Six month check up

Happy belated Easter!

Ella's six month check up was yesterday and it went very well. Here are the stats:

Weight: 17lbs, 75-76%
Height: 26.5in, 82%
Head circ.: 17.3cm, 90%

Dr. Sweet said it's normal for her weight to be trending down a bit now that she's mobile. Ella's doing great with her developmental milestones, although she's a lot more advanced physically (i.e. rolling over, sitting up, scooting, etc.), than verbally. She hasn't started "babbling" and she still mainly makes vowels sounds. She's not late yet, but she should start making the "da", "ma", "ba" type sounds soon.

We talked a lot about starting solids. Dr. Sweet was supportive of our plan to start her with veggies first, then fruits, and then meat once she gets a tooth or two, and to delay dairy and grains until after her first birthday. She was excited to hear that we're making our own baby food and that we're focusing on foods that compliment breast milk. Breast milk tends to be low in iron, so that's one nutrient in particular that we want to make sure her solid diet is high in.

We talked about vaccines again and decided to wait until Ella stops breastfeeding, or turns two, which ever comes first, to start vaccines. Also, if for some unforeseen reason she ends up in daycare before one of those two things happen, we would start vaccines at that time. I feel much more comfortable with this plan and I'm glad that Dr. Sweet is supportive.

That's pretty much it. Overall, Ella is healthy, happy girl!

26 Weeks/ 6 Months!

I can't believe my little baby is six months old! I know it's so cliche, but it's just going by so fast. I feel like I was just pregnant. She's changed so much and gotten so big, it's hard to believe. She's basically a happy baby, although she lets us know quickly and loudly if she's unhappy about something. I always tell Jeff she has a persistent personality. She may not know (or be able to express) what she wants, but she definitely knows what she doesn't want.

With much effort on our part, the day time sleep is much better. It had really gotten terrible, we couldn't get her to stay asleep more than 45 minutes to save our lives! I read in one of my baby sleep books that she was probably waking up at the end of her first sleep cycle and then unable to put herself back to sleep. I don't know what changed, why she could do it before and then suddenly couldn't, but that seemed to be the case. So the book recommended helping her stay asleep or fall back asleep between cycles. For Ella this means sitting near her and resting a hand on her butt. It keeps her from rolling over and waking herself up. This has worked very well and now I really don't think she needs it, but I'm afraid to stop... Maybe next week we'll see if she can stay asleep on her own.


Ella started scooting last week. It's hard for her to get traction on our floor, but she can do it. We went to my Mom's house on Thursday and she was able to get around on the carpet much easier and fast. Maggie was playing with her on the floor which was also a big motivator in getting her moving. She's mainly just army crawling or pushing with her knees or toes. She hasn't figured out how to get her tummy off the ground.


She crawled off her blanket and over to the entertainment center last week. How is it that babies just instinctively know what they're not supposed to mess with?!

At swim lessons Friday we got moved from our usual place in the shallow end of the pool, to the middle of the pool. I could barely touch and had to tread water most of the time, so Jeff had to swim with Ella and I took pictures.

She went under three times this week. She did really well the first two times, didn't seem to mind at all. The third time though, she got pretty upset. Jeff actually let go of her for a second on the third submersion (he was supposed to) and she immediately popped back up to the surface and he caught her.

For this exercise, the crawling babies were put on one end of the mat and then Mom and/or Dad got down at the other end with a toy to try to coax the baby across. Since Ella is scooting, our instructor said we could give it a try. She tried to scoot a little, but she really couldn't get any traction on that wet surface. She wanted that toy so bad though!

We tried solids again yesterday. This time we tried carrots. She was not a fan.

Jeff says she looks like she was pleading with me to not make her eat any more carrots.

She did like playing with the spoon though.

Yeah, not a fan...

I think she got more on her bib than in her mouth. I really didn't think she ate any of it all, but the last few dirty diapers suggest otherwise!

She seemed to like the avocados better, so maybe we'll go back to those for a while.

25 Weeks

Ella's pretty much gotten the hang of the sitting thing. She still occasionally falls over for no apparent reason. Most of the time we catch her, but a few times we haven't. So we've had a few bonked heads. Usually she doesn't seem to notice, but if she's sleepy, it's tragic. Ella got visits from all three sets of grandparents last weekend and her cousin Maggie. She's a lucky girl to have so much family so close! She was enamored with Maggie this time. She couldn't take her eyes off of her. I was doing the fake sneeze to make Ella laugh and Maggie picked up on it and started doing it too. Ella thought it was the funniest thing ever when Maggie did it. It was so cute. Maggie isn't as enthralled with Ella as Ella is with her, but she's acknowledging her existence now, so that's a step in the right direction. Ella has started sucking her fingers a little lately. She doesn't seem to have a preferred finger and she usually just sucks on them for a few seconds in between chewing on them. I don't know if she just figured out she could do it or what. She did well at swim lessons again this week. She actually got a good nap before we went, so it helped that she wasn't sleepy. She did not like the submersion this week though. She got pretty upset after and it took me a few minutes to calm her down. We could have done a second submersion, but I decided not to since she didn't handle the first one very well. One of the things we're trying to teach her is how to hold on to the side of the pool. We've had no success in getting her to do this in previous classes, but she held on by herself a few times this week. Ella tried her first bites of food this week. We gave her a little bit of smushed avocado on Friday night. She wasn't sure what to think about it at first.... She kept making this face with every little nibble, but then she would go back for more. I even put some on a spoon and she ate it off of there as well. Eventually she decided it was pretty good. Unfortunately, she started gagging and threw it all back up. I think she has a really strong gag reflex. We're probably going to have to wait for that to relax a bit before she'll really be able to start eating solids. We plan on trying again next weekend.

24 Weeks

Ella is officially sitting up by herself. It's like the switch got flipped last Saturday and she just got it. She can now sit unassisted indefinitely. If she starts to lose her balance she'll usually put a hand out to catch herself, although occasionally, she'll still just fall over. We're very careful with her if she's not on a soft surface. She quickly figured out how much easier it is to play with her toys while she's sitting up, so she's happy and entertained much longer than laying on her back or stomach. Teacher's pet! The oldest baby in our class, Max, who is also usually very happy, is usually the demo baby. But he was quite grumpy this week, so Ella ended up getting to show off a lot this week. She was happy to be swimming as usual, so she did well. This was her first submersion this week, she did two again. She cried a bit after each dunk this time. She was tired and she seemed to have a hard time catching her breath each time. Our instructor said some babies have a strong reflex to hold their breath when they go under and it's hard for them to relax when they come back up. I think this might have been the problem. She would sputter, take short breaths, turn red, and then eventually cry for a minute. She calmed down quickly though. Ella actually took a long nap after swim lessons this week and woke up in a great mood. This is her new favorite place to play. I think she likes being part of the conversation and being able to see everything going on. She also likes to throw her toys on the ground from the couch, it makes a much louder clatter. And of course, having Mommy retrieve them for her is lots of fun. She had thrown all her toys on the floor by the time I took this picture.

23 Weeks

Ella at her Daddy's chili cookoff last weekend (which he took first place in, BTW). It's held in the parking lot of a bar, so I thought it was appropriate that Ella wear her rock n roll onsie for her first bar trip. Apparently I wasn't the only one with this idea, the baby in the next tent over had his Beatles onsie on too!

Ella has really discovered the pets this last week, especially Jack. He's the one who tolerates her the longest. He laid down just out of her reach during tummy time the other day. She was trying everything she could to get over to him. I'm pretty sure trying to get the kitties is going to be what motivates her crawl. She wants to so bad, but just doesn't know how yet.

Unfortunately, when she does get a hold of them, the first thing she does is get fists and mouth fulls of fur. The cats and baby don't seem to mind, but Mommy does. So gross!

We did the submersion this week at swim lessons. Twice actually, but this was the only picture that came out. She handled it like a champ, didn't cry at all. The second time I think she got a good mouthful of water, she sputtered for a few minutes afterward, but otherwise she was fine.

This was when we got home from swim lessons. She was beat, but didn't stay asleep unfortunately. I keep thinking the swimming will wear her out, especially because she's so active in the pool. She kicks and squirms like crazy. But, no...