Elsie Marie - 6 Months

Wow our little baby is a half a year already!!! I can't believe it!  She is getting so big so fast and has made many new developmental changes this past month!  Before we know it she will be crawling around getting into everything :).

Elsie's official weight at the doctor was 15 lbs 6 oz and she is 26.5 inches long.  She fits into most of her 3-6 months and 6-9 month clothes unless they are sleepers.  We are definitely out of 3-6 months and into 6-9.  For eating things changed a bit this past month.  She was still around the 30oz/day average but for a week or so she would get really distracted with eating and would bat the bottle away after about 4 oz.  This has changed back to normal now and is eating again like crazy.  This week she is back over 30 oz for the day.  Another major change is that she is officially onto solids.  We started her on June 10th with her first meal of solids with rice cereal.  We hope to give her some sweet potatoes tomorrow!    I  reached my goal of continuing to pump until 6 months.  YAY!  This was definitely a challenge at some time but I am down to 4 times a day.  I slowly went from 6 to 5 to 4 in the past month and surprisingly I am still getting around 15-16 oz a day. So she is still getting about 50:50 ratio of breastmilk to formula.

Our biggest challenge this month was with Elsie's naptimes.  See this post about Elsie's Sleeping Habits.  This is pretty much the same except I really struggle with naptimes.  She will not go down even though it is clear that she is tired.  Nighttime has also become a bit more challenging this past week because she will wake up when you lay her down in her bed or will sleep for like 45 minutes and then wake up and cry.   Last night was pretty smooth though so lets hope this is improving.  She went to sleep really well and then about an hour into her sleep she rolled over onto her belly, woke up, fussed for about 2 minutes and fell back to sleep with no intervention from either John or I.  You got to celebrate small successes.  She has been going down around 7:30 PM, will sleep through until about 5:00 AM, will fuss, we get her and lay her down in between us for the next 1/2 hour, then John and I get up and then she will wake up around 6:30.  Part of me hates that we bring her into our bed but part of me loves that snuggle time in the morning.  She is still sleeping in our room in her pack and play but that will change in the next two weeks when she moves into her room in her crib.

It was so cute, Elsie put her nose right up against the bears haha

I say this every month but boy is Elsie an active little girl.  She is contantly moving and kicking.  Last night we were playing on the floor on her tummy.  She kept spinning around 360 degrees on her tummy over and over and over.  She has also discovered how to get to some her toys that are out of reach.  She isn't crawling yet but she gets her little tushy up in the air and inchworms her way or pushes off of something.  She is also a sitting little girl!  She sat up on her own for an extended amount of time on Friday 6/1 which put her at about 5.5 months old.  She loves sitting up and playing with her toys!  Especially her new sit and stand toy.  She took her first bath in the big tub this week and loved playing with her bath toys.  She continues to talk like crazy but has been making some new noises lately.  lots of ba-ba-ba-bas :) Another one of her favorites new activities is playing in her jumper!

It was another busy month.  Elsie went boating for the first time, had her first campfire, traveled up to MN and got to see the horses, was baptized, and she has another new friend born into this world on June 10th Finley Michael Robert Carlson!  We will have lots of new adventures coming up in this next month and we just can't wait to share them all with Elsie!