J
How is it possible that 7 months have gone by?! In this time warp, she will be odriving next month, I'm sure of it. This was a huge developmental month for Evie!
We FINALLY rolled over on our own! She did it in the bathtub of all places, twice, right after she turned 6 months. She has since then rolled a few times from belly to back, but not often! She also loves grabbing her toes now when she's on her back.
We started solids! She's obsessed with food of every kind so far. We started with sweet potatoes, oatmeal and banana and have just continued to add everything we can think of. We do mostly purees but introduce tastes of things we eat - rice, a smashed bean, little bits of chicken, pizza crusts, etc. She eats avocados by the slice instead of puréed, unless I mix it with something for her.. We've also done baby led weaning style eating for banana and hunks of meat.
Commence the onslaught of messy food covered baby pictures:
First bites of sweet potato
Not too sure, but ended up loving it
Papa feeding her some oatmeal
BLW Bananas
BLW avocados and pancakes
She sticks her tongue out with her mouth wide open every bite!
French fries off Mama's plate
Fresh tomato from Oma's garden!
Okay what else? She's sitting up on her own! It happened really fast - over the course of about two weeks she went from nothing to 20-30 minutes playing while sitting. She tips over occasionally but it's pretty rare nowadays.
We took another trip to the omits ins, to Snowmass, this time for Papa and Uncle Bryan to run the Tough Mudder. It was a blast! She did really well, and had her first gondola ride!
She has become so aware of her actions and reactions now. She learned to fake laugh and fake cough - I would probably say she fake cries as well, since she's taken to crying and screaming for attention, especially if we leave her sight!
Sleep. Oh sweet sleep. Evie has started sleeping on her belly - cue the anxiety. This started because we were letting her sleep on her side because she like to have her butt patted to fall asleep in her crib. Then she would cross her leg over and eventually started just preferring her belly. This actually helped her to start sleeping longer stretches once we got the okay from our pediatrician. We feel better about it now that it's been going on for a month.
We also started sleep training just a few days before she turned seven months. We are I going with the most gentle style we thought would work, so there's no cry-it-out and we are with her the whole time. We've been working on cutting back the number of times she nurses each night (it was every time she woke, 4-10 times a night) for all of September. Our plan is this - we now wait 3 minutes (this will be extended to 5 then 10 eventually) before going into her when she wakes. She has a planned nursing session between 3-4 a.m. which I go directly in to her. For every other waking, Luke always goes in first, and it relieve him after 10 minutes if she's still up. Luke will come back in after another 10 minutes, and if she's still awake after that, I nurse her or help her get to sleep no matter what it takes. We figure after half an hour awake, she's too stressed and awake to go back to sleep with out a lot of help. It's only happened once though! The first night was pretty bad but since then, she usually falls back asleep within the first 10 minutes with Luke. As of October 8th, she usually wakes only 3ish times now, and has put herself back to sleep within those first three minutes a few times. Here's the best part - one glorious night, I only had to go in once to nurse her at 330 and she slept until 730 in her crib! That's twelve hours people!!!
The other major news is that this little chicken got her first two teeth the week before turning 7 months! Teething = hell. She was congested and stuffy over the weekend, woke up still yucky and with a MAJOR diaper rash (her first) Monday morning. I checked for a tooth that morning and found nothing, then that afternoon I felt a tooth! She got the left one first, and then felt yucky all week. I didn't expect it, but found the second tooth Friday! I then felt like a jerk for starting sleep training her while she clearly was teething, but I actually think it helped because she was really sleepy all week and it probably helped make it easier. She even took an hour and a half long nap once! Ha, oh the little things.
Other firsts: high chairs and shopping carts! Ponytails! She took a bottle from mama! She held her OWN bottle! She likes sippy cups and straw cups with water!
Favorites: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom before bed, Finn, papa, playing with a mirror, other babies, waving, rattling/ shaking toys, and food!
Dislikes: if Mama leaves the room, being alone in general, tummy time, loud noises and motors (trash trucks, blender, vacuum, motorcycles, etc.)
