Juliet 5-6 months

We flew from Bangkok to the US on Juliet's 5 month birthday and were literally traveling for 4 weeks straight. We made it back to Thailand 2 days before she turned 6 months. Phew! What a whirlwind! Hence why there hasn't been a 5 or 6 month blog for her until now. As any parent of young babies can understand, if you don't write it down immediately you completely forget what happened in terms of milestones. 

People ask me how I so clearly remember how old Forest was when he did XYZ and it's because I have this blog to look back on. I was an excellent documentarian! But my discipline in keeping track has definitely slipped a bit with baby #2. 

So..to the best of my remembering ability, the big events that occurred somewhere in between months 5-6 were:

-Cutting 2 teeth (first one at 4.5 months). She's cutting number 3 as we speak. Forest cut 4 teeth in a week right about this age and had 6 teeth by his 7 month bday so we'll see if she keeps up the pace with her brother. 

- Becoming mobile. Juliet is an expert army crawler. She is a champion roller. She's even a talented back scooter. 

She isn't crawling in a classical sense but as far as a milestone, her doctor says any mobility that gets them where they want to go counts. And she is getting on hands and knees more often so I think that skill will develop soon. Though Forest was also an early crawler and preferred the army crawl until 8 months or so. 

- Solidly eating solids. 

Started incorporating some purees just before 5 months and started a smidge of Baby led weaning right around 6 months and she's doing great! Her favorites are kiwi, strawberries and bananas but she hasn't turned her nose up at anything we've fed her. She gets mostly fruits and veggies but also some meats/eggs/nuts in baby safe form. We are trying to slowly introduce all the major allergens and so far she's had no issues with eggs, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, or wheat. We still need to test soy, fish and shellfish. And weirdly in our family- cinnamon (me and F have a skin allergy to cinnamon). 

- Mastered sitting up independently

- Standing well with minimal assistance 

- Starting to pull up to her knees but not to standing

 

- repeating words/sounds. Has said 'hi' on multiple occasions. Will even imitate my 3- syllable diction trying to repeat 'elephant', 'banana' 'I love you'. Here she is saying 'I am' clear as a bell. 

-Lifts her arms when she want to be picked up or reaches her arms to someone if she wants to be passed over. She does this back and forth with me and Jonathan. She's also waving. She does the open/close fist wave and a very cool hand lift wave. 

-Has started a smidge of separation anxiety. Does not appreciate being left in the room by herself for a single second. She doesn't seem care who is in the room with her, as long as she's clearly the center of somebody's universe at any given moment. 

- Is sleep trained! Woohoo!! We never had to "sleep train" Forest. He just took it easy on us. Juliet was following in his tracks but Jetlag messed her WAY up. Also while we were traveling she outgrew her bassinet and started crawling out of the dock-a-tot, so we had to cold turkey start her in the pack n play. And y'all, if she didn't start sleeping better immediately! 

She was just ready for more room to roll/crawl around and has become a frequent belly and side sleeper. I put her down awake and she puts herself to sleep for all naps and bed and does this 99.99% of the time with no protesting. She's not the most consistent when it comes to wake up times or nap lengths but overall she's becoming a pretty good sleeper (as long as you don't put her through a 12 hour time difference!). 

little thumb sucker

Routine: We are currently in a nap transition where she's dropping from 3 to 2 naps a day. Usually her wake up time and the length of her first nap dictates whether she'll need a 3rd nap or not. She has many days where she takes at least one 2+ hour nap which is incredible. It was very rare for Forest to nap much longer than an hour so I feel pretty spoiled with Juliet! 

A smooth 3-nap day goes like this:

Wake up 6:45/7 and she nurses and eats some solids

Naps 9-11- wakes and nurses/eats bottle and solids

Naps 1:30-2:30 wake and nurses

Eats bottle at 4

Naps 4:30-5

Eats solids at 6

Nurses and bottle at 6:30

7 pm bedtime

If the second nap ends closer to 3 pm then we skip the 3rd nap and go to bed at 6:30. I'm hopeful that by the time she hits 7 months she's solidly on 2 naps a day. 

Nap transitions are hard. One of the things I struggle with the most in the first few months of babyhood is the unpredictability. They develop at such a rapid rate that as soon as you think you know how the day is going to go, they switch it up on you. Once they are down to 2 naps it tends to stay that way for at least 6 months before they flip the script again. But most importantly, she's sleeping 11-12 hours most nights and with baby #2 I've made the vow: If baby sleeps well at night, I will not complain about naps! And like I said, Juliet on the whole is a good napper so I can definitely live with a little inconsistency while she transitions from 3 to 2 naps per day. 

Likes:

People. The girl is such a ham and loves attention. Her brother is her absolute favorite even though he still isn't sold on her. 

Food. Her appetite is insatiable. We always have to cut her off while she's still whining for more. 

Her bunny lovey.We lost bunny one day after picking Forest up from school and the whole community was searching for it. Happily, they were reunited the next day!

Dislikes:

The stroller. She'll tolerate it for about 40 minutes but after that starts to fuss and whine. Our nanny takes her for a walk most evenings (air quality dependent) and brings along the carrier in case Juliet throws a fit. I'd say 2/5 times Juliet is in the carrier by the time they make it home. 

Being left alone in a room. She will start protesting the second you are out of her line of vision, even if you're only sprinting to the next room to pee or fetch her bottle. I'm not sure if this is her natural personality or just a product of her environment since she has a stay at home mom AND a full time nanny to shower her with attention all day. 

She definitely needs some time to work on independent play! This is something that Forest NEVER struggled with though he had his fair share of separation anxiety (and still does to some extent). He needed me in the room but would happily explore without any input from me. We can already tell that Juliet is much more social! And don't try putting on the TV to distract her from the fact that you need to use the bathroom. Unlike her broski, she has little interest in screens at this point. A blessing and a curse. 

Biggest challenges: 

Y'all. I have a bit of PTSD from Forest's baby/toddlerhood. To say he was a handful is an understatement. I've yet to meet another child who compares to him in terms of intensity or energy. From the time he was mobile until the time he was 2.5 he was basically on 24/7 suicide watch.  He had a tendency to run after anything that caught his eye and had zero inclination for self preservation. 

I tried everything and was criticized or received well meaning unsolicited advice from people who I knew just had NO CLUE what keeping up with a child like Forest was like. I was low-key terrified that baby #2 would be the same. 

Juliet was hands down an easier itty baby. She didn't have reflux or colic, tended to enjoy sleeping, and never seemed to get overstimulated or be overly sensitive to loud noises, lots of activity, pushing her nap back by 15 minutes, etc. She handled Disneyworld like a champ whereas Forest would generally have a meltdown after a trip to the grocery store. 

But then she started crawling... 

And y'all, I have friends who legit do not baby proof their houses because their babies 'just don't show any interest in climbing the stairs' or 'just listen when I tell them no the first time' or whatever. 

That is just not destined to be either of my children. She is curious and seems to automatically hone in on the most dangerous thing in any given room and crawls there at the speed of light the moment you put her down. 

Like, is this just a normal baby thing? Or is it just my babies? Is it something about my eggs or my parenting that makes my kids have ZERO chill?I don't know but I do know I've been hit with a feeling of immense dread as she becomes more and more mobile everyday. She will no longer contentedly be carried around in my arms. She will wiggle and squirm and throw herself backwards trying to obtain her freedom. I'm hoping it's just the excitement of developing new skills and at least, unlike Forest, the energy exertion does seem to correlate to better sleep (knock on wood). 

A note on breastfeeding: I'm slowly transitioning Juliet to formula. My supply just doesn't seem to make the jump after the 4 month growth spurt, but she's continued to nurse happily so I've just been trucking along and supplementing with pumped milk. My freezer stash has just run out so we're turning more and more to formula. 

Last bottle of breast milk. Waaah. 

Right now she's about 50/50. I nurse 3 or 4 times a day, offering a bottle if she still seems hungry afterward (which she usually drains 3-4 oz of formula after so I'd say yes). She also gets a bottle of formula for one of her feedings, with no nursing. I plan on slowly stopping nursing over the next month with just maybe keeping morning and bedtime nursing session if my supply will allow that. 

Happy 1/2 birthday baby girl! You sure are a lovable little drool monster.

Disney World- Take 2.

Y'all, I have a confession to make. I'm kind of a Disney geek. Like not over the top or anything, but I do enjoy the franchise and all the trimmings. We had a very successful trip to DisneyWorld when Forest was 3 years old and visited Disney's Aulani resort on Oahu for his 5th birthday. 

When we did our DisneyWorld trip for his 3rd birthday we did all the parks except for Hollywood Studios. This time around, with the opening of Star Wars themed Galaxy's Edge, it was our main event. We bought 3 day tickets and planned day 1 for Magic Kingdom and Day 2 for Hollywood Studios leaving Day 3 open to whatever we felt like (ended up being Epcot).

So this Disney trip did not go nearly as smoothly as our last one! Differences: um, I no longer have an only child and therefore have significantly less time and energy to obsess over planning. Therefore it didn't exactly go off without a hitch.

The first day we headed to Magic Kingdom bright and early. My parents were under the weather so it was just my little gang. I did not get the memo that the Disney Marathon would be causing a major quagmire with parking and actually getting into the park. 

We had to park and then get in line to get on a bus which took 20 minutes to get us to a point that it would have taken 2 minutes to walk to just to ride the monorail to get to the park. Phew. 

We left the house at 7 and got into the park at 8:30 where we discovered the marathon had pushed back opening by an hour. True story. 

My Disney-hating husband was about ready to divorce me over this oversight. But whatever- Juliet took a nap in the carrier and the boys raced to Seven Dwarves Mine Train as soon as the ropes dropped, walking right onto the ride. We also cashed in on rider swap, which means if you have a baby or child unable or unwilling to ride, you can get a pass for the secondary parent to skip the line and get to ride it later. The left-out parent can get up to 2 additional passes so Forest always got to ride twice. Finally he saw some value in having a little sister! 

Because of all the rigamarole (more organized Disney freaks knew to avoid Magic Kingdom that morning) we ended up having the park mostly to ourselves for a few hours and walked on to most rides. Juliet did great at catnapping when she could and there were plenty of quiet tucked away areas where I could nurse her in relative privacy. Splash Mountain was closed for refurbishment so that area was our go to for nursing and napping for the day. 

(just keep walking, just keep walking)

All the Disney parks also have baby rooms with private nursing rooms but they are generally at the front of the park so I usually opted just to find a bench tucked behind a bathroom and had no issues at Magic Kingdom. 

We rode everything we wanted to until the park started to get more crowded after lunch time. We enjoyed our last fastpasses at Thunder Mountain (F's favorite of the day) and decided to quit while we were ahead and headed home to rest before the main even- Hollywood Studios- the next morning. 

So about Hollywood Studios... Not a fan. Y'all, it turns out Forest is not the only Star Wars nerd in the galaxy and lots of people are into this stuff. We read tips that the initial Galaxy's Edge crowds would die down after the marathon weekend and it was projected to have LOW crowds. Which is why we planned our entire trip home around going to Disney this week and also let Forest miss a week of school to experience this with his cousins. Spoiler alert: everyone else must have read the same tips because it was crazy packed and the lines were obnoxiously long. 

Forest posing for a picture with a Tie fighter while Jon and Juliet wait in a 2 hour long line to ride Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run

Not only that, but we were advised to show up at the park by 7 AM to have any sort of shot at riding Rise of the Resistance. You have to activate your ticket by entering the park and then sign up for a boarding group using your My Disney Experience App ASAP. We got into the park by 7:05 and still only got a guaranteed  boarding group (112) by the skin of our teeth!!!! (They only guarantee through group 116 or so). 

My nephews and parents got into early 120s groups. So whatever, huge sigh of relief that that was done.

Generally if you are at a Disney Park at opening then you can pretty much walk onto any rides or have relatively short lines for the first hour. Um, nope! All the major attractions were 1.5-2 hour lines right away and stayed that way most of the day. My normal rule is 'I don't wait in a line longer than 35 minutes' and use fast passes and early morning time to ride all the high demand rides. This strategy does not currently work at Hollywood Studios. You can only get one fastpass for Tier 1 rides (includes all Toy Story rides) and there ARE NO FASTPASSES for Star Wars rides. It's basically a socialist country and there are no loopholes. (Except for Rider Swap and single rider which we capitalized on when possible.) 

Doesn't Jonathan look so excited to be here in this moment? PS. I got us matching Disney Star Wars T-shirts, convinced my husband to actually wear his and then didn't even get a single photo. Like, what's the point? Now we have to go back...

We had a large group this day- My sister and her 4 boys, our family of 4 and my parents. From the get-go we rushed to Millennium Falcon and proceeded to wait in line for ****2 hours***. AT 7 AM!!!!! Because of rider swap and the fact that we had babies, my sister and I both got 3 extra passes apiece while Jonathan (bless his heart for not divorcing me on the spot) waited in the line with my sister's two oldest boys and Forest. At least the three kids that waited in line got to turn around a ride again with my sister and I and her 6 year old (who was scared to ride but then was easily convinced when his brothers and cousin told him how awesome it was) with the rider swap perk. My parents both went into the single rider line and went through relatively quickly. 

The two hour line let us get a very good look at all the cool details in Galaxy's Edge. 

there she is!

more fun in line

in getting low light pics of 4 boys, someone is always blurry.. 

post ride buzz- Andrew was a gunner on our mission. 

Yes, the ride is awesome! But 2 hours? Sheesh. While they waited for 2 hours, my mom, sister and I signed the younger ones up for Jedi Training, hit up Starbucks for Hollywood Studio mugs, and I tried to find a quiet space to nurse Juliet. It was not as easy as Magic Kingdom, that's for sure. There are very few benches and even fewer nooks and crannies to offer privacy. 

Later in the day I tried the baby room located in the customer service office but the two nursing rooms were already occupied. I just nursed her in the changing room but people kept coming in and out and leaving the door WIDE OPEN so I was flashing everyone whilst getting earfuls of disgruntled Disney Guests laying into the customer service team about not getting to ride Rise of the Resistance. It was a mess! Disney was giving away tickets to come back another day or Park Hopper tickets to go to another park. We only had this one day with all the cousins so we were committed to making it work! 

After Millennium Falcon, my dad took the boys to ride Star Tours before heading back to Galaxy's Edge to make their custom droids. After that, they did their Jedi Training and made their own light sabers. PS. I was mighty proud of Forest for getting up on stage to battle Darth Vader. He has no fear of the dark side but has a pretty mean case of stage fright. 

Jonathan decided to leave the park with Juliet at this point (around 3pm) and I assured him I'd be back to the condo around 6. Alas, this was not to be....

The Rise of the Resistance staff estimated our group would be called in the late afternoon. I figured this meant 4. Since Jon left, I had one extra spot using his ticket and figured we'd use 2 year old Elijah as a ploy to ride the ride using rider swap for the rest of my nephews if their group wasn't called before then. We headed over to Slinky Dog to get ice cream and wait an hour for the boys to ride with Pops and then did a round of rider swap for that as well. While they were on round 2 our boarding group came up so we dashed over to Galaxy's Edge(4:30). 

There was so much confusion about the rider swap that it took *20 extra minutes* and by that time my sister's boys group came up anyway so we got the rider swap for her and headed into the ride...just to be told we'd be in line for about AN HOUR. Like, what's even the point of a boarding group?? And we were lucky! 

You can't really tell but that mass of people is the line outside the entrance to the ride. Once you got inside the ride you had about another hour of waiting to do. 

By the time we got out of the ride at 6 pm the line was estimated to be 2.5 hours! With a boarding group! 

Needless to say, I did not get home in time to nurse Juliet before bed, and apparently she gave Jonathan a really hard time about it...My sister didn't get to even ride the ride because by the time we were done it was getting dark and they needed to drive another 2 hours to get home. 

BUUUUUUT, this was everyone's favorite ride of the day. Cost-benefit wise I didn't think it was worth it, but the boys constantly exclaiming 'This is so awesome!' during the experience helped to ease the blow. 

"This is. SO. AWESOME."

Making them happy makes me happy. I couldn't give a flip about Star Wars (shhh...don't tell Forest). 

So it was a hassle, and had  I known what a hot mess it would have ended up being, we wouldn't have gone. But we did it and we did all the things! We will not be going back anytime soon. Hopefully by the time Juliet is old enough to go back (5 years??) Star Wars mania won't be at such a fever pitch and we'll be able to experience Galaxy's Edge again in a more relaxed manner. 

LSU dominating Clemson that night really helped to refresh our spirits! 

But the long day followed by a late night made us decide to take a day off of Disney. The next day we just packed and organized and hung out at the resort. 

For the last day we decided to do Epcot because it's always the least pressurized park and we needed to restore our faith in Disney a bit. 

our only family photo of the trip

Just us and Pops for Epcot. The park didn't even open until 10 which made for a much more relaxed rope drop experience. We hit up Frozen Ever After (Juliet slept the whole time) and then enjoyed coffee and donuts the size of our heads. Off to a much better start!

Figment

Nemo

shaved ice in Japan

We easily rode all the rides we wanted to, headed to the World Showcase for lunch, and left after 1 pm to spend the rest of the day packing as we prepared to leave for Bangkok the next day. 

As we've gotten home and planned our next two vacations, Jonathan commented that somebody must have body-snatched me because I'm all adventuresome now. (By adventuresome he means booking  luxury resorts in Bali but adding in a few excursions vs just lounging poolside all day.) I told him after doing Thailand---Louisiana---Gulf coast, Florida---Disneyworld---Thailand with a 5 month old I feel like I can pretty much do anything. Next up- Phuket (without Jonathan--he has a work trip) and then BALI!!!! 

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I found this Youtube video that was very accurate. Its from Disneyland but gives you an idea of the craziness of trying to ride Rise of Resistance: