Six Months

My sweet, happy boy turned 6 months old on December 22nd. I'm half and half on this one. On one hand I'm surprised that he's only 6 months old, because hasn't he always been here? On the other hand, WHAT? he's halfway to a year?? Not my baby!!

So, I'm a mom conflicted. But for more on this smiley baby.

Sleep

He's terrible at it. Sorry to the future Noah reading this 15 years down the road, but it's the truth. I don't think it's him, I think it's a combo that both of our boys have been terrible sleepers (Levi still isn't great at falling asleep and napping) and the fact that babies just don't sleep. Brag all you want about your kid, but I've found they are like the ocean's tides. They'll sleep great for a few nights in a row and just when I get well-rested and cocky that my kid is an awesome sleeper, BOOM, I'm up four to five times a night for three weeks.

Right now (and for the past 2 months) Noah has an internal clock that gets him up at 11pm, 2am, and 5am (which stinks because my alarm goes off at 5:20, and I'm always awake when it goes off. Depressing). See, in the beginning I was hardcore Babywise and he was sleeping through the night at 9 weeks old. He then hit four months and seemed to forget everything we worked for (Levi did the EXACT same thing at the same age). Now I'm on two months of no sleep and Matt put his foot down. We are in our third night of hardcore sleep training and Noah woke up at 11 and we gave him a pacifier (he doesn't like them, but has been taking them in the middle of the night lately) and he went back to sleep. At 2, I gave in and fed him. And then he DIDN'T wake up at 5. So, small victories. Four hours of sleep in a row did wonders for me today (and him, sorry this is sounding really selfish).

Food.

Noah is nursing (or taking bottles I pumped) every three hours. We are also giving him a bottle of formula before he goes to bed right after he nurses, hoping to fill him up, but obviously, it hasn't worked. As for baby food, he has gone through Green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes for veggies. Fruits are prunes, pears (he's constipated all the time), and applesauce. The applesauce is great because Noah eats about half and then Levi is chomping at the bit to finish it off. Like with Levi, I'm making the veggies and I actually started stocking up on organic fruit baby food when I first found out I was pregnant (I checked expiration dates) whenever Publix ran them buy one get one free, so we are good for awhile. He is eating two jars of baby food at lunch and supper, a prune juice bottle all throughout the day, and a 2 oz formula bottle at noon (and he is still nursing at 10am and 1pm). So yeah, boy gets through some food! Tonight he was growling at me because I couldn't shovel it in fast enough!

Movement

Little boy is scooting all over the place and will take two "real crawling" steps before nose diving. He isn't fast, but he does move. We are a month away (I'm guessing) from real "intentional" crawling.

Play

This boy LOVES him some TV. We have to be very careful about having it off when he's around because he zones out on it. Levi is still hit or miss with TV. One day he won't watch it, no matter what's on, the next day we are having to turn it off because he's been sitting with his eyes wide and mouth open for 45 minutes. Noah loves his Sophie (the giraffe in the above picture). I have two for him. We kept leaving her at babysitters' houses or church, or wherever. So now we have one for home and one for the car. It makes him happy, which makes me happy. He is starting to love toys, and unfortunately, especially Levi's toys. We had our first incident two days ago. Noah put one of Levi's fish in his mouth and Levi quickly shoved Noah while shouting "That's mine!" Thankfully Noah just rolled over on his back and was smiling, but it led to a very serious discussion about pushing and sharing and a LONG time in the corner with Levi's nose to the wall. Despite my best efforts, I know this is just the beginning...

And now just some pictures. Levi loves helping with  Noah most of the time. He especially loves feeding him bottles.

Noah is starting to get the hang of Puffs and Cheerios. At least it entertains him for awhile when I'm getting dinner ready.

The notorious fish that caused the shoving incident (this was right before it happened, actually).

The boys in Aldi. I love this picture. Noah lunging for whatever Levi has, Levi yanking it out of the way. Ahhh... siblings!

And that is my baby at six months.