Hellobee

Olive turned 7 months old last week ! She is such a happy baby, always flashing a huge grin at any stranger who smiles at her. Here is what’s been happening in her little life lately!

Olive’s dress is from Pumpkin Patch; My dress is a maternity dress from when I was pregnant with Charlie from Belly Dance Maternity.

Mrs. Hide and Seek posted a picture similar to this one earlier today! What can I say? It’s a popular pose.

Milestones

We thought that Olive’s first tooth popped through when she was 3 months old, but then it disappeared! I swear it was there! This past month Olive had her two lower front teeth officially pop through. Charlie got his first two teeth at about the same age too. Teething didn’t really seem to affect him (though he did drool while Olive doesn’t), and so far I think Olive is handling it pretty well too.

I’d been a little worried about Olive because her manual dexterity was really behind. She wasn’t holding onto toys, passing them from hand to hand, and putting them in her mouth like most babies much younger than her had already mastered. At her 6 month update, her moro reflex (arms flapping) was still strong and she had trouble sitting in the Bumbo. But in the past month she’s made some big advances! She can finally hold onto a toy in her hand and bring it to her mouth (as evidenced by her bread chomping above), she’s not flapping her arms as much anymore, and she’s sitting up much better in the Bumbo and high chair. She still has trouble sitting up straight — you can see that Charlie is sitting correctly at a 90 degree angle, while Olive is kind of leaning forward below. I think she’s still far off from being able to sit up unassisted, but I’m just glad that she is continuing to make advances. She can stay my baby for a little while longer.


Left: Charlie 6 months, Right: Olive 7 months

Sleep

I’d been putting off sleep training Olive for several reasons:

– I was waiting for the ideal sleep training period of 5.5-7.5 months. Olive is 7 months old, but she was born a month early, and I think she is developing closer to her adjusted age of 6 months.
– Some babies naturally become better sleepers after 6 months of age and after starting solids (alas Olive did not).
– Whenever Olive would roll onto her stomach in the crib, she would cry like she was stuck, so I wanted her to master rolling over both ways first. (She still does this even though I know she can roll over from tummy to back.)
– Up until pretty recently, Olive was waking up at 8:20am. So even though she was waking up 3-4 times a night, she was in her crib for 14+ hours at night, and I wasn’t that tired because I was waking up so late.
– Olive is more attached to me than Charlie was since I’m breastfeeding, so it’s going to be tough and I’m weak!

But I know the time has come because:

– Olive has started waking up at 6 – 6:30am recently, so she’s getting less sleep (and I’ve been much more tired waking up early).
– It’s getting harder and harder to get her down for naps, and when she does nap, it’s usually only for 40 minutes.
– Since she takes short naps and is waking up earlier in the mornings, she often needs a fourth nap. It’s so hard to get her down for that nap since she’s used to taking 3 naps, so we often end up skipping that nap and giving her a super early bedtime.
– Nursing is the only way to get her back down in the middle of the night and I know it’s contributing to her night wakings because she doesn’t take full feedings when she does wake up. She’s just waking up out of habit and to comfort nurse. The longer I put off night weaning, the harder it’s going to be.
– Charlie’s sleep has truly been the worst it’s ever been the past month, that we’re just completely exhausted and something has gotta give. Olive is actually the better sleeper of the two right now!

Did we raise a bad sleeper in Olive? She wasn’t naturally a great sleeper, but I’m sure we contributed. We put her in her crib awake from an early age, and it was going really well for a while. Then one day it stopped working, and it’s just been easier to take the path of least resistance (nursing, strolling, rocking) with everything else that’s been going on. It’s just so much harder to be consistent when you have a toddler too!

I’m hoping to at least do some mild sleep training this week… if I can muster up the courage!

Siblings

Olive’s features are girlier that Charlie’s. Her eyes are more almond shaped, her lips are fuller, her ears are smaller, and her face is more oval. Charlie was my chubby baby, and even happier than Olive. I don’t think they look too much alike, but when she smiles, I can sometimes see Charlie’s face in hers. It reminds of when Charlie used to be a baby, which already seems so long ago!

Left Charlie 4 months, right Olive 7 months. He was better with his hands at 4 months than Olive is at 7 months.

 Charlie – 29 Months & Tantrums

I didn’t get around to doing a 28 month update for Charlie last month because it was a brutal month. Charlie was throwing a lot of tantrums; I feared that the terrible twos had finally set in, and my sweet little boy was gone forever. A friend of mine with 2 kids older than Charlie and Olive told me that during the 2’s and 3’s, there is a continuous cycle of two good weeks and two bad weeks. Then from the age of 4, it gets better with 3 good weeks then 1 bad week. I thought it was an interesting way to look at the toddler/preschool age!

But after the epic month of tantrums, Charlie went back to being his sweet self. He is so affectionate and loving, and funny and smart (only to us of course), that it’s really impossible to stay mad at him. Looking back now, I think he may have been mildly sick the entire month he was so cranky!

Charlie was out from daycare for 2/4 weeks so we had a lot of quality time together.

Sick

I think Charlie just has a weaker immune system than most kids because he got sick this often even when he wasn’t in daycare — it’s just the variety of illnesses he gets is greater now that he is in daycare. Parents with kids who got sick often have told me that their kids outgrew it by the time they were 3. I hope that’s the case! I remember my brother constantly being sick all throughout elementary school with mystery fevers and rashes. He eventually outgrew them and rarely gets sick now, but my mom spent many a night worrying about him when he was little. It’s so sad when your child is ill and there isn’t much you can do about it.

Sleep

Charlie’s sleep is so, so, so bad right now. Mr. Bee is suffering the most since he gets up with Charlie, but it’s affecting our entire family. We’ve been laying next to Charlie until he falls asleep, and we haven’t been pushing  stricter bedtime rules because he has been so sick lately. Everything fell apart when we were forced to transition him to a regular bed in one night instead of getting him ready for the process, and it’s been chaos since.

I think we’re at the breaking point now though with his sleep. Charlie has started waking up in the middle of the night, waking up extremely early in the mornings (4:30am – 5:30am), and fighting naps and bedtime. Long gone are the days of him putting himself to sleep, sleeping 12 hours at night, and taking 3 hour naps. But we’re going to bring them back. We have to for our sanity!

Potty Training

I think Charlie has been ready to potty train for some time. He loves reading books about going to the potty, and will say that diapers are yucky and that he wears underwear, not diapers, just like in the books.  I really wish we had gone full force with potty training at 18 months. At that time he had been going every day for a couple of weeks. But we didn’t push it because Olive was coming along. A friend of mine told me that you have a window to potty train at 18 months, but if you pass it, then it’s hard to potty train until 2 1/2 – 3. I’m not sure if that’s true, but she certainly potty trained her son by 18 months!

With all that’s been going on, we just haven’t had the time or energy to commit to potty training, but as soon as we have some room to breathe, I want to try to get it done as fast as possible!

Yes there is a lot going on in our house right now. Everyone has been sick at one point or another the past month+, I’ve barely been working with all the childcare-less days, and no one is sleeping. When I actively think about it or write it down, it all seems so hard! But when you’re living it, the highs are so high that you somehow get through the lows. Things like Charlie saying, ” I love you,” or “You’re my best friend.” Olive flashing one of her patented baby grins (that goes away as they get older!). Charlie having a conversation with Olive like she understands, and giving her lots of kisses. Watching Olive pass out after nursing, and lay snuggled in my lap with her sweet milky breath.

All these pictures were taken with my iphone just in the past 10 days. When life is filled with so many moments like these, I can’t help but think that life is pretty great no matter how hard it may be!