8 Month Summary of Micaiah

5.15.2011

Month 7 flew by with a lot of fun! Looking back, month 5 was when things started to be "fun" with a baby. Month 6 he was doing more and more entertaining (for us). Month 7 was even better, and I feel like it is just going to keep going like this as we near a year.
Here's 7 months again (I think he got more handsome this month...if that is possible!)

Micaiah's 7th month was a pretty easy month compared to the first 6. Besides another ear infection, things smoothed out into a nice little routine and I had a pretty decent sleeper on my hands. Towards the end of the month, we had some night sleep interruption with teething that lasted not quite 2 weeks, but besides that, he really slept great for naps with near perfect naps the majority of the time. By perfect, I generally mean 2 hours in the morning and about and hour to 1.5 hrs in the afternoon.

Month 7 brought stability to our daily schedule with naps around 9 and another around 1. Month 6 was a transitional month where we were still doing basically 3 naps, but by the first week of the 7th month, Cai dropped that last nap which made for a much LONGER afternoon to be creative with baby on my part, but much nicer in terms of being able to run errands for longer periods of time in the afternoon. Waketime for this stage for us is 2 hrs - 2.5 hrs - 3.5 to 4 before bed, respectively. We still do an early bedtime of around 6:30. I tried for a couple weeks to stretch him to at least 7, but he just doesn't do it and it's not worth the fight of an extra fussy baby for an extra 30 minutes. Plus, I honestly love that he goes to bed early because I get a nice long evening break. It only is hard when we have evening engagements and I can't drag him out until later, but most of the time I can work around that or ask a grandparent, mostly my mom, to do the evening watch if we need her! (Thank you, mommy!)

However, there were some struggles with Month 7, for those who are curious. Month 7 brought about some pretty extreme SEPARATION ANXIETY. Staying home with Cai all day and being the main caregiver all of the time has led to some difficulties in this area. It got to the point that he would SEE me just leave the room for a second and flip out crying. I'm starting to notice that my child is very intelligent. (Smile). Many babies can be distracted and once mommy leaves, they calm down and go about life. Not Micaiah. He will realize after a certain time length that mommy is not around and he will go berserk crying and NOT stop until I get back. It got to the point that he ONLY wanted mommy and while Hart can satisfy him for longer than others, he didn't even want Hart to put him to bed and would scream crying when either of us laid him down and left the room.

We decided that for the health of everyone in our family, Micaiah has GOT to be around other people, especially grandparents, and know that they can care for him, too. So, we implemented some changes this past week that, I believe, are going really well.

The first is that at least once a week, I will take him over to Hart's mom's house for an afternoon, so that I can have a time to run errands alone and he can be used to being somewhere without me. Hart's parents are AMAZING with Micaiah. He loves being at their house and in their pool (yes, Micaiah has already gone swimming in 80 degree water...he LOVED IT!) and he absolutely loves his Pops, too. (Thank you for being such amazing grandparents, too, and for all the babysitting help!) Once my mom is done with dance, I plan to do the same with her this summer since she will be home in the afternoons, too.

I still can't get Micaiah to sleep other places, but at least he is getting used to those that love him so dearly.

The second change is that I am now offering one feeding per day in a sippy cup, which is formula. I am burned out with breastfeeding. I am tired of it always having to be ME that feeds him, but I don't want to completely give it up yet, so I am trying to do something I should have been doing from the start and that is offering a bottle (in this case, a sippy) of milk once a day. Plus, I had to turn down a couple Sub jobs at Heritage recently, because my son won't drink from anything, but mama.

Hart's mom found these soft spouted sippy cups from Dollar General that are made by Fisher-Price and they have been incredible for Micaiah. He loves to drink out of them, which is a HUGE success, especially because it has a spout on it. I have been doing this consistently for 3 days after his naps the last several days and the first day he drank 4 oz, the second only 3 oz, but the 3rd day, he drank near 5 oz out of the sippy. I am shocked that he likes formula now, when he used to balk at the taste of it, but I tried doing breastmilk in it and he got angry and threw it on the floor. Ha! I think he knew what my milk tasted like and did NOT like what was going on. So, this new success is actually going to be GREAT for me, because that means I don't have to worry about pumping.

I realize this is getting long, but I have to write this all down, so that if we have more children, I have it here. 

As far as nursing goes, I had moved to a 4 hour schedule by around 7 months when he dropped the catnap, and we did that for a little while, but I don't know if only nursing him 4 times was enough for him. I also realized that as far as naps go, he wasn't sleeping as well as I would have liked, so I decided to leave the last part of Baby-wise in the dust and change up the Eat/Wake/Sleep routine. I changed to nursing him around his naps, which is actually more of what those in Baby-wise would call "snack-nursing." I am finding that it really isn't like snacking. Micaiah is just a big eater. He's a big boy. He will pretty much take full feeds even close together. I don't know how long I will continue this, but it helped us to establish a 2 (long) nap routine faster, in my opinion.

[I am now completely convinced that Baby-wise is a complete load of bull. Sorry, if you love it! I will save my ranting on why in another post, but to be completely honest, my child has thrived in almost EVERY area where I have stopped doing BW. It really is natural to do an Eat/Wake/Sleep cycle and I do agree with that and think overall that is the best way to do things. Honestly, I don't think that is Baby-wise, it's more common sense.]

Anyways, so I nurse Micaiah right now, about 5 times.

Our day looks like this:
7:15 am - Wake, nurse
8:00 am - Solids, cereal & fruit
9:00/9:15 - 11:00/11:15 -Morning Nap
12:00 - 12:15 - Solids, veggie jar
1:15 - nurse before nap, this is sometimes just a little "snack nurse", I may change to a sippy as he gets more proficient with it
1:30 - 3 - Afternoon Nap
3:30 - Sippy of formula/afternoon snack if he seems hungry (Right now, I may still offer nursing AFTER if he doesn't drink a lot of formula until he gets better at it).
5:30 - Solids
6:30 - Nurse & then Bedtime

New things he is doing at this time:
  • He started clapping his hands on his own. We sing this little song that goes like this, "Clap, clap, Clap your Hands, Clap you hands as fast as you can, Clap, clap, Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap." I have a video I want to post, it is ADORABLE.
  • He really picks things up he wants and works to get things. He isn't mobile yet, but he now tolerates being on his tummy a little more and he will roll side to side and reach WAY out to get something out of his reach...I think crawling is somewhere on the horizon. 
  • His absolute favorite things are: Abe, Mommy & Daddy, Drinking from a Cup, and Bouncing in his Jungle Bouncer
  • He likes to swing on our porch, stroller ride, and play with his toys, listen to music, and clap his hands
He is pretty much the biggest light of our life, besides Jesus. We are so incredibly thankful to God for the gift of this baby in our life! Please join us in praying that he will grow to love Jesus and life so much and be used by God for his glory in this world! 

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