The First 6 Months

HOW is my baby 6 months old? It just seems…impossible.

So much has happened in the past 6 months and as they say, I can’t recall life without Shea…life not as a mom. There are highs and lows, but so, so, so many more highs than lows. Looking back, the first few weeks were the hardest…the first 6 weeks or so. Of course the sleep regression at 4 1/2 months was no walk in the park, but it seems that people knew what they were talking about when they would simply say, “This will pass…it is only a phase.”

6 month stats: 19 lbs 11 oz (95th %ile) and 27 3/4 inches (98th %ile). It would appear the girl has my weight and Mr. P’s height and she continues to follow along on the growth curves as she has. She’s a solid chunk of cuteness, that’s for sure.

So, what’s been going on in the past month?

Shea is sitting up, rolling, babbling, and EATING! Yep…eating. Right at 5 months, we started introducing cereal, which wasn’t well-received. Once I began mixing in avocado and veggies (green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potato), she was off to the races…so much so that it caused a little, ahem, constipation (oops!). That took about a week to correct itself…not even pureed prunes did the trick. Since that time, we’ve introduced some fruits (pear, banana, apples, prunes) and she accepts them, but seems to prefer vegetables.

We consistently offered dinner for month 5 and at her 6 month check-up we were encouraged to introduce breakfast. As fun as meal time can be, they can be 1. messy and 2. LONG. Shea enjoys sucking her thumb between every bite and her other hand is often used to scratch/rub her head which can quickly lead to the need for a bath. Other than her hair, she manages to collect veggies in the crease of her neck which is incredibly difficult to get to!

As I’ve shared, I started my new job this week. I resigned my position in management to return to diabetes education, working 28 hours a week and MUCH closer to home. My commute is about 6 minutes and I am 1 mile from Shea’s daycare. It’s…glorious!

Her daycare recently changed from a 1:4 ratio in the infant room to a 1:3 ratio and that has been an appreciated change. How any one person can be responsible for 3 babies, much less 4, is beyond me. But overall, we’ve been very happy with her daycare arrangements. She has always seemed to enjoy daycare and has never shed tears…until this Monday when she returned after a week at home with her grandparents while we were in Cabo. I think she probably realized that it was back to the daily grind and naturally, she’d prefer the 1:1 love from family while in the comfort of her home. But, we seem to be back in the groove.

Sleep? Well, it’s…okay. It seems like every time she develops consistency in her sleep, it quickly changes, but currently, she goes to bed around 7pm and wakes once around 4am to breastfeed. She’ll sleep until about 6am, and then we either get up for the day, or I pull her into bed with me to cuddle and breastfeed for a bit before getting up. However, there are definitely nights where she’s up twice, and on the unfortunate nights, 3 times.

Breastfeeding? Still going…but probably doing more pumping that breastfeeding, unfortunately. With daycare and whatnot, she has gotten more bottles over time and so she has become a bit selective with her breastfeeding as it takes more effort on her part to breastfeed vs. being fed from a bottle. Nevertheless, I breastfeed 2-3x/day (clumped heavily in the PM and early AM hours) and pump 3-4x/day, always at work (usually 2x) and once before bed. My supply continues to dwindle through the day, so it’s typical that we give one bottle of formula each day and we usually opt to give her that bottle right before bed since formula isn’t metabolized as quickly as breast milk. My original “goal” was 6 months of breast feeding, but now that we’re here, I plan to continue as long as we can (despite my hatred for pumping!). It will probably motivate me to continue on as my new office is next to the lactation consultant I saw during the early days breastfeeding with Shea. Small world!

That’s everything in summary. Life is crazy busy, but so much fun! Hearing that little girl giggle is, by far, the highlight of my every day. 🙂

Be well,