Emelia at six months

My baby is half a year old. Six months. And she doesn’t stop smiling even when I plead with her to stop.

Just kidding. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this baby belly-laughing. Half a year has gone by so fast. She can’t believe it either.

Still working on her core and neck strength, but who’s keeping track?

Picture day is hard.

Not falling into your bear is harder.

Our quality time together for the Babies class is done. Her big sister can’t go to daycare because of the shelter-in-place order and so she’s here with us. Which is fine. But our two-day-a-week gig we had with it being just the two of us is over—at least for the time being. Still, she’s here and she’s healthy and I’m so thankful for that.

I’m not going to lie, this month has been ROUGH as far as sleep goes. But besides the fact that she never wants to sleep, like, ever, she’s doing amazing. My little preemie. She’s bubbly and loves to holler out “MMMMOMMMM!” and “HIII!” which is both creepy and hilarious. I’m convinced she really does know what she’s saying.

Nicknames: Mealie, Meals, Squishy, Squish, Fussy Jane, Bubbles

Weight: 16lbs 1oz (49th percentile)

Length: 26.5 inches (74th percentile)

Head circumference: 42.4 cm (58th percentile)

Diaper size: 2

Clothing size: 3-6 months, some six-month clothes

Eating

Looking back on her five-month post, I can say she’s doing better with focusing on nursing. Mostly. The sippy cup with milk? Seems a bit of a moot point now that we’re all home all the time 24/7. I’d say nothing’s really changed and she’s still nursing every three hours. I’ve been trying to get her to nurse more during the day in hopes she’ll want less at night, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

She’s been into holding tightly to the straps of my nursing tank tops while she nurses. That, or swinging her hands around wildly and batting me in the face. Luckily, my supply seems to have evened out and I’m no longer leaking or getting clogged ducts.

Sleeping

Awful. Up until less than a week ago, she was sleeping in 2-3 hour increments around the clock and was up nursing anywhere from 3-6 times a night. The only reason I wasn’t dead from exhaustion was because I slept with her a lot. But evenings were awful too, with her going down anywhere from 6:15 to 7:30 depending on when she took her last nap and she’d be up fussing 2-3 times before I went to bed for the night. So I had her all day, then was with her practically all evening in bed trying to get her to stay asleep because the second I’d lay her in her bassinet, she’d wake up crying and would only get louder and louder. That, combined with being up with her on and off all night made for some pretty bad meltdowns (me, not her) and I was struggling pretty bad. One night, I was chatting with my friend who gently told me I may have to let her cry and learn how to soothe herself. I never had to do that with Olivia. But this was getting so bad. For 3-4 nights, I forced myself to let her cry, putting a time limit on it. Thirty minutes, I’d tell myself, If she’s still crying after thirty minutes, I’ll go to her. But she never cried longer than that. And now here we are, a week and a half later, and she’s actually pretty good now at putting herself to sleep. At least I get my evenings and she’s usually up between 10:30 and 11:30, but I’ll take it over what we were doing.

For the last three nights, I’ve also had her move into her room, keeping her in the same bassinet she is used to. I wasn’t intending to move her out of our room this soon (I was hoping for at least another month), but it made me curious if she’d sleep in longer stretches without me being so close to her. Night 1 she was up three times, Night 2 and 3 she was up twice. Granted, I slept with her the rest of the night after the second wake up, but overall, she’s definitely sleeping longer stretches, her longest being 5 hours, which she hasn’t done in probably two months. Plus, there was a sense of freedom at getting my bedroom back.

As far as her naps, she’s pretty good at her morning one—usually two hours. But afternoon ones are a hit or a miss, which means she can be pretty fussy in the evening during dinner. When she’s fussing and rubbing her eyes constantly, and it’s only 5:30, I’m finding myself putting her to bed at 6:00 which I don’t know if that’s the right thing or not, but I don’t know what else to do.

Milestones

Finally, she found her feet. As in, grabbing both of them easily and playing with them as much as possible. Best thing ever. She still has yet to roll from her back to tummy, but she’s getting close. This is due to her weaker neck muscles, so hopefully, it happens soon. I’ve been having her practicing sitting up, but she’s definitely not able to do that without constant support. Which means she’s a little precarious in her exersaucer and we haven’t tried the Johnny Jumper because I think she has some strengthening to do.

She loves to babble and shriek like a raptor. When she’s upset and wants me to pick her up she does an uncanny, “MMMMMMAAAAMMMM!” and Chris jokes that she’s calling for me.

She’ll make attempts to reach for toys while on her back or tummy on the floor, but not as enthusiastically as I’d hoped. She’s very much developmentally a barely five-month-old. But that’s OK. She’s still rocking it.

Health

She’s been breaking out for the last two weeks in baby acne, which we need to bring up to her pediatrician. She’ll get these little rashes above her lip that at first worried me, but when they went away relatively quickly, I wondered if it was sensitive skin. Blessedly, she didn’t get her big sister’s cold a few weeks ago, so now it’s just trying to protect all of us from COVID.

Luckily, she hasn’t emptied her stomach in a good three months, but she will still have gagging episodes where she chokes and stops breathing and gets frantic-looking and the whole thing is terrifying. It’s happened probably three times this month, which is more than it had been last month, but I’m going out on a limb and assuming it’s OK because her pediatrician just wanted to know if it was happening a lot. Otherwise, she’ll go a week or so just fine, and then will have days of more spitting up. Overall, though, the reflux issues seem to be very much under control.

She’s in PT still for her neck strength. We can’t go to the chiropractor anymore and PT is only monthly due to the virus, so I’m worried about her falling behind. Which she will. She’s supposed to be seeing both these specialties on a biweekly basis, so it’s inevitable she’s going to fall behind in her progress. We have home exercises to do and I know I should be focusing on these more.

Personality

This girl smiles with her whole face. She can be screeching in frustration one moment and then her smile lights up a room the next and she’s belly laughing. She’s pretty easy going and goes with the flow for the most part. I remember Olivia would just lay there and screech her head off, but Emelia doesn’t really do that unless she has reason to. But smiley is what I would sum up her whole personality up to right now. She loves when we (I) make her laugh and she has the best belly laughs.

Likes

Bath time, especially with her sister. Diaper changes. Chewing the crap out of her toys. Screeching. Staring at her sister. Playing with her sister. Pretty much anything involving her sister. Toby. Nursing. Daddy’s beard. Sleeping in bed with us. Watching TV. Her feet. Bouncing and singing to her.

Dislikes

Tummy time. Her neck stretches (unless she’s good and distracted.

Undecided about

Sleeping. Can’t decide if she’s on board with it or not. This is not good for her mama’s mental health or beauty rest. High chair time. Sleeping in her own room. Her exersaucer.

Looking forward to

Since we’re not going anywhere in the near future, I’m settling for looking forward to more time out in the backyard. I’m definitely looking forward to her finally rolling over and sleeping in longer stretches.

Happy half birthday, my sweet girl. You may sleep like crap, but life is so much better with you in it.

Past monthly updates

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months