-together sleep at night, but at the same time I'm NOT ok with night weaning yet or having him cry in his crib. ARGH. This parenting stuff is hard.
In better news, James is finally getting a daytime nap "routine" with Megan-- he'll take a 90-min nap starting around 10:30 each morning and then a couple 30-45 min naps in the afternoon pretty consistently for the past week or 2. So that's nice. At least something is coming together.
Now if we could only figure out the nighttime!
Movement:
James started to army crawl around 5 months, was really crawling (up on all fours) at 5 1/2 months, and is really scooting around now! He's really fast and whether he's on tile or carpet doesn't seem to bother him (the colder tile floors were an obstacle in the beginning, but he's overcome that). We had to bring up the baby gate/prison to keep him contained and our power cords are no longer safe.
He also pulls to standing on the couch, chairs, and in the crib. We had to lower the crib mattress to keep him from falling out and I've caught him puling up on the first stair (YIKES)
He sits on his own (really well and stably, I might add-- I think it's the roly poly belly he's got going on) as of 5 ish months.
Likes/Dislikes:
Really likes paper and to chew on anything he can get hold of. I've had to swipe a bunch of mascerated paper out of the back of his throat when he started choking once-- that was fun.
Also likes to chew on board books and Duplo blocks, these are big enough for him to get his hands around
Likes: Mama
Dislikes: Daddy when Daddy takes away from Mama
Dislikes: Tissues which wipe the snot boogers from his nose
The blue bulb syringe that we use to suck boogers from his nose
Likes: the bathtub (he got to take a tub with big brother Leo last night and that was really exciting!)
ceiling fans, especially at church
his big brothers-- always a source of good laughs
Dislikes: diaper changes (or really likes to arch/squirm/roll away as it is a fun and exciting game on the changing table)
Running out of steam here. Will try to update more later on other things going on.