With all the holiday hustle and bustle last week, I never found the time to sit down and blog... which means this week's post will be a combo post of weeks 31 and 32 :)
Weight: Somewhere around 14 and a half and 15 pounds maybe?
Sleep: Sleeping has been really good for Lizzie. She's going to bed between 7:15 and 7:45 usually, and will typically sleep until 3:00, when she wakes (like clockwork) wanting to eat usually. She'll usually sleep in until at least 8:00 :) Woooohooo for everyone during Christmas break :)
Sleep: Sleeping has been really good for Lizzie. She's going to bed between 7:15 and 7:45 usually, and will typically sleep until 3:00, when she wakes (like clockwork) wanting to eat usually. She'll usually sleep in until at least 8:00 :) Woooohooo for everyone during Christmas break :)
Medical Issues: Not a one :) We went in last week to get her second dose of the flu vaccine. I hadn't anticipated giving her the vaccine, as I didn't even think it was allowed for babies. But her doctor highly recommended it, and I trust his judgment for a variety of reasons, so she got her first installment at her six month check-up and, as I mentioned, had her second dose last week. It was pretty hilarious -- the moment the nurse walked into the room with us, Lizzie wailed. I said, "Oh my gosh, it's like she knows what's coming and she remembers you're the one who gives her the shot!" and the nurse confirmed that she actually does recognize the signs of a shot coming -- she said that by seven months, they can usually tell. But on the up side (I guess?), Lizzie was already so upset about the fact that she was getting a shot that I don't think she even noticed that she actually got the shot. Babies are smart little ones, I tell you!
Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night. However, in light of the ridiculously frigid temps, we've been putting her in some of her three to six month jammies at night because she has a few fleece jams in that size. They are pretty ginormous, but they are so darn cozy!
Socialite!: Due to the holidays, Lizzie girl has been especially social with people she doesn't always get to see! She hasn't been going to daycare the last week and a half because I've been off (whooo Christmas break!), but we've seen lots of family. On the day before Christmas Eve, my dearest friend from high school came to visit, so Lizzie got to hang out with her. Then on Christmas Eve, we saw my extended family on my mom's side for the night. On Christmas day, we hung out with Andy's family, and then my family that night. I've said it before, but Lizzie really loves to watch the "big" kids. She's completely fascinated by everything they do! And they make her smile real easily :) On Friday, we drove down to the Twin Cities and did a little shopping with Andy's mom and sister, and then left from there on Saturday to make the trek to Iowa for Andy's extended family Christmas. Lizzie met buckets of new people that day! Aunts and uncles, cousins, and even a great great uncle and her great grandma! It was pretty neat. I think she was pretty overwhelmed by the new place and all the new faces, but she really did a great job -- wasn't as smiley as she normally would be, but that's okay! She was out of her normal element and routine, so that's to be expected.
Diet: Oh boy, big changes here -- for me, anyway. After much deliberation, I decided to start weaning Lizzie the day Christmas break began. We whittled feedings down about one a day, sometimes waiting a day before tossing one out due to either A) my being a little too "full" to pull another or B) my not being ready emotionally for weaning to go so quickly. We've got enough of a back-stock in the freezer to last a little while, but it's amazing how fast it goes. At this point, I'm hoping it will last until she turns eight months, which would be January 12th, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't last quite that long. After that, we'll obviously have to switch to formula. She's now exclusively taking bottles and does great with it. She's a smart cookie -- she picked up on the whole, bottle --> eat association super quickly. We're now hiding bottles until it's time to eat :)
Aside from breastmilk, Lizzie's food diet has been expanding. Last week and this week, she tried green beans, had more turkey, some lasagna, some spaghetti, chicken, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower (a new favorite!), pears, pineapple, blackberries, blueberries (another new favorite!), raspberries, red pepper strips, toast, organic baby yogurt, pita chips and spinach and artichoke hummus. I'm sure we had some other things in there too, but I can't think of them right now. Anyway, she has yet to meet a food she doesn't care for. She's a pretty awesome eater.
As far as the foods go, I've been putting a lot of thought into expanding her "meals" from just at suppertime, to also at lunch as well. This is tricky with daycare, and I'm not quite sure how to go about it at this point. Not that I don't trust daycare, but I feel like a person always watches their own child better than someone else would -- and not that I don't trust Lizzie to feed herself, either. We've never had even one incident of 'choking' for her with BLW. So I'm considering one of two options: either organic baby puree or really easy, "mushy" foods that I won't be concerned with. These would be things like very ripe pear, avocados, broccoli that I've steamed the night before, hummus and pita chips (they soften as she eats them), smashed blackberries and blueberries. And maybe if I do go the food route, I'd go over to daycare for the first few weeks and show them how I cut things for her and how I give blueberries and blackberries a little 'smoosh' before letting her pick them up -- not to make them feel incompetent, but I just want to make sure everything is as it should be before I put that kind of trust in someone.
Anyway, along those same lines, I introduced a lunch meal with her today since I'm home. We tried a few pita chips (a pita that I cut into wedges, put a little olive oil, garlic and pepper on and then roasted in the oven) with some hummus for the first time -- she wasn't so sure at first, but then she really chowed down. Ideally I'd like her to learn to dip her pita chips in the hummus, but that's a little advanced at this point -- so for now, I'm spreading the hummus on the pita chips with a baby spoon. She happened to get her little hands on the spoon and took a big bite of hummus on her own... and that's when the love affair started :) She had pears as her side, too.
Another thing to note is how much Lizzie is noticing what we're eating these days. She'll fuss quite a bit until we give her what we're eating for the main course some nights -- which is fine by me, because I wanted to start including her with that anyway, but sometimes it's hard to know how to give her some of what we eat, specifically if it's a little higher in sodium. Easy fix for that, though: cook with low-sodium/no salt ingredients, add salt later, or just leave it out of her food and put it in ours.
Aside from breastmilk, Lizzie's food diet has been expanding. Last week and this week, she tried green beans, had more turkey, some lasagna, some spaghetti, chicken, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower (a new favorite!), pears, pineapple, blackberries, blueberries (another new favorite!), raspberries, red pepper strips, toast, organic baby yogurt, pita chips and spinach and artichoke hummus. I'm sure we had some other things in there too, but I can't think of them right now. Anyway, she has yet to meet a food she doesn't care for. She's a pretty awesome eater.
As far as the foods go, I've been putting a lot of thought into expanding her "meals" from just at suppertime, to also at lunch as well. This is tricky with daycare, and I'm not quite sure how to go about it at this point. Not that I don't trust daycare, but I feel like a person always watches their own child better than someone else would -- and not that I don't trust Lizzie to feed herself, either. We've never had even one incident of 'choking' for her with BLW. So I'm considering one of two options: either organic baby puree or really easy, "mushy" foods that I won't be concerned with. These would be things like very ripe pear, avocados, broccoli that I've steamed the night before, hummus and pita chips (they soften as she eats them), smashed blackberries and blueberries. And maybe if I do go the food route, I'd go over to daycare for the first few weeks and show them how I cut things for her and how I give blueberries and blackberries a little 'smoosh' before letting her pick them up -- not to make them feel incompetent, but I just want to make sure everything is as it should be before I put that kind of trust in someone.
Anyway, along those same lines, I introduced a lunch meal with her today since I'm home. We tried a few pita chips (a pita that I cut into wedges, put a little olive oil, garlic and pepper on and then roasted in the oven) with some hummus for the first time -- she wasn't so sure at first, but then she really chowed down. Ideally I'd like her to learn to dip her pita chips in the hummus, but that's a little advanced at this point -- so for now, I'm spreading the hummus on the pita chips with a baby spoon. She happened to get her little hands on the spoon and took a big bite of hummus on her own... and that's when the love affair started :) She had pears as her side, too.
Another thing to note is how much Lizzie is noticing what we're eating these days. She'll fuss quite a bit until we give her what we're eating for the main course some nights -- which is fine by me, because I wanted to start including her with that anyway, but sometimes it's hard to know how to give her some of what we eat, specifically if it's a little higher in sodium. Easy fix for that, though: cook with low-sodium/no salt ingredients, add salt later, or just leave it out of her food and put it in ours.
Baby Gear Love: Lizzie got so many great new toys and books for Christmas! Her favorites so far include the Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Soothe and Glow Seahorse (a God-send when we were on our way home from Iowa... sweet girl spent half of the car ride home in the dark, which had to be ridiculously boring for her. This lit up her lap so she could see her activity bar and other toys we'd packed for her to play with in the car!), the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen (she can't get enough of how the light turns off and on with the flip of a switch!) and the B. Snug Bugs (she loves to chew on them, plus they are so great for little hands to grab onto and they are so darn CUTE! We toss them a couple in the diaper bag so she has something little to play with if she gets restless). Another thing we're in love with is the JJ Cole Car Seat Cover, which I've mentioned before. But it's an amazing thing -- Andy read that thicker "warm suits" that you can put baby in during cold weather (like the ridiculous cold snap we seem to have been in for the last MONTH...) can negatively affect a car seat's safety for a baby because you can't get the straps as tight as they should be. Anyway, with this car seat cover from JJ Cole, a warm suit really isn't needed anyway -- it's incredible how warm this thing keeps Lizzie. We definitely tuck a blanket around her to keep her cozied in, but that plus the cover keeps her very toasty. There have been times where the outside temp is negative 10, and we pull Lizzie out of her car seat and she's sweating. It's pretty awesome.
Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)
Mommy News: As mentioned previously, over the past two weeks, we started and ended the weaning process. This was definitely a really big step for me emotionally. I felt it was time, but I still had a really hard time actually giving up nursing -- just ask my husband. I'd considered giving it up for the past two months, but just couldn't do it. I'm a very sensitive girl, so things that go through my head that "taunt" me are things like, "this is the fifth to the last day you'll nurse Lizzie at night in the rocking chair" (ridiculous, right?). I've always been like that, setting these little milestones and making things extra dramatic. And while I know they're dramatic and that life will go on and that everything will be fine, I still worry over it and think about it too much and ask my husband eight times in one night, "am I a bad mom for not nursing her longer?" Again, ridiculous. Of course not. But for some reason I just felt selfish for making that decision. Anyway, now that I've done my last nursing session (a few nights ago), I'm fine. In fact, going into that nursing session, I 'prepped' myself, saying "enjoy this last one, and drink in the moment"... and I did. But I didn't feel any emptiness upon putting her down in her crib. And last night and tonight were no less special or snuggly when I fed her a bottle in her rocker and kissed her goodnight. I knew it would be fine. I'm just not one for change -- it makes me very anxious and can tend to make me sad. And I'm glad the process, for the most part, is over. The process itself made me anxious, too. Anyway, now what's left over is that uncomfortable 'full' feeling until my body realizes it can stop making milk. Which is also kind of sad... but I'm just looking forward and looking at the positives: now we can give her bottles when we're out and about, I won't have to find a dressing room to nurse in while shopping, skip prep times at school to nurse, wear clothes that aren't "nursing friendly" -- not that I minded any of these things, but again, I'm focusing on positives :)
Milestones: We have our first Christmas under our belts! Lizzie was certainly more interested in the bows and tissue paper than anything else, and was less interested in ripping open packages than I thought. I anticipated that she'd love ripping the paper off of her gifts, but she didn't care much for that.
Lizzie also met a whole bunch of new family over the weekend on Andy's side! This included her great grandma :)
We're working so, so, so hard on the "b" sound it seems. She's 'buzzing' her lips like she wants to say the "buh" sound, but she's not quite there yet.
Lizzie is holding her own bottle when we feed her most of the time :) We're encouraging a sippy at mealtimes with a 1:10 ratio of prune juice to water (for constipation purposes), but she's got a case of the T-Rex Syndrome (i.e., arms too short to actually hold her sippy up high enough to get anything out!) so we have to help her for now.
Her self-feeding skills are really amazing at this point. She's getting that pincer grasp down incredibly well and can pick up relatively small bits of food with her pointer and thumb and get them to her mouth. She also likes to grab my fork/utensil that I might be using to feed her with every so often and guide it to her mouth with amazing accuracy. I basically give up all control of the utensil and let her do the guiding... and she's perfect every time.
Lizzie is now starting to show quite a preference to people. No longer is it where she can go to anyone and be happy that she's being held -- instead, she's typically quite concerned with where Mommy is. The moment she gets passed off to someone, she's often looking to see where I am and it's not long after that her sweet little face wrinkles into a cry and she reaches for me. I won't lie... I do kind of love it :) But I also want her to be happy going to her daddy and other family members as well. Not to mention, daycare is going to be impossible for me if she cries every time I leave her!
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