Our little Lilly girl is HALF A YEAR OLD. How did she get to be six months already? No, seriously. How? How is she halfway to ONE YEAR?! My golly. I feel like I have blinked and BAM I have a six month old.

This past month has been AMAZING as far as her development goes… and her personality is REALLY shining through. I absolutely LOVE this age!

We are so blessed by this little girl!

pink bow c/o Sweet Angel Kreations.

Lilly’s Six Month Update

Weight: 17lbs 5oz

Length: 26″

Head Circumference: 41cm

Nicknames: Monkey moo. Monkey doo. Beebeebeeoo. Babybadoo. Baby boo. Putian. Lilliputian. Lil.

Sleep: We have been doing “The Baby Sleep Solution” for a few months and have had “some” success with it. She will give me one AWESOME night of sleep (like 10-11 hours) and then then next night she’s up every hour it seems and refuses to go back to sleep. So, it’s kind of all over the place. I’m not giving up. I know she can do it and I know she can sleep well at night, it’s just taking WAY more work than I’d like.

She is still swaddled in her Woombie – having her sleep unswaddled was a huge miserable failure. I really think she may be swaddled until she is five.

She also in the past few weeks has become a no-napper or a barely-napper. She will often take a decent nap in the morning, but her afternoon naps are almost non-existent. It’s become quite challenging, but we are working through it.

Eating: I am so so so so so excited and proud to say we made it six months on breastmilk alone! That was my original goal of 6-7 months exclusively breastfed and we did it! It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but once we got into a groove, we really made it happen!

She is now a “scheduled” eater… she eats every four hours. Usually at 8am, noon, 4pm, and bedtime (even though bedtime is usually around 7pm).

We plan on introducing solids in the next few weeks and we are going to be trying the “Baby Led Weaning” (BLW) or “Baby Led Solids” method. Basically, BLW is skipping the whole “pureed” baby food and going straight to bite size, finger foods. So, baby eats what you eat, just in much smaller, more manageable quantities. And you don’t spoon feed them, you put the food down in front of them and then they learn to pick it up and put it in their mouth.

It’s really meant to introduce them to different food textures, flavors, and allow them to learn the skill of self-feeding. It’s just one way of introducing solid foods to baby – I certainly am no expert, but we are going to give this way a shot! I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. There’s really no right or wrong way to do it  – I’m all on team feed-your-baby – however you choose to do so. 🙂

Clothing: She has pretty much grown out of all of her 3 month clothing and is almost exclusively in 6 month and 6-12 month clothing. She does have some 3-6 month stuff that still fits her. I would say that she is pretty on par for clothing for her age… she seems to be pretty average in that arena.

Mood: Happiest. Baby. Ever. No, seriously. This girl is always so giggly and so smiley. She has never met a stranger and just loves to play and laugh and giggle. She certainly has her fussy periods and times when she is “not having it,” but those are few and far between. We are VERY blessed with a good baby!

Loves:

• Daddy. This girl is a daddy’s girl.
• Mommy (yay!!)
• The dogs – she thinks our dogs are HILARIOUS. She giggles at them all the time.
• Silly faces.
• Sticking her tongue out.
• Pacis.
• Playing “blast off”
• Working out with daddy
• “Super Lilly”
• Riding “the horsey” on daddy’s knee
• Swinging

Doesn’t Love:

• Socks or shoes. This is still a struggle. Homegirl just pulls her socks right off. Oh, and she learned how to UNTIE HER SHOES. So yeah, there’s that.
• Riding in the car at night… something about being in the dark. Not a fan.
• Being hot.

What I Want to Remember / Milestones: I would say month 5-6 has been ABSOLUTELY the biggest month as far as development and milestones go! This girl did one thing and BAM, she did like 10 more things… It’s been AMAZING to watch!

• She got her first TWO teeth! TWO! YES! Two teeth! AHHH! They just popped up out of nowhere. And I have to BRUSH them. Buying your baby’s first toothbrush and toothpaste is a milestone that I had no idea would make me so sad.
• We got her a Baltic Amber teething necklace (you can probably see it in some of the pictures). It really seems to have helped A LOT with the teething pain and drooling. No, she isn’t going to choke on it. Don’t worry I researched this and asked 1,000 different people before we decided to try it out on her.
• She swung on a swing for the first time and LOVED it.
• We experienced our first BIG snow of the year and Lilly LOVED it. She kept sticking out her tongue and letting the snow fall on it… it was hilarious, adorable, and the best.
• First Valentine’s Day – her daddy brought me / her flowers and it was the cutest.
• She sat in a shopping cart and a high chair at a restaurant for the first time!
• She is sitting up on her own and really good at it. She started sitting up towards the end of January but would still topple over after a few seconds or a minute. The first week of February she got really good at it and can now sit up for long periods of time. She can’t QUITE get herself into a sitting position yet… she can when she is on an incline, but not from a laying down position. She is certainly trying and I know this will be happening any day now.
• She can take out and put her paci back in!!! AHHH this is my favorite skill. Now, if only she wasn’t swaddled at night she could do it at night… that would be handy. But alas, it is what it is. But in the meantime, she is really good at doing it during the day. So that’s nice!
• She is now beginning to show interest in and play with her toys. We don’t have a ton of toys, but the ones she uses she really likes.
• She can now sit in her exersaucer and REALLY play in it. I had put her in her exersaucer back in December, but she didn’t really know how to do anything with it. She now turns and twists and plays – she loves it.
• She is grabbing EVERYTHING. My hair. My jewelry. The dogs. Paper. Toys. Anything. If it’s in front of her, she grabs it.
• She started rolling over in early January at about 4.5months, but now she is a rolling queen. She just kinda rolls all around the room. It’s so hilarious.
• She definitely knows and recognizes her name now!

What I’m Looking Forward To: We are going on a CRUISE in a few weeks! I am SO SO SO excited. I’ve never been on a cruise and we haven’t been on a vacation since our HONEYMOON… so needless to say, this is MUCH needed. I can’t wait to take Lilly and see how she is in the ocean and the pool! It’s going to be a blast.

Love you, Lilly girl!