Brooklyn: 6 Months Old

I am loving B at 6 months old. Not that I didn’t love her before, but this is such a fun age! She is so curious, easily entertained, happy for the most part, learning to do so many new things, etc. It’s so exciting!

Brooklyn is weighing in at 16 lbs, 14.5 oz (70-75th percentile) and is 27.5 inches long (98th percentile). **UPDATE: At her 6 month checkup (2 weeks late), she weighed 17 lbs 1 oz (75th percentile) and was 26.5 inches long (75th percentile). Apparently, I can’t measure!** She’s still my big girl! As you saw in my last post, Brooklyn has just recently started eating baby foods. So far, I’ve fed her rice cereal twice and rice cereal mixed with squash once. She’s loved it every time and eaten pretty much all of it! Last night, I felt like she finally got the hang of eating off of the spoon (not just sucking on it) and swallowing, although she was still trying to grab the spoon and getting her hands all messy. She is still nursing about 5 times a day, usually about every 3.5 to 4 hours. I’m not really sure yet how to fit in her baby food meals around nursing sessions, but I guess we’ll figure it out as we go.  It is still amazing to think about how far we’ve come with nursing since February…I’m glad we stuck with it!

Brooklyn continues to sleep wonderfully at night (knock on wood!). Her usual bedtime is around 8:45 to 9 PM, and most of the time she sleeps until anywhere from 6:30 to 7:30 AM. I still haven’t tried to put her on any kind of napping schedule; she just sleeps when she gets tired. It’s difficult enough to coordinate running errands around nursing, so I don’t want to have to coordinate around nap time too!  Unless we are out and about, Brooklyn is taking her naps in her crib these days (yay!). She usually naps at least 3 times a day, and her naps range from 30 minute power naps to 2 hour naps. I never know how long they will last. She sleeps on her belly (we gave up on flipping her back over…) and sucks her left thumb to put herself to sleep.

I laugh when I think about the first month or two of Brooklyn’s life: Travis and I labeled her as a “high maintenance” baby. Ha! I’m pretty sure that thinking can be blamed on a combination of exhaustion and inexperience. Now, I would definitely label her as “easygoing”. She has her moments of fussiness (like all babies!), but she is usually pretty content and happy. It used to be hard to get her to crack a smile, but now it’s super easy! She smiles and laughs all the time.

Brooklyn’s latest obsessions are her feet and the cats. She spends a lot of time these days grabbing her feet and trying to stuff them in her mouth. It’s so cute! She also LOVES Gabby and Felix. Anytime they walk in front of her, she stops and stares. She has even started smiling and giggling at them. I know she would just love to grab their tails if she could; watch out, kitties, when she gets mobile!

Brooklyn has made a couple of big milestones this month: she is FINALLY rolling over from her tummy to her back, and she is also sitting up by herself. Her learning to roll over both ways was a huge relief for us; no more flipping her over 50 million times a day!  Now, she is rolling over so well that she will roll several times in a row pretty quickly. In fact, she rolled herself right off the bed a few weeks ago. Whoops! I think it scared her more than it hurt her. Luckily, we don’t think she sustained any permanent damage from it, but it has definitely made us more careful. Learning to sit up alone is a more recent milestone; it only started about a week ago. She’s really gotten good at it though! She can sit up for several minutes at a time now. Eventually, she’ll get tired and start to fuss or topple over, but she actually sat up for her 6 month photo shoot with Carla on Saturday and did really well. I was so proud!

Travis has started reading to Brooklyn before bedtime most nights. We are trying to make it part of her bedtime routine. So far, she has seemed pretty interested! She looks at the pictures and tries to grab the pages. I hope she turns into a bookworm like I used to be!

Brooklyn still doesn’t have any teeth yet! I am so surprised…I keep thinking any day now one will show up. She is still drooling non-stop and putting everything she can get her hands on into her mouth. She has gotten really good at grabbing and holding objects since last month.

One of her favorite activities is still jumping in her doorway jumper. That thing was well worth the $20 we paid for it! Even when she’s not jumping, she enjoys just standing up and twisting around. She can jump pretty high in it and loves to squeal and make noise while she jumps. It’s so funny!

Things that make Brooklyn happy: getting attention/being sung to, jumping in her jumper, taking baths, eating baby foods (so far!), lying on her tummy, her musical Octopus, blowing “bubbles”/making spitting sounds, sucking her thumb, and watching the kitties.

Things that make Brooklyn unhappy: being too hungry or tired, being “forced” to take a nap when she doesn’t want to, and being left alone when she wants attention. She is usually pretty content to entertain herself though!

Brooklyn is still in size 2 diapers (mostly because we’re trying to use up the last pack) and is wearing anywhere from 3-6 month to 12 month clothes! It really depends on the brand. I would say she’s primarily in 6 month and 6-9 month sizes though.

Can’t believe that in another 6 months, we’ll have a 1 year old. I wish I could just freeze Brooklyn at this age for a little while. I’m loving it! Happy half birthday, B! :)