Adventure Awaits: 7 months

What a big month of change for our baby girl! She started eating all sorts of purees, learned how to crawl, and falls asleep IN her crib. Major accomplishments for our sweet girl!

First of all, let me just say, photo shoots with a 7 month old who wants to crawl, roll, and get the toys that are supposed to be making them smile are VERY difficult! I am just happy she is in the pictures!!

I'm coming to get you!

Look at that chubster!

Mom, I want to crawl off this turtle.

Or maybe I'll just try to stand up...

I'm unhappy about the fact that I'm being restrained!

BINKY- She is such a pro at putting her binky back in her mouth now! I love it because she can just grab it when she wants it. We normally just use it around sleep time or if she gets fussy. But I've had it in the exersaucer a few times and she will grab it and start sucking on it to my surprise.

CRAWLING- Well this one was quite the surprise this month! Before September, Emma hardly showed any interest in moving forward. She'd roll around to get something and scootch backwards. Then, she started doing circles on her belly, spinning all the way around to get something. We would encourage her to "push up" with her arms to support her weight but she didn't really do it on her own very often. Then, when she was 6 months and 21 days old, she started pushing up on her own and starting to rock a little bit. She would scoot forward a little bit and then collapse to get her toy. Then, 2 days later, she decided to start crawling!! We were SO proud and excited. It was on Labor Day and I am so happy that Dan was home all day to see her progress. It was such a fun day watching her learn and make progress. She doesn't go very fast, and she still stops to take breaks, but she is doing so well!

EATING- Emma has eaten a variety of baby foods so far. She doesn't refuse any food and is always watching us eat. She has tried green beans, peas, carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, bananas, squash, peaches, and Mum Mums. She INHALED the sweet potatoes but spit up a lot and seemed to be crazy hyper that night staying up til midnight. Coincidence? I'm not about to take that chance again! We gave her a whole banana and that was so much fun watching her taste it! She got a little bit in her mouth, but most ended up on her belly and on the floor. I want to introduce more people food soon; it's just so messy! She also eats Mum Mums now which is awesome because it'll keep her occupied while we eat. She can get the entire thing in her mouth and will pick up little pieces if she drops them. She still nurses every 3-4 hours and eats rice cereal mixed with breastmilk for dinner along with something else.

KISSES- I taught Emma how to give us "kisses" and it's adorable! She just opens her mouth wide and puts it on her cheek and I make a kissing sound and then say a big thank you. She has started to give them more often when we are sitting on the couch and I don't even ask for it!

MUSICAL TOYS- These are Emma's favorite. She loves Cookie Monster who talks to her, a Sing and Learn doll that sings a number/ABC song to her, a little giraffe that plays a lullaby, and I just bought her a singing/talking puppy. We need to buy her more musical toys! She just lights up in delight every time we turn them on.

PICTURES- Emma WAS quite the model for me until she started crawling! I love putting her in front of our glass door and letting the natural light highlight her cuteness. It's my own little studio, aka a blanket draped over a chair. We also had 6 month pictures taken on the beach this month. It was also like a "Goodbye Okinawa" photo session too since we are leaving in November.

SITTING- Emma does a great job sitting on her own. She loves to go from sitting up to crawling and makes it look almost effortless now. She is doing well going from her belly back to the sitting position, but gets stuck sometimes half way turned around. Basically, she is free to go from any position to any other position now! She's so happy about that but it makes me nervous because she still falls sometimes, so I'm afraid to leave her alone for very long.

SLEEP (For the first 3 weeks of the month)- I wish I could say Emma sleeps 10 hours a night consistently, and takes two 1.5 hour naps every day, but that is SO not our girl. I can't even give you an idea of her schedule because her naps and night sleep are inconsistent every single day. She mostly sticks to 25-30 minute naps throughout the day. At night, she may do a 4 hour stretch, then 3 or 2, and maybe another 1- getting up like 2-3 times a night. I normally nurse her back to sleep. We bought a new swaddle recently (called "Love to Dream") and it has helped so much in transitioning to falling asleep in the crib. I cannot praise it enough! Last month, I'd have to rock her and she'd normally fight me and squirm and push against my chest making it so hard to even rock her to sleep. But then, I discovered that we may have a BELLY sleeper now (don't worry, she can move her arms enough to roll all over the crib so the swaddle doesn't contain her). For the past week, I'll put her on her belly in the crib, pat her back and sing a song a few times, and she's out within 15 minutes every time with hardly any fuss. Sometimes to put her back to sleep, I'll just go in and give her the binky, turn on her Seahorse and pat her back a little bit. This is SO different than the minutes/hours I'd spend rocking, walking, and singing her back to sleep only to *carefully* lay her back down hoping not to wake her or the times we tried to "cry it out" on her back and she just screamed and screamed hysterically. I LOVE the fact that she'll fall asleep in the crib now and I don't have to worry about setting her down and waking her up. We are well on our way to simply saying "Good night Emma!" and walking away and letting her do the rest. I look forward to that day!

Sleep Update **We actually just started a new sleep training approach (again) based off The Sleep Lady. Today is day 3. She goes in the crib about 30 minutes before I want her to be asleep to start calming down on her own. I basically just talk to her, occasionally pat her, and give her the binky. It is a hands off approach but comforting because I can talk to Emma to calm her down. She really has been doing fairly well so far! She'll roll around the crib for a few minutes, maybe fuss for a little while, and then lay down on her belly or side to fall asleep. I'm surprised at how little I've had to do. Even during some night wakings, I basically just sit with her (she cries if I'm not there). The first night it took her 3.5 hours to fall back asleep on her own! Ouch that one hurt! The next night it was down to 40. We'll see how the next week plays out! The goal is about an 11 hour stretch at night and 2 one and a half hour naps and a shorter catnap around 3:30. Naptime is a struggle because she still likes to wake up about 30 minutes in and has a hard time falling right back to sleep. Today was probably her best yet because it took very little time for her to go back to sleep. I read that if they are waking up that soon into a nap, it's a disaster nap and they are too tired to settle into a deep sleep. She had been waking up 30 minutes into her night sleep EVERY SINGLE DAY all summer long, so we moved her bedtime up to 7 instead of 8/830 and she sleeps past the 30 minute mark now! WOW! I can't believe we've been hurting her all this time by keeping her up later. Of course, we are only 3 days in, so next month's update will tell us if this method worked! I'm hopeful though. We are supposed to move away from the crib every 3 days and eventually end up out of the room. I think it'll take us a little longer...but we'll see.

SCHEDULE- Yeah right... mostly she just goes down for a nap about 2 hours after she wakes up. We start bedtime routine at 7:30 and make sure she is in bed around 8 pm.

STANDING- This girl also learned how to pull to a stand this month...sort of. She can pull up on us/on our clothes and that's about it. We don't have any furniture that she can really grab on to yet. She keeps experimenting in the bathtub by grabbing on the edges so that keeps us on our toes. One day I am like 99% sure I saw her standing in the pack and play for a split second and I about lost my mind! Stop growing so quickly!

SCAREDY CAT- Emma is now afraid of the vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, and stand mixer. She just cries and cries when she hears them. I can vacuum while holding her and then she is okay thankfully. She is also afraid of strangers at first, but then warms up to them after a few minutes. This is why she was so serious in our professional pictures. One look at the strange lady with the giant camera and she lost it. :O

SIGN LANGUAGE- We have started teaching Emma "eat" "more" and "all done" in sign language. She seems fascinated by them and loves to laugh when we do "all done". Hopefully she'll be able to sign back someday! Dan taught her how to give us a high five one day after we say "all done". It's adorable.

TALKING- Emma still isn't a big talker. It sounds like she says "yeah" "hi" "hey" and "geh" but it's just baby babble. She loves to gasp in and still makes screeching noises.

TEETH- No changes here since last month. She always has something in her mouth though! And I love her little toothless grin.

TOYS- Emma is a very focused baby when it comes to her toys. At around 6 1/2 months, she didn't really care if I was there to play with her or not (as long as I was nearby of course). She just wants to chew chew chew and play play play!

Finally, here are some pictures from the past month.