Sleep: Slept in her rock and play in the guest room (with us). Woke up every 3/4 hours to eat at night. Napped anywhere and everywhere, loved sleeping on daddy's chest. Random awake time.
Eat: Breast fed every 2 hours and stayed on upwards of 45 minutes.
Stats: 21 inches tall, 8lbs 10oz, NB clothes, NB diapers
Sleep: Started not sleeping anywhere at anytime. Got on a schedule. One hour awake time, nap 4/5 times a day in her crib. Slept in pack and play in our room set a bedtime of about 8pm, slept for about 6 hours ate then woke up every 3 hours. Sometimes only woke up once a night to eat. Strongly preferred turning her head to the right side while she slept. For the most part was able to just be put down to go to sleep, didn't really like being swaddled.
Eat: Exclusively breast fed every two hours like clock work. Could go 5/6 hour stretch at night.
Play/Milestones: Started playing in her playmat every day. Could put her down and walk away to make breakfast nearby and she would happily play. Started smiling & could roll belly to back consistently. She loved looking up at the ceiling fans and could track someone with her eyes across the room.
Stats: 22 inches, 10lbs 6oz, 3M clothes, Size 1 diapers
Sleep: Napped 3 times a day for an hour. Awake for about 1/1.5 hour and maybe 2 hours at night before bed. Bed time moved up to 7pm maybe 730. Transitioned to sleeping in her crib at night. No longer ok with just being put down, needed to be swaddled and bounced to go to sleep. Only used a binky at night to fall asleep, but would spit it out once she was asleep. Woke up one time in the middle of the night to eat at 4 am, back to sleep until 7/8am.
Eat: Exclusively breast fed, but struggling. When she would stay awake for one hour before needing a nap we followed a wake up, eat, play, sleep schedule. She eventually started being able to stay awake 1.5 hours before needing a nap and at first she was able to go 2.5 hours with out eating and we would continue that schedule. However she quickly realized she wasn't having that and started requiring to eat before she went down for a nap. This made my supply all kinds of weird, but we were hanging in there. She ALWAYS got a pumped bottle at night before bed due to my supply being low, but I could usually make up for that by feeding her on one side at 4am, and pumping 4oz on the other side. Occasionally she would still be hungry after a feed during a day and would get a pumped bottle during that time as well. Luckily I had a pretty big stash of breast milk in the freezer.
Play/Milestones: Still only played in her playmat, not a huge fan of the bumbo. Liked to watch daddy juggle balls in the air. Loves books especially "you are my cupcake" and "Dr Seuss ABCs"
Stats: Holding head up good, supported sitter, laughing,
Sleep: Horrible. Started waking up earlier and earlier to eat (330, 3, 230) but could still make it until 7am for wake up. Hit sleep regression around 3.5 months, and the first couple days/week would wake up almost every hour. Eventually things calmed down but she needed to be fed 2 times a night instead of 1 (around 12 & 4). We would try to bounce/rock her back to sleep instead of feeding her at 12, but she would just cry until she got food. We tried everything to help her: swaddled, not swaddled, bounce, rocking chair, music, no music, sleep in crib or back to the pack and play. Eventually she started sleeping in later and later and went back to only waking up once a night at 4 to eat and go back down until 7 (no more 8am). Stopped being swaddled due to fighting it so hard she would wake up. Stilled napped about 3 times a day but could stay awake for 1.5 hours and maybe almost 3 hours at night. Now she started eating before napping instead of after she woke up because she just couldn't go that long without eating (found this out by struggling to get her to nap, she would extremely difficult to get down, and wouldn't sleep for very long. Once I started feeding her before her nap things got better.) Lots of changes this month.
Eat: Introduced formula due to her pretty much always being hungry after breast feeding with me, and started solids because she was just constantly hungry even with the extra formula. I also did this because she was not maintaining her 30% growth and that concerned me. My supply was pretty low and only got worse with the supplementing, but I still fed her off of me every two hour, and I still managed to only breast feed her during the two night feeds because I usually pumped at night, which I now couldn't do because she wouldn't spare the milk) Stage one single fruit/veg. Her first food was steamed sweet potato and breast milk mixed together in the blender.
Play/Milestones: I started letting her watch TV and she loved it only really wanted to watch sesame street, still loved her playmat, and started playing with bubbles in the evening when she would get fussy, still loved her books. Started to be able to sit unassisted for a couple of seconds. Moved up to size 3 diapers
Stats: 25 inches, 13lbs 2oz, size 3 diapers, 6m clothes
Sleep: *thankfully* sleep returned to normal a little bit before 5 months, and was rewarded with better naps. Took 2/2hour naps (one at 9/10 and one at 3/4) and went to bed at 7pm slept til 4 (sometimes 430 pushing 5) and back down until more or less 7am. A few times she even slept through the night down at 7pm, fussed at around 9pm, went back to sleep and stayed asleep until 6/630am. It was amazing.
Eat: Still breast feeding but now only half the time. I managed to keep her over night feed (occasionally pumping a 4 oz bottle) and fed her in the morning and after her first nap. After that she would get formula after her second nap and before bed. Eats solid food twice: in the morning and at night usually an hour after her milk. Started eating combination foods.
Play/Milestones: Playmat, bubbles, books, sesame street. I introduced the bouncer to help her watch tv a little better. She doesn't mind being in it, and occasionally plays with the toys...but doesn't really care for bouncing I only keep her in it for one or two shows. Started to be able to pick up bigger toys on her own. Rolled over back to belly for the first time, and found her feet in a big way. She now is always touching her feet.
Sleep: Unfortunately we hit another regression toward the middle/end of 5 months into now. She started waking up earlier and earlier like before and then was awake every 2 hours for a little while until that evened out to waking up twice a night to eat. Two big differences from the 4M sleep regression is she would wake up earlier than what is normal (around 11pm, then 3, then want to wake up at 530/6) and she occasionally will wake up and STAY AWAKE for 1 to 2 hours instead of eating and going right back down. Another big sleep killer is she has started to roll back to belly more constantly and will literally roll over in her sleep and wake herself up because she is stuck and MAD about it. She became more difficult to put down until we realized that she wanted to be put down and sleep on her side instead of her back. We also introduced more consistently playing soft calming music while she is going to sleep and it has seemed to help. Naps have gone back to about an hour long 3 times a day, but she will rarely sneak in a 2 hour nap every once and a while.
Eat: This time I could not keep up with only breast feeding her at night when she wake waking up 2/3 times to eat. So we started giving her formula bottles at night and I did my best to pump which eventually lead to me loosing my overnight supply. For a while I was still able to breast feed her in the morning and that eventually dwindled down to every other morning and then nothing. I used up the rest of my freezer stash and now at 6.5 months she is no longer breast fed. Looking back I realize there are things I could have done differently, or shouldn't have been so worried about, but in the end I am proud to have made it to a little over 6 months of breast feeding. Also Aurora does not mind or notice one bit since it was a gradual change and she is a hungry hippo that will eat anything. Solid foods are given 3 times a day now. Sometimes eating 6oz bottles sometimes only 3/4 oz. LOVES solids, prefers it to the bottle. Can eat some finger food such as yogurt melts, mum mums, and an occasional green bean or pea. Not a huge fan of puffs. Loves chewing on the spoon, and shows interest in feeding herself. Eating meats.
Play/Milestones: Play mat is starting not to be as fun anymore now that she is a little more mobile. She doesn't want to just sit in it. Showing more interest in stuffed animals and loves picking up and chewing everything. Rolling and can now crawl/scoot backwards. While sitting she can pick up smaller toys on her own (and shove them right into her mouth). Loves mommy singing nursery rhymes. Plays with chunky blocks from puzzles. Getting more curious.
Stats: 26 inches, 16lbs 8.5oz, size 4 diapers, 9M clothes (BIG girl) shot up from 18% to 50%
Mommy and Daddy have loved watching you grow baby girl! We can't wait to see what the next six months will bring.
