Life with Luke: Seven Months Old Today

Luke is seven months old today. So what's been happening lately?

Sleeping at Night: We're averaging 3 wakeups per night. He does seem to actually eat (I can hear him swallowing) rather than just comfort nurse almost every time so if he's really hungry, then I'm not going to worry about trying to cut down on the wakeups. I do try to feed him as much as possible (or at least offer) during the day in the hope that he'll get enough and won't need to wake up at night.

We did have a bad episode last night. He went to bed just fine but woke up about 2 hours later (usually he's a bit later than that). He was very unhappy. I nursed him and he calmed down and went back to sleep. I rocked him for a little while longer (catching up on my blog reading) then went to put him in the crib. He immediately woke up and started crying, and not just crying but almost to the point of hysterical crying. So I picked him up again and sat back down and rocked him. He fell back asleep, I tried putting him in his crib and he woke screaming again. I tried a few more times before I called J to come back and see if he could get him back to sleep. When J took him, I started to walk out of the room and Luke just absolutely lost it at that point and was hysterically crying. He calmed down as soon as he saw me again. So I rocked him for a lot longer and he eventually stayed asleep and went back into his crib without a problem and had a fairly normal night after that. I'm thinking that we're hitting that separation anxiety phase.

Napping: Some days Luke has great naps and other days he has very short naps. In the past 10 days or so, almost every morning nap has been only 20-30 minutes. He occasionally takes a second morning nap of about the same length. His afternoon nap ranges from 45 minutes to over 2 hours. I've tried different things for the morning nap--earlier nap, later nap, specific routine, different places (crib, swing, pack-n-play), etc. But he really seems to just not want to take a longer morning nap. Of course, this morning he took a nap for just over an hour, so once again, as soon as I get used to something, he changes it.

Growth: Because I see him every day it doesn't feel like he's growing super fast, but the way I can tell how much he's grown is by his clothing. I think that the biggest example is his yellow ducky sleeper. Right after he was born, my MIL came to visit and brought gifts, including some from J's aunt and uncle. One of the gifts was a sleeper with ducks on it in size 9 months. I vividly remember holding that up and remarking to my MIL that I couldn't imagine him ever being big enough to fit into that sleeper. And now? Not only does the sleeper fit, I can tell that he'll outgrow it fairly soon. Eek! How did that happen??

Eating: We're still just experimenting with different foods and mostly it's just lunch, but I have added in breakfast a few times. Now that he's 7 months, I'm going to try to be more conscious of doing two meals a day instead of just one. For some foods, I'm making them (so he's had things like banana, sweet potato, zucchini, squash, apple, pear, etc. that I've made) and for other foods, I'm using baby food (but picking ones that don't have extra ingredients). So he's tried several other things like oatmeal, chicken (puree), green beans, mango (which he seemed to like), and carrot (which he really seemed to like a lot). Now that he's had quite a few single ingredient foods, I'm going to start doing some combinations. Some days he seems really happy with food and other days, he couldn't seem to care less about it. He's still nursing just as frequently, so I'm not concerned since I know he's still getting everything he needs from breastmilk.

Eating a Baby Mum Mum

Yum!

"I want to feed myself, Mommy!"

Tummy Time: Luke has enjoyed tummy time for quite a while, but he seems to like it even more now. I put him down on the floor and spread toys around him in a circle. He spins around and around on his tummy to reach each toy, eventually pushing them all out of his reach and getting upset. So he's not moving forward or backward at all, but he's moving all over in that circle on his tummy. I think that he'll start to crawl (perhaps an army crawl first) just to reach those toys, or perhaps one of the cats.

Cats: Luke hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the cats until recently. Now he gets super excited when one of the cats walks by him and he tries to reach for the cat. And if a cat comes close enough, he squeals and "pets" the cat. Right now petting consists of him grabbing at the fur, so I'm trying to teach him to keep his hand open and pet the cat. I'm also making sure to keep a close eye on the cats to be sure they don't snap at him if he pulls too hard. So far the cats have been very patient and actually come over to him rather than run away. I'm sure that will change once Luke is able to chase after them!

Window: One of Luke's favorite activities is just looking out the window. We live on a fairly busy street, so there's lots of traffic coming by. He usually does this with J, who just holds him by the window with the curtain pulled back and Luke just watches and watches. When it is sunny out, we make sure he has his sunglasses on.

There are just so many things that Luke is doing now. He's really exploring his world (what he can reach) and that does mean putting everything in his mouth, so I have to be extra careful now about what is within his reach. Of course, this includes things like my chin (he got both my chin as well as J's chin today!). It's so much fun to watch him learn and explore.

I'll end this post with a few recent pictures:

Future Aggie

"What? I like frog legs!"

When we decided on his name, I bought this shirt and had it personalized.

Today at 7 months!

Photo session in rocking chair was a bust. Luke either wanted to eat the chair arm or lunge for the camera. I got three pictures and this is the best one.

His feet can now touch the ground without anything underneath. And he's really playing with all the toys on the jumperoo now (he used to just ignore them).