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Oh my gosh, a whole half a year with our sweet peanut! This has seriously been the fastest 6 months of my life, I don’t even want to think about how fast 1 year is going to get here. I truly cannot say how lucky I am to have Kelsi, she has made being a mom so much better than I ever could have imagined! Don’t get me wrong, we have our rough days for sure but the good days outweigh the bad by far! Now that we’re six months into this journey, we’ve settled into a nice little routine which I am so happy about, it makes planning a Target run or scheduling a haircut sooo much easier! Covid-19 has definitely put a little bit of a damper on our plans to make mom friends, the playgroup I literally just started going to got shut down for now, and I can’t even have a playdate. Only having direct contact with Justin has been rough on me, but I’m very thankful we all still have our health!
Milestones
Kelsi has mastered rolling over in both directions now, but she 100% prefers to be on her belly all the time. She’s even started army crawling! I didn’t see her do it for a couple days because she would only move when I took the dog out (sneaky sneaky!) but now she can’t be stopped! She can also sit unassisted, but only if I get her into that position. She hasn’t figured out how to get there herself but I know that’ll come in a few months! She loves sitting and throwing her toys for me to fetch. Lastly, she got her two bottom teeth in! Poor girl, they came in back to back so it was almost 2 weeks of teething pains for her. Honestly, she dealt with it pretty good, she was fine during the day and just needed one dose of Tylenol at the start of the night to help dull the pain enough to fall asleep.
Sleeping
We’re still nursing to sleep, because it’s still working fairly well for us. I didn’t know until recently that babies wake periods get longer every month until they’re 6 months old, which explains why I would finally nail a wake window only to have it change on me again. Now that she has a more consistent “schedule” getting her down for a nap at the right time has been a lot easier. She’s transitioned down to two naps, so her nap lengths have also become more consistent. In the morning, she typically gets a 1.25-.175 hour nap. For her afternoon nap, I usually lay down in bed with her just to make sure that it’s a good length, because she always sleeps better when she cuddles me. Because of that, her afternoon nap is normally around 2 hours, with her waking up between 4pm and 5pm. Sometimes I do put her down in her pack n play, but her afternoon nap never ends up being quite as long and then she has to go to bed really early.
Getting her down to bed at night is a little challenging especially now that she’s got more adult-like sleep cycles. Some nights are really good and she stays asleep the first time I put her down, sometimes I’m going in the room every 30 minutes for 2 hours nursing or rocking her back to sleep. I don’t know why some nights are harder than others, but I just keep reminding myself she’s just a little person who’s trying her best. We still haven’t sleep trained and I’m fine with that, even if it means that during teething spells or when she’s sick she wakes up and needs my help going back to sleep much more frequently. She’s usually initially put down between 7pm and 8pm, and she wakes up around 11pm for a feed, and then on good nights, she’ll sleep until 7am or 8am! On the bad nights she wakes up around 2am and possibly again at 5am, but those are extremely rare bad sleep nights. It’s the only reason I truly am considering sleep training, but we’re taking it month by month to see how she does.
Eating
We made it 6 months exclusively breastfeeding, which I am insanely happy about. It has been a hard journey, feeling like my body still isn’t my own and having a baby who definitely uses the boob as a way to soothe herself, but it’s been so rewarding. There have been times where I’ve been so overwhelmed and so unsure about my ability to provide for her that I’ve wanted to stop, but Justin has been so supportive and keeps me grounded.
We also started giving her “real” food! We’re doing baby-led weaning, so we skipped purees entirely and went straight to table food. She was confused by the new textures and tastes at first, but she’s getting the hang of feeding herself. She prefers savory food and carbs, just like her momma! Fruits and yogurt are still something she needs to get used to, but put some pasta, chicken or broccoli on her tray and she wants it!
Things We Love at 6 Months
Skip Hop activity center Right now we use this as a safe spot to put her when we need to do something where we wouldn’t be able to watch her as closely, like if I need to break down boxes for recycling. Since she’s mobile she doesn’t like to be put in it for fun anymore, but we’re keeping it since it turns into a toddler activity table.
Ingenuity Trio high chair I wasn’t looking to spend a small fortune on a high chair. For less than $100, I’m really happy with it and would highly recommend it! It comes in 3 colors, too!
Fisher Price Rock n Stack This has been a fun new thing for her to play with. She doesn’t understand how to put the rings on yet, but she’s really good at getting them off! For a toy that was less than $5, it keeps her entertained for a long time!
Fisher Price Controller She loves to reach for our electronics, especially Justin’s Xbox remote when he’s playing, so I got her her own remote! She kinda just throws it around and smashes the buttons, but it makes her happy and keeps her from stealing stuff out of our hands so it was a great buy to me!
Karli Bri 