6 Months - First Meal

First Half Year!

Note: This posting was begun a few weeks ago, so the information is not completely up-to-date. Another posting will be coming VERY SOON with more exciting milestone updates!

Julia just hit the 6 month point, and things seem to be moving along quickly. She now rolls over and gets up on all fours, rocking back and forth a little. We have heard that this is the immediate precursor to crawling, so visions of childproofing have been dancing in our heads. She does move her legs, but she actually crawls backwards at this point, which is probably frustrating for her if she's trying to move closer to something in front of her.

First Meal
Last weekend, Julia had her first meal of solid food, although solid is not the word that best describes rice cereal. She seemed to enjoy the meal and we think if she could talk, she would have said, "What were you guys waiting for? I've been wanting solid food for weeks!" We have since introduced sweet potato, but she seems more confused by that than anything else. At this point, she only eats about a tablespoon of solid food, so it's hard to imagine her eating a whole meal with a spoon, but we've finally started the journey in that direction.

We started by putting a plastic bib on her, but she just wanted to eat the bib, so that quickly came off. She never tries to eat normal fabric bibs, but for some reason, the plastic ones seemed like food to her.




She seemed interested in the food from the beginning.









Then came the eating, which we were surprised to see that she seemed to already know how to do.










Then the post-food look.


Since the first meal, we have branched out to pears and peas, which she also seems to like. She still likes sweet potatoes a lot, too. We're using all organic baby food at this point, and I just received some items so that I can make and store home-made food in the freezer. Look out Martha!

Sleep?
Also known as
We Are Still Jealous of Friends Whose Babies Sleep Through the Night.

We're still working on the sleep issue, but since we have been traveling a lot lately, it has been pretty difficult to work on the "routine." Before kids, I used to wonder what the big deal was with the "routine" and how it was like breaking the law to deviate from it. Now I get it. When it comes to sleep and getting as much as you can, and in as much as babies can be trained to sleep, you do what you can to maximize their sleeping. Unfortunately, we still haven't mastered the routine or the sleeping more than 3 hours at a stretch. We're determined to keep trying, though! Some people said that when we began solid food, that would help, but so far, it has not. So we're still open to any suggestions regarding books, old wives tales, charms, songs, poems, incantations, prayers or anything else that can help little Julia discover the wonders of sleeping through the night (we'd settle for 5 or 6 hours here and there!).

Otherwise, we love that Julia is more interactive and that she is making many more noises and talks with us quite a bit (even at 3 a.m.).

Much more to come!