Luke’s 6 Month Update

I seriously cannot believe that Luke is already SIX MONTHS!! It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant and packing my bag for the hospital. (I recently shared Luke’s birth story which you can check out here if you’re interested). I started this blog when Luke was about four months old, so I don’t have any recaps yet…I’m excited to start sharing updates every few months to share with you all and to have as a record as he gets older. This one will be a little longer (especially the sleep section) since I have some catch up to do to get us to this point, so grab a coffee and settle in!

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Let me first preface all of this with the fact that I am a first time mom who has no idea what I am doing 🙂 My husband and I both are just trying to do the best we can while loving that little boy with every ounce of our beings! The past six months have been the most challenging, exhausting, educational, and AMAZING six months. I have always wanted to be a mom, but I never knew how much I would truly love my new title.

Stats

We just had Luke’s six month appointment earlier in the week and he weighed in at 15lbs 12oz. He’s on the smaller side, but is healthy and gaining weight/moving up quickly in the percentiles! He’s also pretty tall (in the 75th percentile) and is starting to bust out of his 6 month clothes!

Eating

We found out about a month and a half ago that Luke has a milk protein allergy, which meant he was spitting up and having several (like…7 or 8) bowel movements a day. I breastfed/pumped exclusively for the first three months and don’t eat dairy, so that’s why we weren’t aware of the allergy until we started supplementing in formula (cue all the mom guilt). We’ve had to test out some different formulas, and finally landed on one (Similac Alimentum) that he does GREAT with! Now that his little tummy is happier, he’s drinking more and more and loooves his bottle. Our pediatrician recommended waiting to introduce solids until 6 months, so we just started giving him rice cereal. I was seriously SOOOO excited to start him on solids and imagined this happy, fun little dinner time where we’d give him all these different fruits and veggies while he laughed and ate (ha!). Well…let’s just say that’s not exactly how it’s gone so far 🙂 He does NOT like the rice cereal and pretty much spits it all back out as soon as we give him a spoonful. He’s much more interested in grabbing the spoon and makes such an awful face as soon as it goes in his mouth! He’s starting to get a little better, and I’m excited to try a veggie in the next couple of days to see if he likes that any better!

Sleeping

Ahhh sleep. Something I took for granted until having a newborn! Luke pretty much woke up every two hours from the time he was in the hospital and was READY TO EAT. We got no warning…he would just wake up and immediately scream at the top of his lungs until we started feeding him (Blake “affectionately” says that he’s hangry just like his mama). Even as he got a little older and went to more of an awake/sleep cycle, the longest stretch we got for a long time was two hours. We tried feeding him more, swaddling him, everything…to no avail. Every book/blog/parenting website I read had schedules that worked off of a three hour feeding cycle. I seriously almost drove myself CRAZY reading about scheduling and thinking I was doing something wrong because I couldn’t fit my baby into the schedules. FINALLY…I just stopped one day and figured he was going to do what he was going to do. It was a game changer for my sanity!! So if there are any other new moms out there…if the schedule works for you, that’s awesome. But if not…it’s ok!! It gets better, I promise! And not having him on a schedule doesn’t mean he’ll never sleep well as he gets older.

About a month before I went back to work and Luke started daycare, I made an effort to try to put him down for every single nap in his crib upstairs so he would get used to sleeping in a crib and not on me/in the rock n play. It was a struggle every day, and there were some days I’d be so exhausted by the time Blake got home it was all I could do to make it to bedtime but started sleeping in the crib for naps. And then…he went to daycare and absolutely REFUSED to sleep in the crib. He would only nap in the swing. They don’t swaddle at daycare and Luke loves being held and moving, so needless to say it took awhile to get him to take good naps there!

At nights, we were finally getting longer stretches. He’d go down around 7 and sleep until midnight. And then still wake up about every 2-3 hours but I felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And then came the four month sleep regression. He would go down at night with zero issues…but started waking up every 45 minutes. Blake and I were at a total loss. We had no idea what to do and there was one night he was up so often and we were back and forth the crib to pop his pacifier back in so many times that I got 45 minutes – 1 hour of sleep. TOTAL. I was so sleep deprived during this stretch that I would do things like throw an un-deposited check in the trash (actually did this twice…Blake had to dig in our trash for awhile for one of them), put a newly opened container of hummus in the pantry instead of the fridge, and find coffee cups from the day before still full of coffee in the microwave. I was also working full time and some days couldn’t remember driving to and from work. It was BAD ya’ll. The day after I only got an hour of sleep was my breaking point – I cried all day and was physically sick I was so tired! We talked to Luke’s pediatrician and she encouraged us to start sleep training. She recommended Moms on Call and to follow it as closely or as loosely as we wanted. I downloaded it from the Kindle store while we were checking out at the doctor’s office and read it as soon as I got home.

It took us awhile to move through the steps (we started at four months which is later than they recommend, so we used some of the younger infant techniques first to try to ease our way into it) and we also had some setbacks once we realized Luke had the milk protein allergy (obviously we had to change his diaper throughout the night and make sure he was taking in enough calories to make up for it). Then, we went out of town to Charleston and stayed in a hotel, so couldn’t fully implement the sleep training methods there either since we shared walls with other guests. BUT…even just implementing some of the practices (we cut out the paci cold turkey, let him cry it out when we knew he was dry, full and comfy, used a white noise machine and started him on the schedule they recommend for 8-16 weeks) made SUCH a difference. His little stomach was finally big enough to drink more ounces and stretch him to three hour cycles during the day. We learned his sleep cues during the day and put him down for naps when he needed them and he started going right to sleep. AND he started rolling from his back to his belly which has also been a game changer for sleep. Once we fully started sleep training, he’s learned to go down at 6:45-7:00pm and he now sleeps until around 6:00am. We’re trying to get him to go a little longer but ya’ll, I cannot tell you how much of a difference this has made in all of our lives!! Luke’s in a better mood throughout the day, I’m functioning like a normal human being, and our whole household is just happier!! We will have the occasional set back (fever from his 6 month vaccines, his leg getting stuck in the crib, etc) but for the most part…it’s been amazing!!

Schedule

Since we waited until six months to start solids, we’re still currently on the 8-16 week schedule even though Luke’s obviously older than that. This schedule works really well for us for now though, so why mess with a good thing?? I know he’ll eventually move to a more spaced out schedule, but the awake/sleep increments are what his little body needs right now! When he’s at home, he follows this pretty exactly. Daycare can be a little more hit or miss with the naps, but typically he gets his bottles on time.

6:00 – 6:30am – Wake Up, change diaper, and cuddle/play with either Blake or me (whoever’s not in the shower when he wakes up)

6:45am – Bottle

7:15am – Rice Cereal (we just started this and he’s not really eating it yet…just getting used to the texture)

8:30am – Nap (this is his best nap and he’ll sleep 1.5 – 2 hours)

10:00am – Bottle

11:30am – Nap (sometimes he’ll do 1.5hr but typically it’s about 45 min – 1 hour)

1:00pm – Bottle

2:30pm – Nap (sometimes he’ll do 1.5hr but typically it’s about 45 min – 1 hour)

4:00pm – Bottle

5:30/6:00pm – Rice Cereal (we just started this and he’s not really eating it yet…just getting used to the texture)

6:15pm – Bathtime

6:30pm – Start bottle and read books

6:45pm – Change into PJs and then finish bottle

7:00pm – Bedtime!

Now Luke will look at us, give us a big smile, then flip onto his belly. If he’s really tired, he’ll go straight to sleep. If he’s still in a playful mood, he’ll babble and talk to himself for a little while before going to sleep. It’s so adorable and hilarious to watch him do this on the monitor!

Other

Luke is SO strong and determined. If you have something (literally anything…phone, remote, food, water bottle) he’ll see it and decide he HAS to have it. He grunts and wiggles while reaching for it and will get really frustrated if he can’t grab it! He usually isn’t super cuddly anymore, but there have been a few times recently where I can tell he isn’t feeling well and he’ll curl up on my chest to sleep and you better believe I am soaking in every single second of it. He hasn’t quite started crawling or sitting up by himself, but he’s getting closer to sitting – he’ll do it for a few seconds and then look around like he’s so excited he’s doing it which will cause him to lose his balance and start wobbling haha! He loves bath time now (he used to scream the whole time) and I think is really dependent on the routine. He gets his bottle as soon as he gets wrapped up in a towel and settled into the rocker…and if you forget to bring it up or are delayed in grabbing it, he gets so hangry! And then as sooooon as you pop it in his mouth…he is perfectly content and ready for bed haha.

He has started babbling so much and his laugh has changed from a slightly amused “huh huh” to full on belly laughs and I live for it!! Blake especially can set him off with the giggles and my heart explodes every time I hear it. He’s so smiley and happy the majority of the day (until naptime rolls around!) which is making this age so fun! Our poor little guy was so fussy in the beginning between the allergy and lack of sleep and so to see him in such a great mood makes this mama super happy. He’s also started puckering his lips and making the funniest little faces – Blake and I just laugh non stop when we are with him!

Favorites

Bottles – Dr. Browns Options Bottles (the BEST to help with gas, spitting up, etc)

Bouncer – Fisher Price Bouncer (Luke will sit in here while we get dinner ready, make his bottles, etc. We’re also having him sit in here while we start solids since he can’t sit up 100% by himself yet).

Command Center Jumper – Baby Einstein Jumper (Luke LOVES this. This is the exact one we have, but there are also two difference ones at his Daycare that he loves too, so I think really anything similar would do the trick!)

Books – Berenstain Bears 5 Minute Stories, The Wonderful Things You Will Be, The Pout Pout Fish, Froggy Bakes A Cake

Toys – VTech Baby Rattle & Sing Puppy, Stackable Rings, Fisher Price Baby’s First Blocks

 

Working full time has been hard, but I really do love my job. I’m planning another post talking more about this balance and what my thoughts on daycare are, but all in all Luke is doing GREAT at daycare and learning so many things while he is there. I’m 100% present during my time in the morning and at night with him and the weekends are so precious to me now. Our little family is my biggest priority and I am just loving this stage of life right now!!

xoxo,

Lauren