Oh, where do I begin??? I started this post a month ago... but didn't quite manage to finish it before my little lady turned seven months old!! Without sounding like a Debbie Downer, the working mommy thing is kicking my butt. The evenings are so busy, and when we finally get done with all the daily chores... it's time to get ready for bed. So, unfortunately, my little blog falls to the wayside... but hopefully I will get better about it with time. Fingers crossed!
Moving right along... our little princess is half way to a year old!?! We went to see Dr. Wang on the day after Leighton's 1/2 birthday, and thankfully everything went well. She was right on track with all of her stats and she handled her shots pretty well. Dr. Wang said her bottom gums were swollen, so she told us that we may see some teeth within the next month (that Dr. Wang is really smart). On the down side - Leighton had this pesky runny nose and cough that wouldn't go away. I blamed it on the fact that she goes to
daycare school, but Dr. Wang said that, since L has never had a fever with her symptoms, her runny nose and cough were likely due to ALLERGIES. If you know us IRL, you probably know that Lyn has TERRIBLE allergies. So, this news did not come as a shocker... but I was really hoping that L would manage to avoid the allergy gene. We started giving her baby Zyrtec before bedtime, and it seems to be helping her a bit.
Dr. Wang also said to bump L up to two solid feedings a day, and then to three times a day shortly thereafter. This should not have been a big deal at all, but it managed to cause me a lot of stress. Since the added feeding would be in the morning, we would have to get her teachers to feed her at school. We had to fill out a sheet of paper detailing her feeding/sleeping schedule since we were changing things up a bit. This was quite a daunting task for me because I had been struggling with the whole "schedule" thing for quite some time. Since we started her at school, her feeding times were pretty consistent, but her naps were still all over the place (although they were getting a little longer). So, writing made-up nap times down on a piece of paper seemed kind of silly to me... but it upset me at the same time because I felt like every mom in the world had their baby on a schedule but me. And it's kind of hard to get your baby on a schedule if you are not with them during the day.
On top of that... I was still trying to nurse L before I left for work in the mornings. No matter what time she went down, she was waking up at 5:30. I was concerned she wasn't getting enough sleep and I wondered if she was waking up out of habit rather than because she was really hungry. So - I tried pushing back that feeding a little bit for a few days and she actually started sleeping later. However, because she was having her first bottle later and because we were adding solid foods in the morning - we found that we had too many feedings in one day, so we cut her down from five milk feedings a day to four (and I increased the amount of milk in each bottle). This, too, caused me grief because a mean nurse made me feel stupid when I called to ask if we were doing the right thing.
During this time, I looked back at a few of my favorite mommy blogs to see what kind of schedules their babies were on at Leighton's age, and it helped me so much when I really needed it. So, thank you Karen and Mindy for your monthly updates - they saved me! Sorry for all the rambling, but this was a challenge for me and I am so thankful we finally got it worked out. We have the whole feeding thing down now (just in time to change it up again), and I am happy to report that we are making progress in the nap department.
Finally... here are Leighton's six-month stats:
Weight: 14 lbs. 10 oz. (23%)
Height: 25 1/4 in. (32%)
Head circumference: 16.5 in. (37%)
As for the little one herself, she is just as sweet as ever and growing like a weed. We are on the verge of some big milestones, so stay tuned for her seven-month post (which will hopefully come before she is eight months old)!
Who, me??
