My sweet baby girl turned seven months old a couple of weeks ago! It’s hard for my brain to comprehend just how close we are to that ONE YEAR mark. When I’m on Pinterest, I see the inspiration boards of friends who have kiddos a bit younger than me, and they’re pinning ideas for first year birthday parties. I think I have been in denial about the fact that my baby is growing up! But it’s happening whether I want it to or not…so I just need to embrace it, I suppose. Seven months is a good age…she is so.much.fun. Her little personality comes out more and more every day! Can’t you tell?
A lot has happened (developmentally) over the last two
weeks, so I’m going to try very hard to remember to only include in this post
the things that Campbell was doing between 6 and 7 months. But the 7 to 8 month
post is going to be exciting!
Sleeping Patterns:
Campbell’s sleeping patterns are definitely changing. Christmas must have
really messed with her, because she’s not the sleeper that she used to be. We’ve
had a LOOOOONG string of nights without any waking, but that’s not happening so
much any more. I think she’s working on getting teeth, and that’s got to be
uncomfortable for her. We usually start the bedtime routine at around 7 or
7:30, depending on whether or not she’s getting a bath. If she’s not getting a
bath, we put on her “sleepy lotion”, change into pj’s, read a story, nurse, and
then I put her in her crib. She almost always nurses to sleep, and the transfer
from my arms to the crib is pretty seamless. It’s the rare occasion that she
wakes up during that transfer, but when it happens, it usually doesn’t take her
long to drift back off to sleep. She still seems to be taking good naps at Ms.
Gayle’s house, but not so much at home. I’m not sure what that’s about, but she’ll
really only stay asleep if someone is holding her for a nap. I can’t understand
it, because that’s not how she sleeps at the sitters, and we have ZERO trouble
putting her to bed in her crib at night. For naps at home during the day, I
follow the same routine (minus bath, sleepy lotion, and story), but as soon as
she touches the mattress, her eyes fly open and she’s ready to play. Oh well…we’re
working on it.
Eating Habits: Campbell
LOVES to eat. We’re doing our best to include her in mealtimes with us, and I think
she thoroughly enjoys it. We’re still working toward the baby-led weaning (BLW)
concept, and it’s going okay. It works great
at home, but not so much with the sitter. Ms. Gayle doesn’t like it, and
unfortunately, she doesn’t follow it, even though I’ve asked her to on many
occasions. It’s incredibly frustrating to know that my sitter isn’t following
through on what I ask her to do (and I don’t think that anything we ask of her
is any big deal), but I guess I’m beginning to just expect it. We just try to
do BLW at home and hope that it’s enough to encourage her to eat and explore on
her own. So far it seems to be going okay…I would just like to have consistency
throughout her day.
Campbell is still nursing well. She averages somewhere
between 5 and 6 nursings (including bottles at the sitters) per day. The
addition to solids has been a little bit difficult for me, because I want to be
certain that the majority of her calories/nutrition comes from breastmilk, and
I’m not sure how to be sure that’s happening. I’ve got no less than 5
breastfeeding books, and I’ve read them all. They all do a fantastic job of
addressing the establishment of a robust milk supply in those first few days/weeks/months,
but I think they all do a poor job of working through the introduction of
solids while continuing to nurse. It seems like they all pretty much say, “Well,
you’ve made it this far with breastfeeding your baby, so you’ll figure this one
out. Good luck!” Not good enough for me. So…I’m on a quest to get more info on
nursing and solids. Any advice you can give is appreciated!
New Foods: It’s
horrible, but I can’t really keep up with the new foods that Campbell has had.
I know lots of the literature says that a new food should only be introduced
once every 3 -5 days to rule out allergies, but we (I) don’t really follow
that. Food allergies don’t run in either side of our family, so I figure we’re
in pretty good shape, and so far, so good. I do know that she’s had apples,
pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, cucumber, and carrots. She also had some pasta
(both plain and with marinara sauce) and a meatball. I’m sure we’ve introduced
other foods, but I can’t remember them! For the most part, we give her a bit of
whatever we’re having, and she loves to dig in! We put small amounts of a few
foods on her tray, and let her choose what and how much to eat. I’ve really
started to notice that she’s picking certain foods, instead of just grabbing
whatever is closest. It’s so much fun to watch her figure out the whole “eating”
thing!
New Discoveries: The
first thing that comes to mind is that she’s now really seeming to enjoy her baths. For the longest time, it
seemed like she just tolerated her baths in the baby tub. Then, it started to
become really obvious that she was outgrowing it, and finally she started
sitting up when the baby tub got tight. Now that she’s in the big tub (with
toys!), she’s having so much fun. She loves to chase her rings and other tub
toys around, and she’s learning to splash. David usually gives her a bath
(because really, I don’t like doing bath time…it stresses me out), and I love
hearing them play together. David usually takes his phone in and they listen to
something on Pandora…it’s generally either the Kentucky Sports Radio show or
some bluegrass station. They play and splash and laugh, and I love it. I know
Campbell enjoys that time with her Daddy, and I think it might have something
to do with the fact that he lets her have more water in the tub than I do. J
Her
Accomplishments: Campbell is growing and learning every day! She’s STILL not rolling, which honestly kind
of bugs me. It’s not that she can’t;
she just doesn’t want to! But she’s sitting up great, and she can bear her
entire weight on her legs. I just think she’d have more fun if she would roll.
My favorite accomplishment of Campbell’s this month is that she’s started to
give kisses! They’re pretty hit or miss right now, and sometimes I’m not sure
if it’s really a kiss or not, but I’ll take ‘em. She’s gotten enough kisses
over the last 7 months that she knows what they are, that’s for sure!
Places She Went: Christmas
fell during this month, so she’s done lots of local travel. I think the only
new place she’s been this month is to my step-sister’s home. Michele and her
husband, Denny, have two kids: Clint is 5 and Lia is 9 months old. It was so
much fun to see Campbell playing with Lia…I hope they’ll grow up to be good
friends.
Special Friends: This
wasn’t the first time that Campbell met Lia, but I think it’s the first time she
was ever aware of her! Campbell was amazed at all of the things Lia can do: roll,
crawl, scoot, pull up, cruise. I’m hoping that it might light a fire under
Campbell and get her going!
Baby
Babbles: Oh, my! Our girl is really chattering now! One
night I had to work late, so David picked Campbell up from Ms. Gayle’s. When I
got home, he said, “When I got there, I was sure that there was another kid
there because of all the talking going on!” But nope…it was just Campbell. That
day, she started to really babble, instead of what I would consider cooing. Now
she’s saying “dah-dah-dah-dah-dah” pretty consistently.
And now, a few lot of pictures of my sweet baby girl. Oh, how l
love this girl!
