Periodically I like to try to capture in text (as much as possible) what my life is like at the moment. Obviously life changes constantly around here with a growing girl, so jotting down some things along the way will help me to remember where we have been.

Currently our days start around 7am... sometimes this is closer to 8, but not usually. Lydia's demeanor upon waking ebbs and flows, but lately she's been very pleasant when she wakes up. She might stir and cry for just a second around 6 or 6:30, but then quiets down, goes back to sleep, and wakes up later cooing, squealing, laughing, and other happy noises until I go in to get her. I feed her, change her, and give her her vitamins then we proceed downstairs for a little playtime. Typically she is ready to go back to sleep by 8 (or roughly an hour after she wakes up). She'll nap for 30 minutes to an hour then our day "officially" begins.

Every day might be different from that point. Sometimes she is fussy and tired after being up for just 2 hours at a time, and other times she can go 3 or more hours. Besides the early morning one though, she typically gets 2 more naps. One is usually shortly after lunchtime and the other around 3:30. Each last for maybe an hour.

Food has kinda been an adventure. As she started eating more solids she started having issues with her poop. Without going into a bunch of details, her body just needed to adjust to the diet changes. She had been eating fruit at lunch and veggies at dinner, but now I've changed to wheat cereal mixed with apple juice for lunch and either a fruit or veggie at dinner. The apple juice seems to help her stay more regular, but now with only one additional solid meal I have a harder time giving her a lot of variety. She eats well, though, and hasn't rejected any foods I've offered her. Oddly enough she prefers baby foods to anything else I offer. The first time I let her have some smooshed up "real" banana she made the most disgusted face! I've gotten the same face letting her try apple butter and mashed potato. But packaged baby food peas? No faces there! Silly kid.

Lydia is now nursing just 5 times a day. Her pediatrician said she may drop down to 4 times when we increase to 3 solid meals each day, but at this point I'm not sure how I'd want to schedule those. Presently she nurses first thing in the morning, around 11:00 (shortly before lunch), around 2:00, around 5:00 (shortly before dinner), and then before bed. I'm contemplating dropping the 2:00 feeding and working towards a structured 3 meals a day (nursing + solids) but we'll see. She doesn't exactly "ask" to be nursed in the afternoon... I just offer and she eats. So maybe she'd be just fine if I stopped offering. We'll see. Her doctor expected we'd move up to 3 meals a day around 9 months of age, so we have another month yet to see how things go. I've only recently been able to regularly not nurse her in the late evening (before I go to bed), so I don't want to rush any more meal changes.

When she isn't sleeping or eating, Lydia is a very happy baby playing with her toys. She's content to sit on the floor with toys to shake & chew on. I try to read her books occasionally, but she will either wiggle and squirm so much that I can't hold her and read, or she will insist on eating the book instead of listening to it. Pretty much the only thing that captivates her enough for her to actually sit still is her Praise Baby DVD. She loves that thing! She also enjoys rolling around on the floor. No crawling yet, but she does a good job of rolling herself around to get to the things she wants.

She still really enjoys being out and about. Every time I take her anywhere people are always commenting about what a happy baby she is. Lately it doesn't even matter if she is tired. She'll stay up longer and still be pleasant as long as she's got lots of new and interesting things to look at. This has certainly helped our schedule be a lot more flexible!

I can't believe my baby is going to be 8 months old in a few days. I say it all the time, but this really is going sooo fast!
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1 Response
  1. Kim Neyer Says:

    I always enjoy these posts because it gives me an idea what to expect in the next few months. We are just experimenting with solids at dinner, but I think I'm going to make it more of a full meal and add cereal for breakfast when he turns 7 months. Right now we're just trying to get "open mouth & swallow" down, hehe!


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