Height: 26"
Weight: 16lbs 14oz
Head: 16 3/4"
compare to 4 months
compare to Addison 6 month
Half a Year with Eden
Once again, another month has passed by too quickly and my little Baby Punkin is already 6 months old. I remember from Addison, that the second half of the first year gets crazy. The first half, Eden was growing and growing and we were getting to know her. But the developments were spread out and more subtle.
Soon she will be eating baby food, sprouting teeth, crawling, walking, saying first words. That's all potentially to come in just the next six months.
Eating
I'm interested to see the changes in Eden's eating behavior once we begin feeding her solids. Right now, we are on a pretty good routine of her eating 3 bottles, about 12oz each day while I'm at work. She still cluster feeds on Mommy throughout the evening, but she never really eats for a very long time - just very often! Honestly, I think she could get by with 2 feedings in the evening and maybe one over night. But she just wants to be on me the whole evening. Overnight she wakes up 2-3 times. Typically midnight, 2am and 5am are her feeding times.
Sleeping
One of our challenges with Eden is a sleep schedule. I tend to prefer to follow her lead, but she's pretty inconsistent and with Addison too it makes it harder to really hunker down and create a consistent routine. About the only consistency is Eden will eat around 5-6am and then sleep until at least 8am, sometimes after 9am. I've read articles suggesting that we wake her up at the same time every morning - but the way we look at it, if she wants to get some extra sleep and gives us (Tim) a little extra time to hop in the shower or eat breakfast - then so be it!
But really, we will need to buckle down soon with nap times and bedtimes. We have developed and stuck to a bedtime routine for Eden, the issue is when it can happen. Ideally it would coincide with Addison's bedtime routine, and we've tried that but she almost never falls asleep or stays asleep if she does drift off. Our best attempt is to do it around 10pm. That's somewhat of a hassle b/c we spend a minimum of 30min putting Addison to sleep at 8pm, so we don't want our entire night being spent putting our children to bed, but that may be the reality.
We've been on a pretty good streak of getting her to sleep in her crib or pack n play around 10pm and she sleeps there until her 1am feeding. At which point I usually fall asleep while nursing so then she ends up in bed with us. I take the blame for the co-sleeping part, but it's so hard when every moment of sleep is so precious, it's so much easier to tuck her in next to me after she's fallen asleep nursing and roll back over to sleep than to get up and walk down the hall to put her in her crib, or even just the few steps to the pack n play in the corner of the room. Eden is THE WORST at transitioning once she's asleep. I swear, there's only been like 3 times where we've successfully put her down in the crib or pack n play after she's fallen asleep where she actually STAYS asleep. Seriously - wakes up every time. And wakes up WIDE awake!
Tim is getting pretty good at transitioning her. He'll pick her up off my lap and lay her into the crib. He gives her the paci and lays her on her side with his hand on her back and she holds onto his finger for a few minutes until she finally drifts back to sleep.
Funnily enough, as I type this it is 9:30pm. I nursed her at 8pm then Tim rocked her for awhile, but she was fussing. So I came in and nursed her at 8:45 for a good 20min. Attempted to put her down but she of course woke up, but thankfully did not cry. However, as soon as I came downstairs and turned on the monitor, she has fussed several times. We're crossing fingers that she will just stay asleep - the silence in between the fusses are getting longer and longer. Eeeeee!!!
What Eden Likes
Eden is actually a very simple baby. There's 99% of the time one thing she wants, one thing that will make her stop crying - Hold Her! Yup! It's that simple!
And I swear, when she's crying, it's like she's saying, "Mom..Dad. It's really not that hard. Just hold me all the time and I won't cry! I don't know why you make it so difficult by trying to put me down?"
When Mommy is around, it's typically hold me/nurse me. When Daddy's in charge, it's hold me/walk me around! Typically we do oblige, but of course there are times when we gotta put a baby down so of course then we have issues. That's why she's such a doll when we have company - b/c people are more than happy to cuddle and hold her, so she's thrilled!
Eden goes into the Jumperoo every day, but it hasn't been the hit with her as it was with Addison. She doesn't jump all that much. She just sorta bounces and looks at the toys attached. She does however, very much like being in the Bumpo chair and that is our easiest place to put her. We introduced her to the high chair as well and she loves sitting there with her leg up, just chilling out while we all eat.Eden is also a grabber! She will grab anything and everything near her. It's become quite difficult to read, look at our phones, play on the iPad while holding her b/c she will grab and swat at everything. Even while she is eating and can't even see what we are holding, her arm is going crazy swatting around.
One of her favorite "toys" is half full water bottles. She goes nuts with those things!
She's also recently become enamored with Colby Jack, much to his delight. She will grab fistfuls of his hair and likes to grab onto his ear. So far, Colby Jack has been just fine with this and stays cuddled up near her. It's very cute to see her excitement when Colby Jack comes into view!
Smiley!
Our little Eden is quite the smiler as well. It's pretty easy to get her to smile back or laugh just by making funny faces, singing songs she knows or - Daddy's favorite - eat her chin (kisses)! I love the sound of her laugh and, even though it hurts, I love how she gets so excited when we're holding her and she grabs our cheeks and squeezes with all her might and tries to eat our faces. It's those times when I want to squeeze her til she pops!!!
