Six months!
What a milestone! We have finally reached six months - the euphoric point at which my burden of baby feeding drops tremendously with the introduction of solids. We are entering the glorious era of “dual fuel,” in which I don’t have to worry about always making sure husband knows which bottle in the fridge is the next for consumption - and bribing him to deal with the trauma of trying to get Annika to take it - before I take ANY time at all for myself. But now - baby’s hungry and Mama’s not around? Mash that baby some banana and call it good!
Part of why nursing for the first six months is so exhausting for me is the mental weight of knowing that baby nutrition is 100% my responsibility - ergo, if she doesn’t gain weight, it’s my fault. While that’s of course not true, it’s how I end up feeling, and the responsibility always feels very heavy to me - I really have to be on my game, and I don’t get any breaks EVER. Even if I’m not nursing, I’m managing pumping, so it’s not a break - I’m not allowed to tune out and do whatever for any longer than about 2 hours at a time. If I miss a pumping session, it just becomes a *giant* pain for me to squeeze in multiple additional pumping throughout the rest of the day in order to get enough milk to send with her to daycare the next day. But now! Now! The beauty! If something goes wrong for a pumping (or nursing) session, no worries! She is perfectly happy to be fed something else :)
We spent the last two weeks of Annika’s fifth month taking a giant family trip driving the entire way around Lake Superior, so I didn’t really start her on solids until this week. I brought a few “packaged” baby things with us just in case she couldn’t be stymied (the winner was the rice-based teething crackers - Maya simply ate the few pouches I brought before Annika could get to them - and I confess to giving her a couple of fries during our few meals out along the road), so she did get a little practice with getting food in her mouth and moving it around before swallowing it. As a result, combined with the fact that six months is in fact pretty old, she’s really, really good at actually ingesting the food we put in front of her. She gets frustrated with trying to pick things up after a while, but she’s actually quite good at it before she maxes out and just starts smearing and screaming.
Also exciting - Annika’s gotten her first tooth! I felt it break through on the evening of August 23rd, one day before her half birthday. She’s definitely into a lot of “tooth dragging” right now, and my nipples are suffering for it. I’ve decided to combine all tooth charts on a single page, so Annika now has one above Maya’s.
Other than that, not much to report! She’s a champion sitter, and we’re working on butt hopping (she’s just so excited about things she can’t help but bounce!). She needs more tummy time so that we can actually make some progress towards crawling, and I’ve been too lax about it. We’re trying to up the number of books we read to her each day, as she’s (finally) starting to be interested in them. I take her to the pediatrician tomorrow for her WCC, and we’ll see how big she is now. By home scale and measuring, she’s 19+ lbs and ~28 inches (ish).
ETA: She officially clocked in at 27.75 inches and 19lbs 7.5oz!
Annika will officially be in full-time daycare beginning Tuesday, September 5th, the day after Labor Day. I hope she does ok! She seems happy there, and even after two weeks off on our grand adventure, she returned with no tears at dropoff. It really helps having Maya there too, though - Maya will sit with her in the baby room whenever we ask. What a great big sister!
Things Annika loves:
- Maya being silly
- Her jumpy bouncer (a new acquisition for the camping trip - and it worked!)
- Stealing food from Mama
Things Annika hates:
- Getting her face wiped
- Cold water - you should have heard the screaming when we tried to put her in the lake! So different from her sister….
- Other people making decisions for her
Onwards and upwards!
Part of why nursing for the first six months is so exhausting for me is the mental weight of knowing that baby nutrition is 100% my responsibility - ergo, if she doesn’t gain weight, it’s my fault. While that’s of course not true, it’s how I end up feeling, and the responsibility always feels very heavy to me - I really have to be on my game, and I don’t get any breaks EVER. Even if I’m not nursing, I’m managing pumping, so it’s not a break - I’m not allowed to tune out and do whatever for any longer than about 2 hours at a time. If I miss a pumping session, it just becomes a *giant* pain for me to squeeze in multiple additional pumping throughout the rest of the day in order to get enough milk to send with her to daycare the next day. But now! Now! The beauty! If something goes wrong for a pumping (or nursing) session, no worries! She is perfectly happy to be fed something else :)
We spent the last two weeks of Annika’s fifth month taking a giant family trip driving the entire way around Lake Superior, so I didn’t really start her on solids until this week. I brought a few “packaged” baby things with us just in case she couldn’t be stymied (the winner was the rice-based teething crackers - Maya simply ate the few pouches I brought before Annika could get to them - and I confess to giving her a couple of fries during our few meals out along the road), so she did get a little practice with getting food in her mouth and moving it around before swallowing it. As a result, combined with the fact that six months is in fact pretty old, she’s really, really good at actually ingesting the food we put in front of her. She gets frustrated with trying to pick things up after a while, but she’s actually quite good at it before she maxes out and just starts smearing and screaming.
Also exciting - Annika’s gotten her first tooth! I felt it break through on the evening of August 23rd, one day before her half birthday. She’s definitely into a lot of “tooth dragging” right now, and my nipples are suffering for it. I’ve decided to combine all tooth charts on a single page, so Annika now has one above Maya’s.
Other than that, not much to report! She’s a champion sitter, and we’re working on butt hopping (she’s just so excited about things she can’t help but bounce!). She needs more tummy time so that we can actually make some progress towards crawling, and I’ve been too lax about it. We’re trying to up the number of books we read to her each day, as she’s (finally) starting to be interested in them. I take her to the pediatrician tomorrow for her WCC, and we’ll see how big she is now. By home scale and measuring, she’s 19+ lbs and ~28 inches (ish).
ETA: She officially clocked in at 27.75 inches and 19lbs 7.5oz!
Annika will officially be in full-time daycare beginning Tuesday, September 5th, the day after Labor Day. I hope she does ok! She seems happy there, and even after two weeks off on our grand adventure, she returned with no tears at dropoff. It really helps having Maya there too, though - Maya will sit with her in the baby room whenever we ask. What a great big sister!
Things Annika loves:
- Maya being silly
- Her jumpy bouncer (a new acquisition for the camping trip - and it worked!)
- Stealing food from Mama
Things Annika hates:
- Getting her face wiped
- Cold water - you should have heard the screaming when we tried to put her in the lake! So different from her sister….
- Other people making decisions for her
Onwards and upwards!
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