Category: L

Lana turned 8 months old last Friday, and this has definitely been one of her best months yet. Why, you ask…

SHE SLEEPS NOW!!!!!

I gave that its own line because I can NOT stress enough how significant this fact is. You may recall from her 7 month post how I lamented the dire state into which her nighttime sleeping had fallen. Waking 2, sometimes 3, times a night, with nursing often being the only thing that would get her back to sleep. I was seriously about to lose my mind. Again.

Well at that sick checkup she had the day after her 7 month birthday, I told her pediatrician about this and she was really surprised. I was happy that she found it odd too, and I wasn’t just being a crazy sleep-deprived mother. So we decided to wean Lana off breast milk and nursing all together and switch to formula. I was very ready to be done breastfeeding this time anyway, so I was totally fine with this plan of action.

It worked. Plain and simple, I’m convinced this is why she now sleeps as well as she does. It took about a week to get her drinking all formula and no breast milk, which was much faster than I thought it would be. I was very hopeful she’d be fully weaned by the time we undertook our massive road trip to Colorado almost 2 weeks ago now, and she beat that time frame by a mile.

So now at bedtime she takes a 7-8 oz. bottle, gets a good burp out, I have her give everyone a goodnight “kiss”, then I put her to bed in her crib awake with her big green monkey. She rolls over, puts her little thumb in her mouth, hugs her monkey tight, and that’s that for the night. Sometimes she’ll cry out a little as I’m putting her down, but that usually subsides within just a few minutes. I keep a night light on for her, and for 2 solid weeks now she hasn’t awoken once to eat in the middle of the night. In fact, I’ve only had to actually get her out of her crib one time in that span to calm her, and it was almost dawn so I just put her in bed with me and she went right back to sleep.

This is a HUGE breakthrough! We’re finally getting some sleep, and within the past couple days I’ve even stopped making a small bottle to keep in the fridge overnight just in case she wakes. The putting her to bed awake too is new, which I started when we switched to formula. Having to bounce her to sleep in my arms for a good hour every night after her bedtime nursing, then worrying that she would wake up when I put her in her crib was getting mind-blowingly annoying.

I hope I’m not jinxing us by putting this out into the universe, but I think we now have a baby girl who sleeps through the night!! If you have any confetti and noisemakers, please feel free to throw it and use them at this point in the story.

Her naps are still good, as they have been for awhile. Most days consist of a morning, afternoon, and evening nap, unless I’m at work. Then it’s usually just an afternoon and evening nap. There’s just way too much going on in the kids room to doze. She’s got stuff to see!

So other than sleeping, let’s see here… She’s now up to 2 full meals of solids daily, lunch and dinner. We’ve been out of cereal for awhile, so right now it’s all fruits and veggies, but I just got a tub of steel cut oats to make her some more oatmeal. So far I’ve made her oatmeal, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, pears, and bananas, and she’s had a couple other fruits and veggies in store-bought baby food when we were traveling. She also gets whole milk yogurt and applesauce. I was going to do apples too, then remembered from making them for Della that the time and effort required to bake, peel, and sufficiently mash up apples results in one simple thing – applesauce. Buy it. Just get the all-natural kind without high fructose corn syrup. She’s seemed to love everything to this point, too, which is great. I give her a little water from a bottle after each meal. Then she takes 3-4 bottles of formula each day, depending on what time she gets up in the morning.

She’s more active than ever, and no, I no longer leave her unattended on top of anything. She has added to her army crawl of a few weeks ago, and now gets completely up on all fours and rocks back and forth. I’ve been saying it for weeks now, but she really is about to crawl any day. And I have a feeling standing then walking will not be far behind. Just today at work the girls said they left Lana sitting in her highchair after lunch because she’s so fast moving around the room. Yes, yes she is. This is a girl on the move!

Blowing raspberries is her new favorite thing. I know I mentioned she did that last month, but it is now in full effect. Throughout our entire road trip the past week and a half we heard endless strings of baby spit coming from the backseat. It’s rather hysterical, because you simply can’t help but smile.

She also likes to play monkey-see monkey-do with her big sister. The girls sit next to each other at meals, and the other week I heard Lana imitating Della’s coughs. D would cough, then L would look over, watch her, smile, and do her own little fake cough. These 2 crack me up. Most of the time.

She has 2 teeth now, right in the middle of her bottom row. I thought I saw the very tip of the top right one poking through on her 8 month birthday, but I haven’t been able to get a good enough look to confirm or refute that. Every time I try to lift her lip to get a good look the little dragon squirms away. We’ll find out for sure soon enough.

Definitely able to sit now. She still doesn’t get up into a sitting position from her stomach or back yet, but if you sit her down she’ll stay there for a long time now. She can also pull herself back to a sitting position if she starts leaning in one direction or another. Her favorite move is to tip forward into “crawl” mode from a sitting position and take off across the room after a toy, Della, a bug, whatever happens to catch her eye.

Umm, I think that’s about it. The posterity stats – size 3 diapers and size 4 overnights (in Seventh Generation. other brands she can still fit into size 2 and size 3 overnights); mostly sizes 9-12 months for clothes, although a few 6 month things still fit; and we’ve been done with drool bibs for awhile. Her official growth stats will come next month after her 9 month well check.

I probably say it every month, but she really does get more and more fun every day. Especially now that I’m regaining sanity from actually getting some sleep! My little blue-eyed beauty.

And finally, the Della/Lana 8 month comparison…

Lana turned 7 months old on Tuesday. Slow down!

We don’t have another well check until 9 months, so no official measurements again this time. However, I do know her weight is 16 lbs. 9.75 oz., because she had her first sick trip to the doctor last night. But let’s see what’s changed since last month with this latest update.

Let’s start with sleep. It’s been nonexistent lately. I have no idea why, but Lana has apparently forgotten everything she learned about sleeping through the night. She’s done it maybe twice in the past month plus. Why? What’s going on in there? Growing, teething, just too busy to sleep? I don’t know what the issue is, but I sure hope it corrects itself soon.

I have tried to cut out all feedings during the night, but sometimes she just can’t be soothed back to sleep, so nursing is my last resort. I know she needs to relearn how to put herself back to sleep, but I can only take so much high pitched screeching in the middle of the night, let alone the other sleepers in the house. I am so ready to get her crib out of our room, too.

Fortunately her naps are still pretty good. I’ve noticed a few times she strays from her solid 3-nap-a-day schedule and takes a longer late morning nap paired with a longer late afternoon nap, so maybe she’s starting to transition from 3 naps down to 2. Most days, though, she still gets in all 3.

Eating. I started her on a meal of solids for dinner shortly after 6 months, and just this week I added a second meal of food in there. So now she gets some baby cereal for lunch and sweet potatoes for dinner, with some more cereal if she’s hungry enough. Right now it’s just sweet potatoes because that’s all I’ve made so far, but she also has eaten and loved baby food pears and apples. I mashed up some banana for her the other night, but she didn’t like it at all. So I think I’m going to bake and mash some apples for her, then maybe try throwing in some green veggies after that.

I keep meaning to look for a baby food cereal that I can make with oatmeal, too, because we have a ton of it in the house and it has to be cheaper than buying box after box of baby cereal. So she’s up to 2 meals of solids a day (sitting in the highchair even!) and down to roughly 4 milk feedings a day, either nursing or from a bottle at work.

Movement. This kid is all over the place! She’s been rolling for a couple months now, and that has been her major mode of transportation thus far. She can roll and spin to get to anything, and just the other day I saw her pull herself along with her hands too. So now that she’s added that weapon to the arsenal, she can seriously get around the house.

We definitely cannot leave her on top of anything anymore – changing table, Della’s bed, even our bed. The other day I went into the bathroom, and when I came back she had moved all the way from the dead center of our king sized bed and had 1 leg hanging off the edge. Yikes!

She isn’t crawling yet, but it has to be soon. She will plant 1 foot and 1 knee, but she hasn’t been able to get up on her hands while in that stance yet. She still keeps her head down, but a few days ago I saw her trying to figure that part out. She also rocks back and forth when she’s on her stomach and pushed up on her arms, which is so cute. It’s like she’s dancing, because she does it all over the place.

She still loves being in the jumperoo, and has been able to spin herself all the way around in the seat for a while now. She’s not a big fan of the playpen, but sometimes she’ll stay in there for a little chunk of time playing with all her toys. Thankfully she loves our new jogging stroller. I have taken her and Della for a ton of rides in it now, and I’ll also buckle Lana in there alone if I need to be outside and she’s not napping. She’ll happily chew on her toys and watch the outdoors for hours.

Personality. Getting bigger by the day still. She talks constantly, and her little strings of baby gibberish are simply divine. She blows raspberries all the time, and her belly laughs are the best. When Della tickles her or makes her laugh, she lets out the loudest chuckles, which warm my heart to hear. She still doesn’t like to be ignored and will let you know it, but her smiles far outnumber those squeals now.

She finally got her first tooth! It just broke through 1 week ago, and I’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time. Della got her first tooth at about 5.5 months, so we’ve been on high alert. Especially since Lana has been such a drooling fool for months now. At first I thought it was bugging her quite a bit, but now I don’t really think so. I think that’s just her normal persona shining through, ha!

She sits pretty well assisted, but still can’t sit on her own yet. She sure tries, though. One of her favorite moves is to try and pull herself up to a sitting position when she’s lying down or when you lay her down on something. She’s going to have abs of steel by age 9 months! Her thumb is still her best friend, which is great for me. I can tell she’s not really waking up in the night when I hear her little plug going in her mouth.

Now for the monthly collage. She’s really starting to grow, and I even brought down all of Della’s old 12 month summer clothes the other day. Lana easily fits into all the 6-9 month stuff, and some 12 month things are even close to fitting. So fortunately it doesn’t look like I’ll have to buy a whole new summer wardrobe for her. And just for posterity, she wears size 2 diapers.

Here’s our 7 month comparison too – Della on the left, Lana on the right. These are some seriously cute kids, eh? Didn’t Della look like a little doll? Weird.

 

 

Lana turned 6 months old this past Sunday. A full half year old!! Once her touchy newborn stage ended, the time has definitely started to speed up.

We had her next well-baby checkup yesterday, complete with another round of shots, so here are the official 6 month stats:

• Height:  27″ (90% – her height finally caught up!)
• Weight:  15 lbs. 1.5 oz. (25-50%)
• Head:  43 cm (50-75%)

Other than growth, not a whole lot has changed since her 5 month stats.

She still only sleeps through the night sometimes, which sucks, but what can ya do? I’ve actually contemplated moving her crib into Della’s room now before she even sleeps consistently until morning. Maybe it would help keep them both calmer through the night knowing the other is right there? Maybe not; we’ll see.

She no longer sleeps swaddled at all. I just wrap the swaddle sides around her middle to keep her a little warmer than using simply a blanket, since apparently winter is never going to end this year. We still have to use the stupid space heater in our room at night for her because it continues to get so cold.

Naps have become pretty scheduled, though. She generally takes a mid-morning nap for roughly an hour, then an afternoon nap starting somewhere between 1-2 that can last a good 2-3 hours, and then an evening nap for another 30-60 minutes. At least we can almost always count on those, even when we never know if we’ll be awakened at night or not.

She’s still exclusively breastfed, eating 6-7 times a day. I tried rice cereal again the other week, and she had no interest. So then I tried baby food bananas last weekend, which she seemed to enjoy more. She still doesn’t really get the hang of the spoon at all, though, so we haven’t implemented solids on a regular basis yet. Fine by me. And the doctor said that’s fine too, whenever she’s ready.

Rolled back to front 5 days after she turned 5 months old and hasn’t stopped since. I say she’s the most mobile non-crawling baby I’ve ever seen. She can roll, spin, and reach her way to nearly anything she wants. I had to put away her playmats and bring the baby jail playpen back down from the attic, because she literally ends up halfway across the room on the hardwood floor every time we put her down on the mat now. It’s not her favorite place, but maybe it’ll grow on her. If not, I guess we’ll just let her roll around on the floor, which she actually doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

As I typed that paragraph, she scooted on her back from the middle of the couch to ram her head into the arm by arching her back and planting her little feet. On the move, that’s for sure.

She absolutely loves the jumperoo. She can now spin the seat in different directions so she can see what else is on the tray. In particular, she loves looking at her reflection in the little whale shaped mirror with the bar and sliding rings above it. She will happily stay in there for long stretches of time, which is very helpful when I’m trying to get something done around the house or need to tend to Della. Unfortunately it usually bounces the poop right out of her, as it is not uncommon for her to be found sitting in a blowout by the end of her jump sessions.

Still very much makes her presence known. She likes to scream for no real reason other than to ensure you don’t forget she’s lying there. It’s not crying, it’s just screaming. I guess she wants to see just which octave she can hit. We’re also starting to hear some consonant sounds in all that chatter. The other day at work one of the girls came out of the kids room carrying Lana and said they were warming up her bottle because she was getting very vocal. Yep, that’s a nice way of saying she was screaming at them to eat, ha!

Some random fun facts from her sixth month of life – she wears size 2 diapers and is pretty much out of her size 3m clothes. There are still a couple shirts and pajama onesies that fit from the 3m era, but the vast majority of her clothes are now 6m or some 6-9m. She unfortunately has her first real illness, a case of croup. I had a feeling that’s what it was when she started having a harsh, hoarse cough Sunday morning, and the doctor confirmed it yesterday. I just hope her cough and congestion clear up soon, because the poor little thing sounds awful.

She’s gotten to be so much fun. She laughs out loud when I nuzzle in to tickle her cheeks and neck. She kicks her little legs to splash all over the place when I give her a bath. She smiles as big as her head and starts panting when she sees us in the morning or when I come into their room at work. I just love it, and I simply cannot get enough of her.

Now just for grins, here’s a comparison shot of Della at 6 months on the left and Lana at 6 months on the right. Similar or not?

Lana turned 5 months old today. That’s almost half a year!

We don’t have another well check until 6 months, so no official stats this time. But here is what I can tell you…

Sleeping. Well let’s see. I’d still call it hit or miss. She has now slept through as many as 5 nights in a row, but it’s not enough to call it a nightly occurrence. I have stopped changing her diaper if she wakes to eat, though, so that helps cut down the awake time in the middle of the night for both of us.

I think she did go through a bit of 4 month sleep regression, which was a nasty spell. For weeks she’d wake up crying within an hour of being put to bed not really needing anything but being lulled back to sleep, then wake again once or twice during the night to fuss and/or eat. The worst night of it all was the first night Ryan was out of town last week, and that was awful. Fortunately after that she started her 5 night sleep stretch, so hopefully she was getting the last of it out of her system. (KNOCK ON WOOD!!!)

I guess not sleeping consistently through the night at 5 months isn’t the end of the world, but I can’t help comparing it to Della, who slept through by 3 months and never looked back. Ah well. Lana is definitely her own person, that’s for sure.

Her napping is pretty good. She still usually gets 3 naps in a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. Sometimes if we’re at work she’s too busy to take a morning nap, so then she tends to take a longer one once we get home and I feed her, essentially combining her morning and afternoon ones. That works fine for me.

Eating. Still exclusively breastfed, eating every 2-3 awake hours during the day. I did try giving her her first taste of rice cereal a few weeks ago because she’s now so interested in watching us eat, but she didn’t really enjoy it. She was more enticed by the prospect of chewing on the spoon rather than actually trying to eat. No biggie. We didn’t start Della on solids regularly until around 6 months I think. It’s also just easier right now not having to worry about both nursing and actual feeding. I’m lazy, remember?

Physicality. This girl is constantly moving and wiggling! I call her my little squirm, because that’s what she always does. She can roll front to back no problem, and she is so close to rolling back to front as well. When on her back she’ll pull her legs up into a little bowling ball shape and tip all the way onto one side, but she can’t quite get her arms underneath her correctly to complete the roll.

I swear she’s ready to take off crawling, too. She can practically get onto her hands and knees when she’s on her stomach, and I’ve seen her do a pretty good downward dog imitation too. I looked over at her one day and she was in baby tripod mode with her feet planted on the blanket, pushing her tiny butt up into the air. Any time now, I tell ya. I keep forgetting I can’t leave her on the changing dresser anymore.

She’s pretty good at sitting with assistance, but when I try to have her sit by herself she still readily tips over. Last night I had her sitting in the boppy pillow on the couch, with the boppy around her stomach to kind of barricade her in. She liked it for a little while, but then she toppled over again so I just put her back on her play mat.

She also has the strongest abs ever. She can almost pull herself up to a sitting position from lying down as you start to pick her up. A budding athlete maybe?

Personality. Big. And loud. Lana chatters and shouts nonstop. And I mean shouts. She’ll be playing on her play mat, yanking at all the toys dangling from the arches above her, and I’ll hear all these high-pitched squeals and yells coming from her. Della and I always say she’s talking to her guys. I swear she’s commanding them, “Get down here and get in my mouth!!”

She makes the most adorable faces with the hugest smiles, too. Her tongue is her new favorite accessory, and watching her stick it out in all different directions is hysterical. She has learned to blow real raspberries too, which I love. Something must always be in her mouth, much more so than I ever remember with Della, and I mean always. She will literally lunge at whatever passes in front of her face to try and grab it with her gums.

And she’s a thumb sucker. I actually don’t mind this at all, because it’s much easier to deal with than having to replace the damn pacifier eighty billion times a day/night. I keep one arm out of her swaddle at night so she can get her thumb to calm her when she rustles around. Works like a charm. I sucked my thumb for years and my teeth are just fine.

I took the throw pillow out from under the jumperoo a few weeks ago, and she can now fully bounce herself with her little toes touching the floor. She was in there last night jumping and squealing with delight. So incredibly cute.

I think those are the main points for now. This one just keeps getting better and better, my little bugaboo. My sweet baby girl.

 i swear, all of these really are the same child…

 

Lana turned 4 months old about a week and a half ago, but the girls and I were on vacation so I haven’t gotten around to updating ye old blog until now.

Here are the stats from her 4 month checkup:

• Height:  25.5″ (50-75%)
• Weight:  13 lbs. 8.25 oz. (50-75%)
• Head:  50-75%

Her doctor was again surprised that her height wasn’t in a higher percentile, but I’m sure she’ll sprout soon enough. She did say, however, that Lana is a perfect child, so I’ll take that. She thinks the bright blue eyes will stay, too, about which I’m thrilled.

This past month was a big one. We’ve dropped the pacifier (except for emergency public situations), seen her roll over from front to back for the first time and many times since, heard her first real laugh, and went on her first airplane. She’s also starting to string together multiple nights of sleeping all the way through, which makes me very happy.

I said she was getting more vocal in her 3 month stats post, but now she really has a lot to say. She still wakes up with huge smiles and usually just starts from there. Coos, gurgles, squeaks, shouts, na-nas… I love it. I say she’s telling everyone her “stories”. The best is when she gets so animated with her toys trying to get them in her mouth; she honestly shouts at them. Della says she’s talking to her guys when she does it, since that’s what I call the toys that hang from the arches on her playmat.

Her hands are constantly in her mouth, as is anything she can get in her hands. Squeaky balls, rings, chew rattles, you name it. She especially enjoys sucking on your finger. So if you pick up my baby, just wash your hands first, because there’s about a 150% chance she will grab your hand and shove it in her mouth. It’s hilarious, because sometimes she actually lunges at it like a little piranha.

I swear those blue eyes just keep getting bigger, too. She is constantly looking around; loves watching faces and mouths; and makes the cutest “biggie eyes” face you’ve ever seen. These faces are often accompanied by a constant drool stream, which is her new favorite accessory. I can’t see any teeth poking through in there yet, but all this drool might be a sign that they’re getting close. We are now in bib territory.

Her first (and second) airplane ride last week went better than I could have ever expected. On the way out to Tucson she took a bottle before takeoff, sucked on her pacifier (yes, i caved and gave it to her to prevent a screaming fit) for a few minutes after that, then slept on Grandma’s lap for the entire rest of the 4 hour flight. Hallelujah! On our return trip she was equally as pleasant. She was asleep in the carrier on me for takeoff and the first part of the flight, then ate a bottle, played with Grandma again for awhile, took another bottle shortly before landing, and didn’t make a peep the whole time. Whew!

She still can’t reach the floor in the jumperoo, so the throw pillow remains under her feet. She is, however, already growing out of some of her 3 month clothing – a lot of pj’s have returned to the attic storage, and a couple cute little outfits won’t be far behind. She is in the process of switching up to size 2 diapers, too. Growing like a little flower, I tell ya.

She is the cutest thing ever, and I just love how she smells. I can still get her to nap on my shoulder sometimes, which I cherish. Since ditching the pacifier, naps are still a little hit or miss, but she generally takes one during the early-mid part of the day (sometimes morning and afternoon) and almost always an evening one.

Bedtime is still usually anytime between 8-9, then I cross my fingers that she sleeps through the night. On vacation she slept through 5 out of 7 nights, but since we’ve been home she hasn’t had a repeat performance. I think she has had a little bit of a cold though, with some congestion and hoarse cries, so that could be the culprit. But I have cut out the diaper change when she wakes during the night, so if I hear her starting to squeak or cry, I just feed her and get her back to sleep as quickly as possible.

We’re still doing all breastmilk, which I’ll probably continue for a little while. She is very interested in watching you eat now, so I did try a little rice cereal the other night. She was much more interested in chewing on the spoon than actually getting anything to stay in her mouth, so I’ll wait a little bit before trying again. No rush for me on that one.

Her cranky spells are much fewer and far between now, which is a nice change. I say she’s mellowing in her old age. She is very content playing on the floor now, either on her stomach or back, as long as she has plenty of toys on which to chew. She’ll start to fuss and let you know it’s time to pick her up when she’s had enough or when she gets tired still, but it’s fortunately nothing like it used to be.

I think those are the highlights for this month. Here are the monthly comparison pictures so far – I swear she looks like a completely different baby! Her hair looks like it’s getting red in the 4 month shot, but it’s not really. It’s still dark brown, there’s just so much less of it now. I do love this one so, my sweet baby girl.