6 Months

We are overdue for an update! Greta's 6 month birthday was over a week and a half ago and she's changing so much these days she feels well on her way to 7 months old. Before I forget what happened between months 5 and 6, I'd better write her six month update!

She's getting bigger, but slowly. She's pretty well on-track when it comes to clothing (she outgrew her 3-6 month clothes around her 6 month birthday), but her measurements seem to be slowing down a bit. At her 6 month checkup she measured 25.25" in length and 13 lbs 11 oz in weight. This puts here in the 24th and 9th percentiles, respectively. She carries more of her height in a long torso, which explains why she's still outgrowing her clothing "on-target" despite being on the small side overall.

Even though she's comparatively quite small, it feels like she's getting bigger all the time.

I have heard often of parents mistakenly thinking that a baby has outgrown his/her infant car seat if  the child's feet reach the end of the seat. If Greta is in the bottom quartile for height, I can't imagine how quickly some parents must give up the infant seat unnecessarily. We still love ours!

There are three main (and major!) changes that have happened since her 5 month update.

Food
As mentioned in a previous post, Greta's first solid food was on Labor Day. We started with brown rice cereal and added squash a few days later. Since then we've been introducing something new every few days. So far (as of 9/28 at 6 months, 10 days old) she's had the following:

Grains
Brown Rice Cereal
Oatmeal Cereal

Fruits
Pears
Peaches
Bananas

Culinary Vegetables
Squash
Peas

Botanical Vegetables
Carrots
Sweet Potato

She's generally a really "good eater." We were at Ben's parents' house today and they were shocked at how much she was eating. (She seems to spit out a lot in my opinion, but I guess I don't really have any points of reference.) The only thing she hasn't seemed to like is the peas. We'll try those again when she's a bit older. To be honest, I don't really blame her. The texture of the pureed peas is much more . . . gross. I'm guessing we'll have better luck when we try them as a finger food.

Rolling
The second major development is that she's rolling a lot more now. It happened for the first time back in the fourth month, I think. Then toward the end of the 5th month, she started rolling here and there. It would always be a total surprise, though. Most of the time she'd look very much like she was going to roll, but then she wouldn't.

Fake Out -- A time when Great looked very much like she was going to roll, but did not. 

Then, at other times, I'd look down at my computer and up at her again and she'd have rolled over.

The first time she rolled from back to tummy was like this. I described it with some pictures in my Sept. 8 post. At first after that I thought she wasn't able to do it on her own -- that she'd pulled herself using the bar and it would be awhile before she could do it without grabbing onto something. But shortly after that, she started doing it here and there -- perhaps once a day from tummy to back and every other day from back to tummy (on average, of course -- it's not like she had a schedule). That stage lasted about a week.

Then on her six month birthday, she went all out.

She rolled over from tummy to back twice in one day. And acted like it was no big thing.

And ever since then it's like she leaped forward in her mobility. She will casually roll onto her belly and play for a bit, then roll onto her back for a bit, etc. While I can't say that I'm surprised by it anymore, I am still really impressed when I see her roll -- and shocked at how relaxed she is about it. The other day, I even saw her roll twice in succession (as in she rolled from back to tummy to back as though it was one move). We haven't seen her roll in order to get places yet, but I think that's coming soon.

Right now, her rolling seems to be mostly in the pursuit of toys, in which she has taken a more active interest.

She still enjoys examining them, but she picks them up herself now and passes them from hand to hand, rather than having them hang above her the way that she did when she was a four-month-old. It's weird how subtly some things change (the way that she plays, for example) versus the things that seem to change by leaps and bounds (like this whole rolling thing).

Peek-A-Boo
Speaking of things happening quickly. Greta has started playing her first game. About a week before her 6 month birthday, she started playing peek-a-boo with us. I was on the phone at the time and Ben got my attention to show me that she was playing peek-a-boo with him. She was holding a small blanket over her face and then pulling it down after being asked, "Where's Greta?"

This was a huge shock to me, as I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I had played peek-a-book with her. And I think they were all probably way back when she was 4 months old or younger. As I learned, Ben's parents had been playing some peek-a-boo with her more recently, but to our knowledge this was the first time she'd ever initiated it herself.

Building our suspense on the first evening she played peek-a-boo with us. 

It. Was. Awesome.

We captured it on video, but we don't want to post video here. If you know us in real life, just send Arden an email and we'll send you the link.

I can totally understand why this never gets old when you're the kid's parent. I was so excited to interact with her in this new way. There were so many characteristics that were conveyed through that game that I hadn't seen from my baby until that point -- humor, language, timing, communication. She seems to be experimenting with how long to wait before pulling the cloth away (and smiles more when she builds our suspense with an extra beat or two).

Interestingly, in the days that followed, I learned that although she seemed perfectly capable of grasping the concept of the game if she initiated it herself, she wouldn't play it if you put the cloth over her face. I found that if I handed the cloth to her, she'd put it over her face and play. But if I put it over her face, she'd just lie there, uncontrollably wiggling and giggling in anticipation of you taking it off of her. It was hilarious! At first, I thought that she didn't know that she could take it off if she wasn't the one that put it there. Later, though, I noticed that she'd sometimes do that to herself -- she'd put the cloth over her face and then if she let go, it was like she'd forget that she'd put it there. She'd know it was there (hence all the giggling), but no matter how many times you'd ask, "Where's Greta?" she wouldn't seem to know that she can take it off for the "big reveal."

Last Saturday was particularly amusing. Ben and I were getting ready to leave and Greta was playing on the floor. I was in the dining room folding laundry when I heard the familiar sound of her excited giggles. I went in to find her wiggling and giggling with the cloth on her face -- as though she was just waiting to surprise an unsuspecting parent.  

This is golden. Any second, they're going to come in here all "Where's Greta?" And they'll be so confused, but I'll be right here under their noses. Oh, this is gonna be so good!  

I have to say, she's actually pretty successful with the humor.  I'm laughing!

So many new things!

I think one of my favorite things about solids is that it's like there's a new milestone every 4 days -- and Mama and Papa get to decide when it happens. First time eating pears? Yes, I think we'll do that today!

After the brown rice cereal on Labor Day, we progressed to butternut squash on Thursday and then today it was pears. She had what seemed to be teething pain not too long after the pears, but then while I was standing her up on my lap, she made her "I'm pooping" face and so I think it was stomach upset. When we changed her diaper, we were shocked to see a fully-formed stool. She's never had a poop that could be described as anything approaching "solid" before. I had no idea that after only one week of a few tablespoons a day of solids, things could change so quickly!

Speaking of milestones that we had no control over, Greta rolled from back to front today. She was on her back playing in her gym and just hanging out, stretching on her side and pulling on the arches above her gym.

She was making funny faces at me while she arched her back and stretched, so I tried to capture a picture and this was what I got. 

Ben and I were just chatting while she was hanging out. Ben was on his computer and my view of her was blocked by the coffee table, so I was just checking on her now and then. A few minutes later, I looked over at her and saw her like this:

So Proud!

She really did look amazingly proud. And then she just hung out in tummy time for awhile and smiled at us and looked around back and forth between us as we ooh'd and aaah'd over her hard work.

Yay, baby! Big Day!

Big Day

Today, to commemorate the struggles and successes of labor unions throughout history, Greta ate 4 teaspoons of brown rice cereal.

She's five and a half months today and we decided this past week that we were ready for her to start solids. I'd always assumed that we'd wait until six months, as per the guidance of the WHO, but she just seemed really ready. Also, my supply dropped quite a bit in the last month since I've been back at work, and I've been worried that I can't pump enough for her. Best to get some extra calories in her, since she's already a pretty small kid!

Sure enough, she seemed pretty  ready. She opened her mouth eagerly, grabbed the spoon and held it in her mouth, and made little "mmmm!" noises. Yes, a lot of it still ended up on her chin and the bib, but to be honest I think she consumed 80-90% of what we gave her.

And once we were done she proceeded to have a mini-meltdown. Mama and Papa had teased her with just a small amount of food and now she was SO sad. As soon as I got her nursing, she ate hungrily, which was a relief because I'd worried she wouldn't be hungry. We'll have to experiment with timing milk vs. solids. This time it definitely didn't decrease her intake of breastmilk (which is good), but in the future when she's eating more (we gave her a third of a "serving" this time) we may need to give her solids after nursing, or at other times of day. Right now, she typically is willing to nurse right after a nap, no matter how long it's been since she nursed last. So maybe giving her solids right before a nap would ensure that she'd be hungry for milk after the nap regardless of how much was still in her tummy?

This is a whole new world for us! Any advice is appreciated!