As I write this, it's 6:11 in the morning. Juliet has been awake off an on since 5 AM but I'm a stubborn mom and won't get her out of bed a minute before 6:30. I'm hoping eventually she'll get the message and just start sleeping in, but this tactic never worked with her brother (who still wakes up obnoxiously early) and this early waking nonsense has been going on for a few weeks now with no end in sight. Waaaaaah.
But on the plus side, Forest is usually done with his homeschooling assignments before his classmates are even awake. Yay us.
Ok, back to Juliet. She turned 7 months 2.5 weeks ago and as you can see, crap has hit the fan since them. Here's a quick snapshot of what she's up to:
Milestones:
-Pulling up to stand
-Cruising a bit
-Getting from crawling to sitting position and vise versa
-Pincer grasp (picking up items with thumb and forefinger) allowing her to self feed much more efficiently
-Mastered drinking from straw/food pouch
-Crawling more on hands and knees though she prefers the army crawl.
-I swear she's saying words with intention- or trying at least. Brother sounds more like 'barba' but she says it every time she sees Forest so I feel like it counts. She also has clearly said 'Dad/dada' when seeing Jonathan and is attempting to repeat 'ball', 'book' 'done', 'bottle', 'hi' 'yea' and more. Let the record show, she has not attempted 'momma' yet.
Routine:
We successfully transitioned to 2 naps. Daytime sleep is going mostly well, but early wakings are slowly killing me. I don't get her out of bed before 6:30 but she's usually up by 6, sometimes even earlier.
She's also stopped with the mega 2+ hour naps unless she's having a growth spurt. They are usually 1.5ish hours on the money with a shorter or longer nap thrown in once or twice a week. She's phased out about 1 hour of sleep per day since turning 7 months and I'm not happy about it. But I know it could always be worse. A smooth day goes a bit like this:
-6:30- Wake up, nurse and eat solids
-9-10:30- Nap, wake up and has 6 oz bottle and more solids
-1pm- Nurses
-1:50- 3:15- Nap 2
-4pm- 6 oz bottle
-5:30- solids
-6:20- Start bedtime routine (bath, jammies, nurse, bottle)
-6:50- in bed and generally goes right to sleep. She mostly sleeps about 11-11.5 hours but lately has been having this early waking issue where she'll poop herself awake at 5 and then sleep on and off until 6ish.
Likes and Dislikes are pretty much bang on the same as they were a month ago.
Likes:
Her momma. Juliet is super social and smiley but has started showing a strong preference for momma. She will just smile, coo and bat her eyes at everyone but if they dare to take her out of my arms she starts protesting strongly. She also cries hysterically if I walk out of her field of vision. Fun times.
Her brother. She may be most attached to me, but she only has eyes for her brother. Anytime he's in the room she gets this goofy gaga look on her face and just starts giggling and smiling uncontrollably at everything he says and does. She especially loves his hair. I don't blame her. I love the stuffing out of him too.
Food. She's a hungry girl and will shovel food into her mouth. We have to be careful to only give her one bite at a time otherwise she will stuff every single piece in her mouth at the same time. She gets very impatient and growls for more, even before she's swallowed the bite she has. She gets visibly excited anytime she sees a bottle, nursing pillow or she gets strapped into her high chair. Her entire body starts shaking and she kind of bounces up and down.
Bunny lovey. Don't try to push any other stuffy on her. We even bought a replacement from jellycat but they didn't have the same color. One day Forest secretly decided bunny wanted to come to school with him and stowed her away so when I couldn't find it at naptime I brought out the spare and Juliet was not fooled. Only napped 30 minutes.
Water. We've started taking her swimming and she loves it! She also has moved into the big tub (because she was crawling out of her baby tub) and greatly enjoys splashing around.
 |
| such a pretty baby! |
Dislikes:
When momma puts her down or walks away or hands her to someone else. How dare I?
The stroller. I'm not sure it's the stroller or Bangkok's soaring temps and obnoxious humidity she hates, but either way, it's not a relaxing experience for anybody .
Sitting still. She's as curious, fearless and energetic as her brother was at this age. It's exhausting.
As far as breastfeeding goes- I'm pretty much all dried up. I'm still nursing 3 times a day but for two of those feedings, I'm offering a bottle afterward which she is guzzling down, letting me know my supply is basically nada. We left her with our nanny one night last week and I pumped when I got home and got one measly ounce. I'm totally fine with formula and I way surpassed my goal of breastfeeding for 2 months, but Juliet just hasn't handled formula as well as Forest and the early morning poop disruptions are a major bummer (started when we switched to majority formula). I was considering trying to switch back to exclusively breastmilk but I think my supply is just too far gone.
Either way- baby girl is growing like a weed. Currently she's about 18.5 lbs and 27.5 inches putting her around 70-75% percentile across the board. Not bad for a low birth weight baby! She's in 6-9 or 6-12 month sizes and even starting to sprout some hair. Her hair is coming in dark brown, so we'll see if it stays that way. She's Forest's twin but leans a bit more Doublin than Perry I think.
