Babies grow and change all the time, but it seems like the past month has brought so many changes for our sweet Violet. She’s no longer content to just observe her surroundings; she has to be part of everything now. Also, more and more I see that despite the fact that their baby photos look nearly identical (other than eye color), Violet is so much different than Jona was at this age.
{Violet at seven months}
Weight – I don’t know but she seems to get chunkier every day!
Length – Again, I’m not sure but she seems to be growing out, not up, ha!
 |
| {#notimpressed} |
Sleep – I know that sleep could be a lot worse, but I think we were thoroughly spoiled with Jona, who was an excellent sleeper until we moved him from his crib. Violet is still going to bed at about 7pm; some nights she is ready and conks right out, and other nights she fights it, hard. Pretty much right after I shared her 6 month update she started randomly waking up in the middle of the night again. Most nights we could just give her a pacifier and a few soothing pats and she would eventually go back to sleep. One thing that’s been consistent is that she has been waking super early, like at 5:15am. I’m always up by then, but I need a little time to get ready myself. Luckily she’s pretty happy and she’ll just talk to herself for a while until I’m ready to feed her at about 6. Occasionally she’ll go back to sleep, but not often. She’s still taking 3 naps a day, usually one longer one (1.5-2 hours) and 2 shorter ones (45 min or so). She really started fighting sleep this past month–she’ll hardly be able to keep her eyes open until I put her in her crib. Then suddenly she wants to play, roll around, talk, blow raspberries, hit her pacifier on the crib rails… anything but sleep!
Eating – I’m still pumping and giving her 5 bottles of breast milk a day. (I’ll share my story about that next week, stay tuned.) This month we also started Violet on solids. We decided to try baby-led weaning, which skips the stage of purees and has babies start on finger-sized pieces of food. I plan to write a post that goes into more detail later, but so far it’s going well. She wasn’t too interested at first, but now she loves meal time! Her favorite things to eat/gnaw/suck on are mango, sweet potato, and broccoli. The other night we gave her the hard end of a piece of focaccia and she went to town on that!
Clothing – She’s still wearing size 6 month clothes. It’s been warm lately so it’s been fun to put her in dresses with bloomers to show off her chubby little legs. 🙂
Mood – She still hates evenings, but otherwise she gives us lots of grins and a few laughs.
Milestones – This has been a big month! She finally figured out how to consistently roll back over from her tummy, and now she is rolling everywhere. Nothing at floor level is safe from her grabby little hands now! Let the child-proofing begin. It’s so funny because Jona was nowhere near mobile at this age. She also started playing Peek A Boo with her blanket or burp cloth. If you say “Where’s Violet?” she’ll cover up her face and then pull it down. It’s too cute. Also, she’ll sometimes mimic us when we wave and she waves too (although I don’t think she knows what it means yet).
Favorite things – rolling around, Jona’s toys, Jona, her rattles, pretty much anything on the floor that she’s not supposed to chew on (shoes, Jona’s matchbox car tracks, Ellie’s dog bed [ew!]).
Least favorite things – evenings, when we take away Jona’s toys/shoes/etc., going to sleep
How we’re doing – Really well! Although I’m still tired and wonder if I’ll ever get a full night’s sleep again, I’ve never been happier. I feel like we’re settling into some good routines. With Violet’s early bedtime, evenings are now even more chaotic, but at the same time the reward is a little more time at the end of the day if I’m the one putting her down. (Aaron and I usually trade off kids bedtimes.) Also, Aaron just got a job as the girls’ golf coach at the high school where he teaches math, so we’re excited about that. That will make the fall crazy, as he is in grad school as well, but I’m so happy for him. He played golf in high school and community college and has always wanted to be a coach. Around here though, it’s a hard job to get–everyone wants to be a golf coach!
How big brother is doing – He’s doing a lot better. There are still meltdowns for sure, but they are becoming less frequent. Night time is another story though–he’s been having terrible nightmares and he wakes up crying several times a week. Usually it doesn’t take long to calm him down, and he goes right back to sleep (and half the time he doesn’t even seem fully awake at all) but I feel terrible for him. I had awful nightmares when I was little and I hate that he is experiencing that too.
Things I want to remember – Violet is getting to be a ton of fun. She’s babbling and smiling a lot, and loves to hold things in her hand and laugh at them. (The other day it was a carrot… she was cracking up!) Jona loves to help with Violet, but has also been good about playing on his own. He especially loves doing puzzles, and he’s breezed through just about every one we’ve gotten for him. I picked up a 200 piece Peter Pan puzzle at a garage sale a few weekends ago and (with help) he can even put that together. I’m amazed with his patience with puzzles (especially considering his lack of patience everywhere else)!
