Growing Girl

Stella girl will be seven months in just less than a week! Crazy that she is getting so big. Many changes are taking place with our girl and have been over the past few weeks, so I wanted to document them to remember and for future reference. Hmmmm...where to begin.

First of all, about two weeks ago I quit the dreamfeed cold turkey. I had been meaning to quit nursing Stella before I went to sleep, which ended up being between 10-11 pm. I always have a hard time dropping it for fear that the baby will wake up hungry in the middle of the night. So, I was trying to slowly wean it out when Jonathan looked at me one night and said, "Just drop it!" So, that night I didn't nurse her and truthfully expected her to wake around 1 am. But she slept through until 7 am. The next night she slept about 12 hours straight. To be honest, it immediately seemed like she was doing better without me waking her than when I woke her to nurse. I wonder if I was messing up her sleep cycle or something!?

So, cold turkey it was! I have only nursed her late when we were out and about and not getting home until really late at night. That has only happened once on Jonathan's mom's birthday. It's been at least a week straight and she's been sleeping the best she has in months. Praise the Lord!

Stella has also been stretching her feedings during the day. Her morning nap is at least two hours, sometimes longer...but I've been waking her around 12:30-12:45 pm so that I can be sure to get enough feedings in the day. She nurses at 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, and then the afternoon and evening are still kinda crazy and inconsistent. It seems like she is trying to move to a 3.5 to 4 hour schedule but isn't quite there yet. So, there are more feedings in the afternoon. She also takes a bottle in the evening before bed. I still nurse her before the bottle, but my milk isn't enough to make her happy so we supplement. Since she's dropped the dreamfeed she will typically take a good 4-6 ounces in the bottle in addition to whatever breastmilk she gets. I know she's not exclusively breastfeeding anymore, but she's happier and sleeps better at night which makes for a happier, more sane Momma. She still nurses so well at every other feeding so I don't care.

We have just added a third solid food feeding at lunch time since she goes so long between breakfast and lunch. I usually give her rice cereal mixed with fruit for breakfast, a green veggie for lunch, and rice cereal mixed with an orange veggie plus some fruit or yogurt at dinner. She has also started to like Puffs and is working on her pincer grasp skills. Slowly, but surely. And she is really into table food...much more than my others were. Maybe it's the peer pressure of seeing everyone else eat. I just steamed her some sweet potatoes last night, so I'll cut those up for her to see how she does with feeding herself and eating those chunks of soft potato.

I have also introduced a sippy of water to her. It took her no time at all to do the sucking from the soft sipper and she gets really excited whenever she sees it. She doesn't really get much to drink, but every now and then while she's sitting in her high chair I hand to it her. It's more of a toy at this point! I just feel like my other two were much older when they got into the finger foods and sippy cups, but maybe my memory just doesn't serve me correctly. Either way, there's no denying that this girl is growing like crazy. We love her sooooo much!